LIBRARY 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 Mr. H. H. Kil iani
 
 UCSB LIBKAKX
 
 H. DE BALZAC 
 
 THE COMEDIE HUMAINE
 
 DU T1LLET TOOK HIS WIFE'S ARM AND PLANTED HER 
 
 BEFORE HIM.
 
 H. DE BALZAC 
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 
 
 (UNE FILLE D'EVE) 
 
 AND 
 
 LETTERS OF Two BRIDES 
 
 (MEMOIRES DE DEUX JEUNES MARIEES) 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 R. S. SCOTT 
 
 WITH A PREFACE BY 
 
 GEORGE SAINTSBURY 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 THE GEBBIE PUBLISHING Co., Ltd. 
 \\
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PREFACE ix 
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE 
 
 I. THE TWO MARIES 2 
 
 II. SISTERLY CONFIDENCES 15 
 
 III. THE STORY OF A HAPPY WOMAN 22 
 
 IV. A MAN OK NOTE 33 
 
 V. FLORINE . . . 51 
 
 VI. LOVE VERSUS SOCIETY 66 
 
 VII. SUICIDE 87 
 
 VIII. A LOVER SAVED AND LOST IO5 
 
 ix. A HUSBAND'S TRIUMPH . . . . . . .122 
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES 
 
 FIRST PART 136 
 
 SECOND PART . . . . . . . . . 330
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 DU TILLET TOOK HIS WIFE'S ARM AND PLANTED HER BEFORE 
 
 HIM (p. 21) Frontispiece. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 MARIE HELD OUT HER HAND TO RAOUL .... 77 
 
 A FAMOUS DRESSMAKER, BY NAME VICTORINE, HAS COME . . I$I 
 
 I SMOKE AND TAKE MY CHOCOLATE, SITTING AT MY WINDOW . 174 
 Drawn by J. Ayton Symington. 
 
 SHE CARRIED ME OFF TO HER PRETTY GARDEN . . . 379 
 
 Drawn by VV. Boucher.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 OPINIONS of the larger division of this book will vary in 
 pretty direct ratio with the general taste of the reader for 
 Balzac in his more sentimental mood, and for his delineations 
 of virtuous or "honest" women. As is the case with the 
 number of the Comedie which immediately succeeds it in 
 Scenes de la Vie Privee, I cannot say of it that it appeals to 
 me personally with any strong attraction. It is, however, 
 much later and much more accomplished work than " La 
 Femme de Trente Ans " and its companions. It is possible 
 also that opinion may be conditioned by likes or dislikes for 
 novels written in the form of letters, but this cannot count for 
 very much. Some of the best novels in the world, and some 
 of the worst, have taken this form, so that the form itself can 
 have had nothing necessarily to do with their goodness and 
 badness by itself. 
 
 Something of the odd perversity which seems to make it so 
 difficult for a French author to imagine a woman, not neces- 
 sarily a model of perfection, who combines love for her hus- 
 band of the passionate kind with love for her children of the 
 animal sort, commonsense and good housewifery with freedom 
 from the characteristics of the mere menagere, interest in 
 affairs and books and things in general without, in the French 
 sense, "dissipation" or neglect of home, appears in the 
 division of the parts of Louise de Chaulieu and Renee de 
 Maucombe. I cannot think that Balzac has improved his 
 book, though he has made it much easier to write, by this 
 separation. We should take more interest in Rente's nursery 
 it is fair to Balzac to say that he was one of the earliest, 
 despite his lukewarm affection for things English, to introduce 
 this important apartment into a French novel if she had mar- 
 ried her husband less as a matter of business, and had regarded 
 
 (ix)
 
 x PREFACE. 
 
 him with a somewhat more romantic affection ; and though it 
 is perhaps not fair to look forward to the " Depute d'Arcis" 
 (which, after all, is not in this part probably Balzac's work), 
 we should not in that case have been so little surprised as we 
 are to find the staid matron very nearly flinging herself at the 
 head of a young sculptor, and " making it up" to him (one 
 of the nastiest situations in fiction) with her own daughter. 
 So, too, if the addition of a little more romance to Renee had 
 resulted in the subtraction of a corresponding quantity from 
 Louise, there might not have been much harm done. This 
 very inflammable lady of high degree irresistibly reminds one 
 (except in beauty) of the terrible spinster in Mr. Punch's gal- 
 lery who " had never seen the man whom she could not love, 
 and hoped to Heaven she never might." It was not for 
 nothing that Mile, de Chaulieu requested (in defiance of pos- 
 sibility) to be introduced to Madame de Stae'l. She is her- 
 self a later and slightly modernized variety of the Corinne ideal 
 a sort of French equivalent in fiction of the actual English 
 Lady Caroline Lamb, a person with no repose in her affec- 
 tions, and conceiving herself in conscience bound to make both 
 herself and her lovers or husbands miserable. It is true that 
 in order to the successful accomplishment of this cheerful life- 
 programme, Balzac has provided her with two singularly com- 
 plaisant and adequate helpmates in the shape of the Spaniard- 
 Sardinian Felipe de Macumer and the French-Englishman 
 and lunatic Marie Gaston. Nor do I know that she is more 
 than they themselves desire, being, as they are, walking gentle- 
 men of a most triste description, deplorable to consider as 
 coming from the hand that created not merely Goriot and 
 Grandet, but even Rastignac, Flore Brazier, and Lucien de 
 Rubempr6. If this censure seems too hard, I can only say 
 that of all things that deserve the name of failure, " sensi- 
 bility" that does not reach the actual boiling-point of passion 
 seems to me to fail most disagreeably. 
 
 There are, however, even for thosa who are thus minded,
 
 PREFACE. xi 
 
 considerable condolences and consolations in " Une Fille 
 d'Eve." It is perhaps unfortunate, and may not improbably 
 be the cause of that abiding notion of Balzac as preferring 
 moral ugliness to moral beauty, which has been so often re- 
 ferred to, that he has rather a habit of setting his studies in 
 rose-pink side by side with his far more vigorous exercitations 
 in black and crimson. "Une Fille d'Eve" is one of the 
 best of these latter in its own way. It is no doubt conditioned 
 by Balzac's quaint hatred of that newspaper press from which 
 he never could quite succeed in disengaging himself; and we 
 should have been more entirely rejoiced at the escape of Count 
 Felix de Vandenesse from the decoration so often alluded to 
 by our Elizabethan poets and dramatists if he had not been 
 the very questionable hero of " Le Lys dans la Vallee." But 
 the whole intrigue is managed with remarkable ease and skill ; 
 the "double arrangement," so to speak, by which Raoul 
 Nathan proves for a time at least equally attractive to such 
 very different persons as Florine and Madame de Vandenesse, 
 the perfidious manoeuvres of the respectable ladies who have 
 formerly enjoyed the doubtful honor of Count Felix's atten- 
 tions all are good. It can hardly be said, considering the 
 nature of the case, that the Count's method of saving his 
 honor, though not quite the most scrupulous in the world, is 
 contrary to " the game," and the whole moves well. 
 
 Perhaps the character of Nathan himself cannot be said to 
 be quite fully worked out. Balzac seems to have postulated, 
 as almost necessary to the journalist nature, a sort of levity 
 half artistic, half immoral, which is incapable of constancy 
 or uprightness. Blondet, and perhaps Claud Vignon, are 
 about the only members of the accursed vocation whom he 
 allows in some measure to escape the curse. But he has 
 not elaborated and instanced its working quite so fully in 
 the case of Nathan as in the cases of Lousteau and Lucien 
 de Rubemprd. I do not know whether any special original 
 has been assigned to Nathan, who, it will be observed, is
 
 xii PREFACE. 
 
 something more than a mere journalist, being a successful 
 dramatist and romancer. 
 
 " Memoires de Deux Jeunes Mariees " first appeared in 
 the " Presse " during the winter of 1841-42, and was published 
 as a book by Souverain in the latter year. The Comedie in 
 its complete form was already under weigh ; and the Memoires 
 being suitable for its earliest division, the Scenes de la Vie 
 Privee were entered at once on the books, the same year, 
 1842, seeing the entrance. 
 
 " Une Fille d'Eve" was a little earlier. After appearing 
 (with nfhe chapter divisions) in the " Siecle " on the last 
 day of December 1838 and during the first fortnight of 
 January 1839, it was in the latter year published as a book 
 by Souverain with " Massimilla Doni," and three years later 
 was comprised in the first volume of the Comedie. 
 
 G. S.
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 I 
 
 To Madame la Comtesse de Bolognini, nee 
 Vimercati. 
 
 If you remember, dear lady, the pleasure your con- 
 versation gave to a certain traveler, making Paris live 
 for him in Milan, you will not be surprised that he 
 should lay one of his works at your feet, as a token of 
 gratitude for so many delightful evenings spent in your 
 society, nor that he should seek for it the shelter of a 
 name which, in old times, was given to not a few of 
 the tales by one of your early writers, beloved of the 
 Milanese, You have a Eugenie, with more than the 
 promise of beauty, whose speaking smile proclaims her 
 to have inherited from you the most precious gifts a 
 woman can possess, and whose childhood, it is certain, 
 will be rich in all those joys which a harsh mother 
 refused to the Eugenie of these pages. If Frenchmen 
 are accused of being frivolous and inconstant, I, you 
 see, am Italian in my faithfulness and attachments. 
 How often, as I wrote the name of Eugenie, have my 
 thoughts carried me back to the cool stuccoed drawing- 
 room and little garden of the Vicolo del Capuccini, 
 which used to resound to the dear child 1 s merry 
 laughter, to our quarrels, and our stories. You have 
 left the Corso for the Tre Monasteri, where I know 
 nothing of your manner of life, and I am forced to 
 picture you, no longer amongst the pretty things, which 
 doubtless still surround you, but like one of the beauti- 
 ful heads of Carlo Dolci, Raphael, Titian, or Allori, 
 which, in their remoteness, seem to us like abstractions. 
 
 (1)
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 If this book succeed in making its way across the 
 Alps, it will tell you of the lively gratitude and re- 
 spectful friendship of 
 
 Your humble servant, 
 
 DE BALZAC. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE TWO MARIES. 
 
 IT was half-past eleven in the evening, and two women were 
 seated by the fire of a boudoir in one of the finest houses of 
 the Rue Neuve-des-Mathurins. The room was hung in blue 
 velvet, of the kind with tender melting lights, which French 
 industry has only lately learned to manufacture. The doors 
 and windows had been draped by a really artistic decorator 
 with rich cashmere curtains, matching the walls in color. 
 From a prettily moulded rose in the centre of the ceiling, 
 hung, by three finely wrought chains, a silver lamp, studded 
 with turquoises. The plan of decoration had been carried 
 out to the very minutest detail ; even the ceiling was covered 
 with blue silk, while long bands of cashmere, folded across 
 the silk at equal distances, made stars of white, looped up 
 with pearl beading. The feet sank in the warm pile of a 
 Belgian carpet, close as a lawn, where blue nosegays were 
 sprinkled over a ground the color of unbleached linen. The 
 warm tone of the furniture, which was of solid rosewood and 
 carved after the best antique models, saved from insipidity 
 the general effect which a painter might have called a little 
 " muzzy." On the backs of the chairs small panels of splen- 
 did figured silk white with blue flowers were set in broad 
 leafy frames, finely cut on the wood. On either side of the 
 window stood a set of shelves, loaded with valuable knick- 
 knacks, the flower of mechanical art, sprung into being at the
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 3 
 
 touch of creative fancy. The mantelpiece of African marble 
 bore a platinum timepiece with arabesques in black enamel, 
 flanked by extravagant specimens of old Saxe the inevitable 
 shepherd with dainty bouquet for ever tripping to meet his 
 bride embodying the Teutonic conception of ceramic art. 
 Above sparkled the beveled facets of a Venetian mirror in an 
 ebony frame, crowded with figures in relief, relic of some royal 
 residence. Two flower-stands displayed at this season the 
 sickly triumphs of the hothouse, pale, spirit-like blossoms, 
 the pearls of the world of flowers. The room might have 
 been for sale, it was so desperately tidy and prim. It bore no 
 impress of will and character such as marks a happy home, 
 and even the women did not break the general chilly impres- 
 sion, for they were weeping. 
 
 The proprietor of the house, Ferdinand du Tillet, was one 
 of the richest bankers in Paris, and the very mention of his 
 name will account for the lavish style of the house decoration, 
 of which the boudoir may be taken as a sample. Du Tillet, 
 though a man of no family, and sprung from heaven knows 
 where, had taken for a wife, in 1831, the only unmarried 
 daughter of the Comte de Granville, whose name was one of 
 the most illustrious on the French bench, and who had been 
 made a peer of the realm after the Revolution of July. This 
 ambitious alliance was not gotten for nothing ; in the settle- 
 ment, du Tillet had to sign a receipt for a dowry of which he 
 never touched a penny. This nominal dowry was the same in 
 amount as the huge sum given to the elder sister on her marriage 
 with Comte Felix de Vandenesse, and which, in fact, was the 
 price paid by the Granvilles in their turn for a matrimonial 
 prize. Thus, in the long run, the bank repaired the breach 
 which aristocracy had made in the finances of the bench. 
 Could the Comte de Vandenesse have seen himself, three 
 years in advance, brother-in-law of a Master Ferdinand, self- 
 styled du Tillet, it is possible he might have declined the 
 match; but who could have foreseen at the close of 1828 the
 
 4 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 strange upheavals which 1830 was to produce in the political, 
 financial, and moral condition of France ? Had Count Felix 
 been told that in the general shuffle he would lose his peer's 
 coronet, to find it again on his father-in-law's brow, he would 
 have treated his informant as a lunatic. 
 
 Crouching in a listening attitude in one of those low chairs 
 called a chauffeuse, Mme. du Tillet pressed her sister's hand 
 to her breast with motherly tenderness, and from time to 
 time kissed it. This sister was known in society as Mme. 
 Felix de Vandenesse, the Christian name being joined to that 
 of the family, in order to distinguish the countess from her 
 sister-in-law, wife of the former ambassador, Charles de 
 Vandenesse, widow of the late Comte de Kergarouet, whose 
 wealth she had inherited, and by birth a de Fontaine. The 
 countess had thrown herself back upon a lounge, a handker- 
 chief in her other hand, her eyes swimming, her breath 
 choked with half-stifled sobs. She had just poured out her 
 confidences to Mme. du Tillet in a way which proved the 
 tenderness of their sisterly love. In an age like ours it would 
 have seemed so natural for sisters, who had married into such 
 very different spheres, not to be on intimate terms, that a 
 rapid glance at the story of their childhood will be necessary 
 in order to explain the origin of this affection which had sur- 
 vived, without jar or flaw, the alienating forces of society and 
 the mutual scorn of their husbands. 
 
 The early home of Marie-Ang61ique and Marie-Eugenie 
 was a dismal house in the Marais. Here they were brought 
 up by a pious but narrow-minded woman, " imbued with high 
 principle," as the classic phrase has it, who conceived herself 
 to have performed the whole duty of a mother when her girls 
 arrived at the door of matrimony without ever having traveled 
 beyond the domestic circle embraced by the maternal eye. 
 Up to that time they had never even been to a play. A Paris 
 church was their nearest approach to a theatre. In short, 
 their upbringing in their mother's house was as strict as it
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 6 
 
 could have been in a convent. From the time that they had 
 ceased to be mere infants they always slept in a room adjoin- 
 ing that of the countess, the door of which was kept open at 
 night. The time not occupied by dressing, religious observ- 
 ances, and the minimum of study requisite for the children of 
 gentlefolk, was spent in making poor-clothes and in taking 
 exercise, modeled on the English Sunday walk, where any 
 quickening of the solemn pace is checked as being suggestive 
 of cheerfulness. Their lessons were kept within the limits 
 imposed by confessors, chosen from among the least liberal 
 and most Jansenist of ecclesiastics. Never were girls handed 
 over to their husbands more pure and virgin : in this point, 
 doubtless one of great importance, their mother seemed to 
 have seen the fulfillment of her whole duty to God and man. 
 Not a novel did the poor things read till they were married. 
 In drawing an old maid was their instructor, and their only 
 copies were figures whose anatomy would have confounded 
 Cuvier, and so drawn as to have made a woman of the Farnese 
 Hercules. A worthy priest taught them grammar, French, 
 history, geography, and the little arithmetic a woman needs 
 to know. As for literature, they read aloud in the evening 
 from certain authorized books, such as the " Lettres edi- 
 fiantes" and Noel's "Lecons de litterature," but only in the 
 presence of their mother's confessor, since even here passages 
 might occur, which, apart from heedful commentary, would 
 be liable to stir the imagination. Fenelon's " Telemachus " 
 was held dangerous. The Comtesse de Granville was not 
 without affection for her daughters, and it showed itself in 
 wishing to make angels of them in the fashion of Marie 
 
 Alacoque, but the daughters would have preferred a mother 
 less saintly and more human. 
 
 This education bore its inevitable fruit. Religion, imposed 
 as a yoke and presented under its harshest aspect, wearied 
 these innocent young hearts with a discipline adapted for 
 hardened sinners. It repressed their feelings, and, though
 
 6 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 striking deep root, could create no affection. The two Maries 
 had no alternative but to sink into imbecility or to long for 
 independence. Independence meant marriage, and to this 
 they looked as soon as they began to see something of the 
 world and could exchange a few ideas, while yet remaining 
 utterly unconscious of their own touching grace and rare 
 qualities. Ignorant of what innocence meant, without arms 
 against misfortune, without experience of happiness, how 
 should they be able to judge of life? Their only comfort in 
 the depths of this maternal jail was drawn from each other. 
 Their sweet whispered talks at night, the few sentences they 
 could exchange when their mother left them for a moment, 
 contained sometimes more thoughts than could be put in 
 words. Often would a stolen glance, charged with sympa- 
 thetic message and response, convey a whole poem of bitter 
 melancholy. They found a marvelous joy in simple things 
 the sight of a cloudless sky, the scent of flowers, a turn in the 
 garden with interlacing arms and would exult with innocent 
 glee over the completion of a piece of embroidery. 
 
 Their mother's friends, far from providing intellectual stim- 
 ulus or calling forth their sympathies, only deepened the sur- 
 rounding gloom. They were stiff-backed old ladies, dry and 
 rigid, whose conversation turned on their ailments, on the 
 shades of difference between preachers or confessors, or on 
 the most trifling events in the religious world, which might 
 be found in the pages of "La Quotidienne" or "L'Ami de 
 la Religion." The men again might have served as extin- 
 guishers to the torch of love, so cold and mournfully impassive 
 were their faces. They had all reached the age when a man 
 becomes churlish and irritable, when his tastes are blunted 
 except at table, and are directed only to procure the comforts 
 of life. Religious egotism had dried up hearts devoted to 
 task work and intrenched behind routine. They spent the 
 greater part of the evening over silent card parties. At times 
 the two poor little girls, placed under the ban of this sanhe-
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 7 
 
 drin, who abetted the maternal severity, would suddenly feel 
 that they could bear no longer the sight of these wearisome 
 persons with their sunken eyes and frowning faces. 
 
 Against the dull background of this life stood out in bold 
 relief the single figure of a man, that of their music-master. 
 The confessors had ruled that music was a Christian art, hav- 
 ing its source in the Catholic church and developed by it, and 
 therefore the two little girls were allowed to learn music. A 
 spectacled lady, who professed sol-fa and the piano at a neigh- 
 boring convent, bored them for a time with exercises. But, 
 when the elder of his girls was ten years old, the Comte de 
 Granville pointed out the necessity of finding a master. Mme. 
 de Granville, who could not deny it, gave to her concession 
 all the merit of wifely submissiveness. A pious woman never 
 loses an opportunity of taking credit for doing her duty. 
 
 The master was a Catholic German, one of those men who 
 are born old and will always remain fifty, even if they live to 
 be eighty. His hollowed, wrinkled, swarthy face had kept 
 something childlike and simple in its darkest folds. The blue 
 of innocence sparkled in his eyes, and the gay smile of spring 
 dwelt on his lips. His gray, old hair, which fell in natural 
 curls, like those of Jesus Christ, added to his ecstatic air a 
 vague solemnity which was highly misleading, for he was a 
 man to make a fool of himself with the most exemplary gravity. 
 His clothes were a necessary envelope to which he paid no 
 attention, for his gaze soared too high in the clouds to come 
 in contact with material things. And so this great unrecog- 
 nized artist belonged to that generous race of the absent- 
 minded, who give their time and their hearts to others, just as 
 they drop their gloves on every table, their umbrellas at every 
 door. His hands were of the kind which look dirty after 
 washing. Finally, his aged frame, badly set up on tottering, 
 knotty limbs, gave ocular proof how far a man's body can 
 become a mere accessory to his mind. It was one of those 
 strange freaks of nature which no one has ever properly de-
 
 8 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 scribed except Hoffmann, a German, who has made himself 
 the poet of all which appears lifeless and yet lives. Such was 
 Schmucke, formerly choirmaster to the Margrave of Anspach, 
 a learned man who underwent inspection from a council of 
 piety. They asked him whether he fasted. The master was 
 tempted to reply, "Look at me ! " but it is ill work jesting 
 with saints and Jansenist confessors. 
 
 This apocryphal old man held so large a place in the life of 
 the two Maries they became so much attached to the great 
 simple-minded artist whose sole interest was in his art that, 
 after they were married, each bestowed on him an annuity of 
 three hundred francs, a sum which sufficed for his lodging, 
 his beer, his pipe, and his clothes. Six hundred francs a 
 year and his lessons were a Paradise for Schmucke. He had 
 not ventured to confide his poverty and his hopes to any one 
 except these two charming children, whose hearts had blos- 
 somed under the snow of maternal rigor and the frost of 
 devotion, and this fact by itself sums up the character of 
 Schmucke and the childhood of the two Maries. 
 
 No one could tell afterward what abbe, what devout old 
 lady, had unearthed this German, lost in Paris. No sooner 
 did mothers of a family learn that the Comtesse de Granville 
 had found a music-master for her daughters than they all 
 asked for his name and address. Schmucke had thirty houses 
 in the Marais. This tardy success displayed itself in slippers 
 with bronzed steel buckles and lined with horse-hair soles, 
 and in a more frequent change of shirt. His childlike gayety, 
 long repressed by an honorable and seemly poverty, bubbled 
 forth afresh. He let fall little jokes such as : "Young ladies, 
 the cats supped off the dirt of Paris last night," when a frost 
 had dried the muddy streets overnight, only they were spoken 
 in a German o-Gallic lingo : " Younc ladies, de gads subbed off 
 de dirt off Barees" Gratified at having brought his adorable 
 ladies this species of Vergiss mein ntcht, culled from the 
 flowers of his fancy, he put on an air of such ineffable roguish-
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 9 
 
 ness in presenting it that mockery was disarmed. It made 
 him so happy to call a smile to the lips of his pupils, the sad- 
 ness of whose life was no mystery to him, that he would have 
 made himself ridiculous on purpose if nature had not saved 
 him the trouble. And yet there was no commonplace so 
 vulgar that the warmth of his heart could not infuse it with 
 fresh meaning. In the fine words of the late Saint-Martin, 
 the radiance of his smile might have turned the mire of the 
 highway to gold. The two Maries, following one of the best 
 traditions of religious education, used to escort their master 
 respectfully to the door of the suite when he left. There the 
 poor girls would say a few kind words to him, happy in 
 making him happy. It was the one chance they had of exer- 
 cising their woman's nature. 
 
 Thus, up to the time of their marriage, music became for 
 the girls a life within life, just as, we are told, the Russian 
 peasant takes his dreams for realities, his waking life for a rest- 
 less sleep. In their eagerness to find some bulwark' against the 
 rising tide of pettiness and consuming ascetic ideas, they threw 
 themselves desperately into the difficulties of the musical art. 
 Melody, harmony, and composition, those three daughters of 
 the skies, rewarded their labors, making a rampart for them 
 with their aerial dances, while the old Catholic faun, intoxi- 
 cated by music, led the chorus. Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, 
 Paesiello, Cimarosa, Hummel, along with musicians of lesser 
 rank, developed in them sensations which never passed be- 
 yond the modest limit of their veiled bosoms, but which went 
 to the heart of that new world of fancy whither they eagerly 
 betook themselves. When the execution of some piece had 
 been brought to perfection, they would clasp hands and em- 
 brace in the wildest ecstasy. The old master called them his 
 Saint Cecilias. 
 
 The two Maries did not go to balls till they were sixteen, 
 and then only four times a year, to a few selected houses. 
 They only left their mother's side when well fortified with
 
 10 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 rules of conduct, so strict that they could reply nothing but 
 yes and no to their partners. The eye of the countess never 
 quitted her daughters and seemed to read the words upon 
 their lips. The ball-dresses of the poor little things were 
 models of decorum high-necked lawn frocks, with an extra- 
 ordinary number of fluffy frills and long sleeves. This un- 
 graceful costume, which concealed instead of setting off their 
 beauty, reminded one of an Egyptian mummy, in spite of two 
 sweetly pathetic faces which peeped out from the mass of 
 cotton. With all their innocence, they were furious to find 
 themselves the objects of a kindly pity. Where is the woman, 
 however artless, who would not inspire envy rather than com- 
 passion? The white matter of their brains was unsoiled by a 
 single perilous, morbid, or even equivocal thought; their 
 hearts were pure, their hands were frightfully red ; they were 
 bursting with health. Eve did not leave the hands of her 
 Creator more guileless than were these two girls when they 
 left their mother's home to go to the mayor's office and to the 
 church, with one simple but awful command in their ears to 
 obey in all things the man by whose side they were to spend 
 the night, awake or sleeping. To them it seemed impossible 
 that they should suffer more in the strange house whither they 
 were to be banished than in the maternal convent. 
 
 How came it that the father of these girls did nothing to 
 protect them from so crushing a despotism ? The Comte de 
 Granville had a great reputation as a judge, able and incorrupt- 
 ible, if sometimes a little carried away by party feeling. 
 Unhappily, by the terms of a remarkable compromise, agreed 
 upon after ten years of married life, husband and wife lived 
 apart, each in their own suite of apartments. The father, 
 who judged the repressive system less dangerous for women 
 than for men, kept the education of his boys in his own 
 hands, while leaving that of the girls to their mother. The 
 two Maries, who could hardly escape the imposition of some 
 tyranny, whether in love or marriage, would suffer less than
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 11 
 
 boys, whose intelligence ought to be unfettered and whose 
 natural spirit would be broken by the harsh constraint of 
 religious dogma, pushed to an extreme. Of four victims the 
 count saved two. The countess looked on her sons, both 
 destined for the law the one for the magistrature assise, the 
 other for the magistrature amovible* as far too badly brought 
 up to be allowed any intimacy with their sisters. All inter- 
 course between the poor children was strictly guarded. When 
 the count took his boys from school for a day he was careful 
 that it should not be spent in the house. After luncheon 
 with their mother and sisters he would find something to 
 amuse them outside. Restaurants, theatres, museums, an 
 expedition to the country in summer-time, were their treats. 
 Only on important family occasions, such as the birthday of the 
 countess or of their father, New Year's Day, and prize-giving 
 days, did the boys spend day and night under the paternal 
 roof, in extreme discomfort, and not daring to kiss their 
 sisters under the eye of the countess, who never left them 
 alone together for an instant. Seeing so little of their 
 brothers, how was it possible the poor girls should feel any 
 bond with them? On these days it was a perpetual, " Where 
 is Angelique?" "What is Eugenie about?" "Where can 
 my children be?" When her sons were mentioned, the 
 countess would raise her cold and sodden eyes to heaven, as 
 though imploring pardon for having failed to snatch them 
 from ungodliness. Her exclamati6ns and her silence in regard 
 to them were alike eloquent as the most lamentable verses of 
 Jeremiah, and the girls not unnaturally came to look on their 
 brothers as hopeless reprobates. 
 
 The count gave to each of his sons, at the age of eighteen, 
 a couple of rooms in his own suite, and they then began to 
 
 * The magistrature asstse consists of the judges who sit in Court, and 
 are appointed for life. The members of the magistrature amovible con- 
 duct the examination and prosecution of accused persons. They address 
 the Court standing, and are not appointed for life.
 
 12 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 study law under the direction of his secretary, a barrister, to 
 whom he intrusted the task of initiating them into the mysteries 
 of their profession. 
 
 The two Maries, therefore, had no practical knowledge of 
 what it is to have a brother. On the occasion of their sisters' 
 weddings it happened that both brothers were detained at a 
 distance by important cases : the one having then a post as 
 avocat-general* at a distant court, while the other was making 
 his first appearance in the provinces. In many families the 
 reality of that home-life, which we are apt to picture as linked 
 together by the closest and most vital ties, is something very 
 different. The brothers are far away, engrossed in money- 
 making, in pushing their way in the world, or they are chained 
 to the public service ; the sisters are absorbed in a vortex of 
 family interests, outside their own circle. Thus the different 
 members spend their lives apart and indifferent to each other, 
 held together only by the feeble bond of memory. If on 
 occasion pride or self-interest reunites them, just as often these 
 motives act in the opposite sense and divide them in heart, as 
 they have already been divided in life, so that it becomes a 
 rare exception to find a family living in one home and ani- 
 mated by one spirit. Modern legislation, by splitting up the 
 family into units, has created that most hideous evil the 
 isolation of the individual. 
 
 Angelique and Eugenie, amid the profound solitude in 
 which their youth glided by, saw their father but rarely, and it 
 was a melancholy face which he showed in his wife's hand- 
 some rooms on the first-floor. At home, as on the bench, he 
 maintained the grave and dignified bearing of the judge. 
 When the girls had passed the period of toys and dolls, when 
 they were beginning, at twelve years of age, to think for 
 themselves, and had given up making fun of Schmucke, they 
 found out the secret of the cares which lined the count's fore- 
 
 * The term is applied to all the substitutes of the procureur-glntral or 
 attorney-general.
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 13 
 
 head. Under the mask of severity they could read traces of 
 a kindly, lovable nature. He had yielded to the church his 
 place as head of the household, his hopes of wedded happiness 
 had been blighted, and his father's heart was wounded in its 
 tenderest spot the love he bore his daughters. Sorrows such 
 as these rouse strange pity in the breast of girls who have 
 never known tenderness. Sometimes he would stroll in the 
 garden between his daughters, an arm round each little figure, 
 fitting his pace to their childish steps ; then stopping in the 
 shrubbery, he would kiss them, one after the other, on the 
 forehead, while his eyes, his mouth, and his whole expression 
 breathed the deepest pity. 
 
 "You are not very happy, my darlings," he said on one 
 such occasion ; " but I shall marry you off early, and it will 
 be a good day for me when I see you take wing." 
 
 "Papa," said Eug6nie, "we have made up our minds to 
 marry the first man who offers." 
 
 "And this," he exclaimed, "is the bitter fruit of such a 
 
 system. In trying to make saints of them, they " 
 
 He stopped. Often the girls were conscious of a passionate 
 tenderness in their father's farewell, or in the way he looked 
 at them when by chance he dined with their mother. This 
 father, whom they so rarely saw, became the object of their 
 pity, and whom we pity we love. 
 
 The marriage of both sisters welded together by misfor- 
 tune, as Rita-Christina was by nature was the direct result 
 of this strict conventual training. Many men, when think- 
 ing of marriage, prefer a girl taken straight from the convent 
 and impregnated with an atmosphere of devotion to one who 
 has been trained in the school of society. There is no 
 medium. On the one hand is the girl with nothing left to 
 learn, who reads and discusses the papers, who has spun 
 round ball-rooms in the arms of countless young men, who 
 has seen every play and devoured every novel, whose knees 
 have been made supple by a dancing-master, pressing them
 
 14 A DAUGHTER OF EVE, 
 
 against his own, who does not trouble her head about religion 
 and has evolved her own morality ; on the other is the guile- 
 less, simple girl of the type of Marie-Angelique and Marie- 
 Eugenie. Possibly the husband's risk is no greater in the one 
 case than in the other, but the immense majority of men, 
 who have not yet reached the age of Arnolphe, would choose 
 a saintly Agnes rather than a, budding Celimene. 
 
 The two Maries were identical in figure, feet, and hands. 
 Both were small and slight. Eugenie, the younger, was fair 
 like her mother; Angelique, dark like her father. But they 
 had the same complexion a skin of that mother-of-pearl 
 white which tells of a rich and healthy blood and against 
 which the carnation stands out in vivid patches, firm in tex- 
 ture like the jasmine, and like it also, delicate, smooth, and 
 soft to the touch. The blue eyes of Eugenie, the brown eyes 
 of AngSlique, had the same naive expression of indifference 
 and unaffected astonishment, betrayed by the indecisive 
 wavering of the iris in the liquid white. Their figures were 
 good ; the shoulders, a little angular now, would be rounded 
 by time. The neck and bosom, which had been so long 
 veiled, appeared quite startlingly perfect in form, when, at 
 the request of her husband, each sister for the first time attired 
 herself for a ball in a low-necked dress. What blushes 
 covered the poor innocent things, so charming in their shame- 
 facedness, as they first saw themselves in the privacy of their 
 own rooms; nor did the color fade all evening! 
 
 At the moment when this story opens, with the younger 
 Marie consoling her weeping sister, they are no longer raw 
 girls. Each had nursed an infant one a boy, the other a 
 girl and the hands and arms of both were white as milk. 
 Eugenie had always seemed something of a madcap to her 
 terrible mother, who redoubled her watchful care and severity 
 on her behalf. Angelique, stately and proud, had, she thought, 
 a soul of high temper fitted to guard itself, while the skittish 
 Eugenie seemed to demand a firmer hand. There are charm-
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 15 
 
 ing natures of this kind, misread by destiny, whose life ought 
 to be unbroken sunshine, but who live and die in misery, 
 plagued by some evil genius, the victims of chance. Thus the 
 sprightly, artless Eugenie had fallen under the malign des- 
 potism of a parvenu when released from the maternal clutches. 
 Angelique, high-strung and sensitive, had been sent adrift in 
 the highest circles of Parisian society without any restraining 
 curb. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SISTERLY CONFIDENCES. 
 
 Mme. de Vandenesse, it was plain, was crushed by the 
 burden of troubles too heavy for a mind still unsophisticated 
 after six years of marriage. She lay at length, her limbs 
 flaccid, her body bent, her head fallen anyhow on the back of 
 the lounge. Having looked in at the opera before hurrying 
 to her sister's, she had still a few flowers in the plaits of her 
 hair, while others lay scattered on the carpet, together with 
 her gloves, her mantle of fur-lined silk, her muff and her 
 hood. Bright tears mingled with the pearls on her white 
 bosom and brimming eyes told a tale in gruesome contrast with 
 the luxury around. The countess had no heart for further 
 words. 
 
 "You poor darling," said Mme. du Tillet, "what strange 
 delusion as to my married life made you come to me for 
 help?" 
 
 It seemed as though the torrent of her sister's grief had 
 forced these words from the heart of the banker's wife, as 
 melting snow will set free stones that are held the fastest in 
 the river's bed. The countess gazed stupidly on her with 
 fixed eyes, in which terror had dried the tears. 
 
 " Can it be that the waters have closed over your head too, 
 my sweet one? " she said in a low voice.
 
 16 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 "Nay, dear, my troubles won't lessen yours." 
 
 "But tell me them, dear child. Do you think I am so 
 sunk in self already as not to listen ? Then we are comrades 
 again in suffering as of old ! " 
 
 " But we suffer apart," sadly replied Mme. du Tillet. " We 
 live in opposing camps. It is my turn to visit the Tuileries 
 now that you have ceased to go. Our husbands belong to 
 rival parties. I am the wife of an ambitious banker, a bad, 
 ever-scheming man. Your husband, sweetest, is kind, noble, 
 generous " 
 
 "Ah! do not reproach me," cried the countess. "No 
 woman has the right to do so, who has not suffered the weari- 
 ness of a tame, colorless life and passed from it straight to 
 the paradise of love. She must have known the bliss of living 
 her whole life in another, of espousing the ever-varying emo- 
 tions of a poet's soul. In every flight of his imagination, in 
 all the efforts of his ambition, in the great part he plays upon 
 the stage of life, she must have borne her share, suffering in 
 his pain and mounting on the wings of his measureless de- 
 lights ; and all this while never losing her cold, impassive 
 demeanor before a prying world. Yes, dear, a tumult of 
 emotion may rage within, while one sits by the fire at home, 
 quietly and comfortably like this. And yet what joy to have 
 at every instant one overwhelming interest which expands the 
 heart and makes it live in every fibre. Nothing is indifferent 
 to you ; your very life seems to depend on a drive r which 
 gives you the chance of seeing in the crowd the one man 
 before the flash of whose eye the sunlight pales ; you tremble 
 if he is late, and could strangle the bore who steals from you 
 one of those precious moments when happiness throbs in every 
 vein ! To be alive, only to be alive is rapture ! Think of 
 it, dear, to live, when so many women would give the world 
 to feel as I do and cannot. Remember, child, that for this 
 poetry of life there is but one season the season of youth. 
 Soon, very soon, will come the chills of winter. Oh ! if you
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 17 
 
 were rich as I am in these living treasures of the heart and 
 were threatened with losing them " 
 
 Mme. du Tillet, terrified, had hidden her face in her hands 
 during this wild rhapsody. At last, seeing the warm tears on 
 her sister's cheek, she began 
 
 " I never dreamed of reproaching you, my darling. Your 
 words have, in a single instant, stirred in my heart more burn- 
 ing thoughts than all my tears have quenched, for indeed the 
 life I lead might well plead within me for a passion such as 
 you describe. Let me cling to the belief that if we had seen 
 more of each other we should not have drifted to this point. 
 The knowledge of my sufferings would have enabled you to 
 realize your own happiness, and I might perhaps have learned 
 from you courage to resist the tyranny which has crushed the 
 sweetness out of my life. Your misery is an accident which 
 chance may remedy, mine is unceasing. My husband neither 
 has real affection for me nor does he trust me. I am a mere 
 peg for his magnificence, the hall-mark of his ambition, a tit- 
 bit for his vanity. 
 
 " Ferdinand " and she struck her hand upon the mantel- 
 piece " is hard and smooth like this marble. He is suspi- 
 cious of me. If I ask anything for myself I know beforehand 
 that refusal is certain ; but for whatever may tickle his self- 
 importance or advertise his wealth I have not even to express 
 a desire. He decorates my rooms, and spends lavishly on 
 my table ; my servants, my boxes at the theatre, all the trap- 
 pings of my life are of the smartest. He grudges nothing to 
 his vanity. His children's baby-linen must be trimmed with 
 real lace, but he would never trouble about their actual needs, 
 and would shut his ears to their cries. Can you understand 
 such a state of things ? I go to Court loaded with diamonds, 
 and my ornaments are of the most costly whenever I am in 
 society ; yet I have not a sou of my own. Madame du Tillet, 
 whom envious onlookers no doubt suppose to be rolling in 
 wealth, cannot lay her hand on a hundred francs. If the 
 2
 
 18 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 father cares little for his children, he cares still less for their 
 mother. Never does he allow me to forget that I have been 
 paid for as a chattel, and that my personal fortune, which has 
 never been in my possession, has been filched from him. If 
 he stood alone I might have a chance of fascinating him, but 
 there is an alien influence at work. He is under the thumb 
 of a woman, a notary's widow, over fifty, but who still reckons 
 on her charms, and I can see very well that while she lives I 
 shall never be free. 
 
 " My whole life here is planned out like a sovereign's. A 
 bell is rung for my lunch and dinner as at your castle. I 
 never miss going to the Bois at a certain hour, accompanied 
 by two footmen in full livery, and returning at a fixed time. 
 In place of giving orders, I receive them. At balls and the 
 theatre, a lackey comes up to me saying, ' Your carriage 
 waits, madame,' and I have to go, whether I am enjoying my- 
 self or not. Ferdinand would be vexed if I did not carry out 
 the code of rules drawn up for his wife, and I am afraid of 
 him. Surrounded by all this hateful splendor, I sometimes 
 look back with regret, and begin to think we had a kind 
 mother. At least she left us our nights, and I had you to talk 
 to. In my sufferings, then, I had a loving companion, but 
 this gorgeous house is a desert to me." 
 
 It was for the countess now to play the comforter. As this 
 tale of misery fell from her sister's lips she took her hand and 
 kissed it with tears. 
 
 "How is it possible for me to help you?" Eugenie went 
 on in a low voice. " If he were to find us together he would 
 suspect something. He would want to know what we had 
 been talking about this hour, and it is not easy to put off the 
 scent any one so false and full of wiles. He would be sure to 
 lay a trap for me. But enough of my troubles ; let us think 
 of you. Your forty thousand francs, darling, would be noth- 
 ing to Ferdinand. He and the Baron de Nucingen, another 
 of these rich bankers, are accustomed to handle millions.
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 19 
 
 Sometimes at dinner I hear them talking of things to make 
 your flesh creep. Du Tillet knows I am no talker, so they 
 speak freely before me, confident that it will go no further, 
 and I can assure you that highway murder would be an 
 act of mercy compared to some of their financial schemes. 
 Nucingen and he makes as little of ruining a man as I do of 
 all their display. Among the people who come to see me, 
 often there are poor dupes whose affairs I have heard settled 
 overnight, and who are plunging into speculations which will 
 beggar them. How I long to act Leonarde in the brigands' 
 cave, and cry, ' Beware ! ' But what would become of me-? 
 I hold my tongue, but this luxurious mansion is nothing but a 
 den of cut-throats. And du Tillet and Nucingen scatter 
 bank-notes in handfuls for any whim that takes their fancy. 
 Ferdinand has bought the site of the old castle at Tillet, and 
 intends rebuilding it, and then adding a forest and magnifi- 
 cent grounds. He says his son will be a count and his grand- 
 son a peer. Nucingen is tired of his house in the Rue Saint- 
 Lazare and is having a palace built. His wife is a friend of 
 mine. Ah ! " she cried, "she might be of use to us. She is 
 not in awe of her husband, her property is in her own hands ; 
 she is the person to save you." 
 
 "Darling," cried Mme. de Vandenesse, throwing herself 
 into her sister's arms and bursting into tears, " there are only 
 a few hours left. Let us go there to-night, this very instant." 
 
 " How can I go out at eleven o'clock at night?" 
 
 " My carriage is here." 
 
 " Well, what are you two plotting here ? " It was du Tillet 
 who threw open the door of the boudoir. 
 
 A false geniality lit up the blank countenance which met 
 the sisters' gaze. They had been too much absorbed in talk- 
 ing to notice the wheels of du Tillet's carriage, and the 
 thick carpets had muffled the sound of his steps. The 
 countess, who had an indulgent husband and was well used to 
 society, had acquired a tact and address such as her sister,
 
 20 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 passing straight from a mother's to a husband's yoke, had had 
 no opportunity of cultivating. She was able then to save the 
 situation, which she saw that Eugenie's terror was on the point 
 of betraying, by a frank reply. 
 
 " I thought my sister wealthier than she is," she said, 
 looking her brother-in-law in the face. " Women sometimes 
 get into difficulties which they don't care to speak of to their 
 husbands witness Napoleon and Josephine and I came to 
 ask a favor of her. ' ' 
 
 " There will be no difficulty about that. Eugenie is a rich 
 woman," replied du Tillet, in a tone of honeyed acerbity. 
 
 "Only for you," said the countess, with a bitter smile. 
 
 " How much do you want? " said du Tillet, who was not 
 sorry at the prospect of getting his aristocratic sister-in-law 
 into his toils. 
 
 " How dense you are I Didn't I tell you that we want to 
 keep our husbands out of this?" was the prudent reply of 
 Mme. de Vandenesse, who feared to place herself at the 
 mercy of the man whose character had by good luck just been 
 sketched by her sister. "I shall come and see Eugenie to- 
 morrow." 
 
 " To-morrow ? No," said the banker coldly. " Madame 
 du Tillet dines to-morrow with a future peer of the realm, 
 Baron de Nucingen, who is resigning to me his seat in the 
 Chamber of Deputies." 
 
 "Won't you allow her to accept my box at the opera? " 
 said the countess, without exchanging even a look with her 
 sister, in her terror lest their secret understanding should be 
 betrayed. 
 
 "Thank you, she has her own," said du Tillet, offended. 
 
 "Very well, then, I shall see her there," replied the 
 countess. 
 
 " It will be the first time you have done us that honor," 
 said du Tillet. 
 
 The countess felt the reproach and began to laugh,.
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE, 21 
 
 "Keep your mind easy, you shan't be asked to pay this 
 time," she said. " Good-by, darling." 
 
 " The jade ! " cried du Tillet, picking up the flowers which 
 had fallen from the countess' hair. " You would do well," 
 he said to his wife, " to take a lesson from Madame de Vande- 
 nesse. I should like to see you as saucy in society as she was 
 here just now. Your want of style and spirit are enough to 
 drive a man wild." 
 
 For all reply, Eugenie raised her eyes to heaven. 
 
 "Well, madame, what have you two been about here?" 
 said the banker after a pause, pointing to the flowers. "What 
 has happened to bring your sister to your box to-morrow? " 
 
 In order to get away to her bedroom, and escape the cross- 
 questioning she dreaded, the poor thrall made an excuse of be- 
 ing sleepy. But du Tillet took his wife's arm and, dragging 
 her back, planted her before him beneath the full blaze of the 
 candles, flaming in their silver-gilt branches between two 
 beautiful bunches of flowers. Fixing her eyes with his keen 
 glance, he began with cold deliberation. 
 
 "Your sister came to borrow forty thousand francs to pay 
 the debts of a man in whom she is interested, and who, within 
 three days, will be under lock and key in the Rue de Clichy. 
 He's too precious to be left loose." 
 
 The miserable woman tried to repress the nervous shiver 
 which ran through her. 
 
 "You gave me a fright," she said. "But you know that 
 my sister has too much principle and too much affection for 
 her husband to take that sort of interest in any man v " 
 
 "On the contrary," he replied drily. " Girls brought up 
 as you were, in a very strait-laced and puritan fashion, always 
 pant for liberty and happiness, and the happiness they have 
 never comes up to what they imagined. Those are the girls 
 that make bad wives." 
 
 "Speak for me if you like," said poor Eugenie, in a tone 
 of bitter irony, "but respect my sister. The Comtesse de
 
 22 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 Vandenesse is too happy, too completely trusted by her hus- 
 band, not to be attached to him. Beside, supposing what you 
 say were true, she would not have told me." 
 
 "It is as I said," persisted du Tillet, "and I forbid you to 
 have anything to do with the matter. It is to my interest 
 that the man go to prison. Let that suffice." 
 
 Mme. du Tillet left the room. 
 
 " She is sure to disobey me," said du Tillet to himself, left 
 alone in the boudoir, " and if I keep my eye on them I may 
 be able to find out what they are up to. Poor fools, to pit 
 themselves against us ! " 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders and went to rejoin his wife, or, 
 more properly speaking, his slave. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE STORY OF A HAPPY WOMAN. 
 
 The confession which Mme. Felix de Vandenesse had poured 
 into her sister's ear was so intimately connected with her 
 history during the six preceding years that a brief narrative 
 of the chief incidents of her married life is necessary to its 
 understanding. 
 
 Felix de Vandenesse was one of the band of distinguished 
 men who owed their fortune to the Restoration, till a short- 
 sighted policy excluded them, as followers of Martignac, from 
 the inner circle of Government. In the last days of Charles 
 X. he was banished with some others to the Upper Chamber ; 
 and this disgrace, though in his eyes only temporary, led him 
 to think of marriage. He was the more inclined to it from a 
 sort of nausea of intrigue and gallantry not uncommon with 
 men when the hour of youth's gay frenzy is past. There 
 comes then a critical moment when the serious side of social 
 ties makes itself felt. Felix de Vandenesse had had his bright 
 and his dark hours, but the latter predominated, as is apt to
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 23 
 
 be the case with a man who has quite early in life become 
 acquainted with passion in its noblest form. The initiated 
 become fastidious. A long experience of life and study of 
 character reconciles them at last to the second best, when they 
 take refuge in a universal tolerance. Having lost all illusions, 
 they are proof against guile ; yet they wear their cynicism 
 with a grace, and, being prepared for the worst, are saved the 
 pangs of disappointment. 
 
 In spite of this, Felix still passed for one of the handsomest 
 and most agreeable men in Paris. With women his reputation 
 was largely due to one of the noblest of their contemporaries, 
 who was said to have died of a broken heart for him ;* but it 
 was the beautiful Lady Dudley who had the chief hand in 
 forming him. In the eyes of many Paris ladies Felix was a 
 hero of romance, owing not a few of his conquests to his evil 
 repute. Madame de Manerville had closed the chapter of his 
 intrigues. Although not a Don Juan, he retired from the 
 world of love, as from that of politics, a disillusioned man. 
 That ideal type of woman and of love which, for his misfor- 
 tune, had brightened and dominated his youth, he despaired 
 of finding again. At the age of thirty, Count Felix resolved 
 to cut short by marriage pleasures which had begun to pall. 
 On one point he was determined ; he would have none but a 
 girl trained in the strictest dogmas of Catholicism. No sooner 
 did he hear how the Comtesse de Granville brought up her 
 daughters than he asked for the hand of the elder. His own 
 mother had been a domestic tyrant ; and he could still re- 
 member enough of his dismal childhood to descry, through 
 the veil of maidenly modesty, what effect had been produced 
 on a young girl's character by such a bondage, to see whether 
 she were sulky, soured, and inclined to revolt, or had re- 
 mained sweet and loving, responsive to the voice of nobler 
 feeling. Tyranny produces two results, exactly opposite in 
 character, and which are symbolized in those two great types 
 * See " The Lily of the Valley."
 
 24 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 of the slave in classical times Epictetus and Spartacus. The 
 one is hatred with its evil train, the other, meekness with its 
 Christian graces. The Comte de Vandenesse read the history 
 of his life again in Marie-Angelique de Granville. 
 
 In thus choosing for wife a young girl in her fresh inno- 
 cence and purity, he had made up his mind beforehand, as 
 befitted a man old in everything but years, to unite paternal 
 with conjugal affection. He was conscious that in him poli- 
 tics and society had blighted feeling, and that he had only 
 the dregs of a used-up life to offer in exchange for one in the 
 bloom of youth. The flowers of spring would be matched 
 with winter frosts, hoary experience with a saucy, impulsive 
 waywardness. Having thus impartially taken stock cf his 
 position, he intrenched himself in his married quarters with 
 an ample store of provisions. Indulgence and trust were his 
 two sheet-anchors. Mothers with marriageable daughters 
 ought to look out for men of this stamp, men with brains to 
 act as protecting divinity, with worldly wisdom to diagnose 
 like a surgeon, and with experience to take a mother's place 
 in warding off evil. These are the three cardinal virtues in 
 matrimony. 
 
 The refinements and luxuries to which his habits as a man 
 of fashion and of pleasure had accustomed Felix, his training 
 m affairs of State, the insight of a life alternately devoted to 
 action, reflection, and literature; all the resources, in short, 
 at his command were applied intelligently to work out his 
 wife's happiness. 
 
 Marie-Ang6lique passed at once from the maternal purgatory 
 to the wedded paradise prepared for her by Felix in their 
 house in the Rue du Rocher, where every trifle breathed of 
 distinction at the same time that the conventions of fashion 
 were not allowed to interfere with that gracious spontaneity 
 natural to warm young hearts. She began by enjoying to the 
 full the merely material pleasures of life, her husband for two 
 years acting as major-domo. Felix expounded to his wife
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 25 
 
 very gradually and with great tact the facts of life, initiated 
 her by degrees into the mysteries of the best society, taught 
 her the genealogies of all families of rank, instructed her in 
 the ways of the world, directed her in the arts of dress and 
 conversation, took her to all the theatres, and put her through 
 a course of literature and history. He carried out this educa- 
 tion with the assiduity of a lover, a father, a master, and a 
 husband combined; but with a wise discretion he allowed 
 neither amusement nor studies to undermine his wife's faith. 
 In short, he acquitted himself of his task in a masterly manner, 
 and had the gratification of seeing his pupil, at the end of 
 four years, one of the most charming and striking women of 
 her time. 
 
 Marie-Angelique's feelings toward her husband were pre- 
 cisely such as he wished to inspire true friendship, lively 
 gratitude, sisterly affection, with a dash of wifely fondness on 
 occasion, not passing the due limits of dignity and self-respect. 
 She was a good mother to her child. 
 
 Thus Felix, without any appearance of coercion, attached 
 his wife to himself by all possible ties, reckoning on the force 
 of habit to keep his heaven cloudless. Only men practiced 
 in worldly arts and who have run the gamut of disillusion in 
 politics and love have the knowledge necessary for acting 
 on this system. Felix found in it, also, the pleasure which 
 painters, authors, and great architects take in their rork, 
 while in addition to the artistic delight in creation he had the 
 satisfaction of contemplating the result and admiring in his 
 wife a woman of polished but unaffected manners and an un- 
 forced wit, a maiden and a mother, modestly attractive, un- 
 fettered and yet bound. 
 
 The history of a happy household is like that of a prosper- 
 ous state ; it can be summed up in half a dozen words, and 
 gives no scope for fine writing. Moreover, as the only ex- 
 planation of happiness is the fact that it exists, these four 
 years present nothing but the gray wash of an eternal love-
 
 26 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 making, insipid as manna, and as exciting as the romance of 
 Astrsea. 
 
 In 1833, however, this edifice of happiness, so carefully 
 put together by Felix, was on the point of falling to the 
 ground ; the foundations had been sapped without his knowl- 
 edge. The fact is the heart of a woman of five-and-twenty 
 is not that of a girl of eighteen, any more than the heart of a 
 woman of forty is that of one ten years younger. A woman's 
 life has four epochs and each epoch creates a new woman. 
 Vandenesse was certainly not ignorant of the laws which de- 
 termine this development, induced by our modern habits, but 
 he neglected to apply them in his own case. Thus the sound- 
 est grammarian may be caught tripping when he turns author ; 
 the greatest general on the field of battle, under stress of fire, 
 and at the mercy of the accidents of the ground, will cast to 
 the winds a theoretic rule of military science. The man 
 whose action habitually bears the stamp of his mind is a 
 genius, but the greatest genius is not always equal to himself, 
 or he would cease to be human. 
 
 Four years had passed of unruffled calm, four years of tuneful 
 concert without one jarring note. The countess, under these 
 influences, felt her nature expanding like a healthy plant in 
 good soil under the warm kisses of a sun shining in unclouded 
 azure, and she now began to question her heart. The crisis 
 in her life, which this tale is to unfold, would be unintelligi- 
 ble but for some explanations which may perhaps extenuate 
 in the eyes of women the guilt of this young countess, happy 
 wife and happy mother, who at first sight might seem inex- 
 cusable. 
 
 Life is the result of a balance between two opposing forces ; 
 the absence of either is injurious to the creature. Vandenesse, 
 in piling up satisfaction, had quenched desire, that lord of the 
 universe, at whose disposal lie vast stores of moral energy. 
 Extreme heat, extreme suffering, unalloyed happiness, like all 
 abstract principles, reign over a barren desert. They demand
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 27 
 
 solitude, and will suffer no existence but their own. Vande- 
 nesse was not a woman, and it is women only who know the 
 art of giving variety to a state of bliss. Hence their coquetry, 
 their coldness, their tremors, their tempers, and that ingenu- 
 ous battery of unreason, by which they demolish to-day what 
 yesterday they found entirely satisfactory. Constancy in a 
 man may pall, in a woman never. Vandenesse was too thor- 
 oughly good-hearted to wantonly plague the woman he loved ; 
 the heaven into which he plunged her could not be too ardent 
 or too cloudless. The problem of perpetual felicity is one 
 the solution of which is reserved for another and higher world. 
 Here below, even the most inspired of poets do not fail to 
 bore thejr readers when they attempt to sing of Paradise. 
 The rock on which Dante split was to be the ruin also of 
 Vandenesse : all honor to a desperate courage ! 
 
 His wife began at last to find so well-regulated an Eden 
 a little monotonous. The perfect happiness of Eve in her 
 terrestrial paradise produced in her the nausea which comes 
 from living too much on sweets. A longing seized her, as it 
 seized Rivarol on reading Florian, to come across some wolf 
 in the sheepfold. This, it appears, has been the meaning in 
 all ages of that symbolical serpent to whom the first woman 
 made advances, some day no doubt when she was feeling 
 bored. The moral of this may not commend itself to certain 
 Protestants who take Genesis more seriously than the Jews 
 themselves, but the situation of Mme. de Vandenesse requires 
 no biblical images to explain it. She was conscious of a force 
 within, which found no exercise. She was happy, but her 
 happiness caused her no pangs ; it was placid and uneventful ; 
 she was not haunted by the dread of losing it. It arrived 
 every morning with the same smile and sunshine, the same 
 soft words. Not a zephyr's breath wrinkled this calm ex- 
 panse ; she longed for a ripple on the glassy surface. 
 
 There was something childish in all this, which may partly 
 excuse her ; but society is no more lenient in its judgments
 
 28 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 than was the Jehovah of Genesis. The countess was quite 
 enough woman of the world now to know how improper these 
 feelings were, and nothing would have induced her to confide 
 them to her "darling husband." This was the most impas- 
 sioned epithet her innocence could devise, for it is given to 
 no one to forge in cold blood that delicious language of hyper- 
 bole which love dictates to its victims at the stake. Van- 
 denesse, pleased with this pretty reserve, applied his arts to 
 keep his wife within the temperate zone of wedded fervor. 
 Moreover, this model husband wanted to be loved for himself, 
 and judged unworthy of an honorable man those tricks of the 
 trade which might have imposed upon his wife or awakened 
 her feeling. He would owe nothing to the expedients of 
 wealth. The Comtesse Marie would smile to see a shabby 
 turn-out in the Bois, and turn her eyes complacently to her 
 own elegant equipage and the horses which, harnessed in the 
 English fashion, moved with very free action and kept their 
 distance perfectly. Felix would not stoop to gather the fruit 
 of all his labors ; his lavish expenditure, and the good taste 
 which guided it, were accepted as a matter of course by his 
 wife, ignorant that to them she owed her perfect immunity 
 from vexations or wounding comparisons. It was the same 
 throughout. Kindness is not without its rocks ahead. People 
 are apt to put it down to an easy temper, and seldom recognize 
 it as the secret striving of a generous nature ; whilst, on the 
 other hand, the ill-natured get credit for all the evil they re- 
 frain from. 
 
 About this period Mme. de Vandenesse was sufficiently 
 drilled in the practices of society to abandon the insignificant 
 part of timid supernumerary, all eyes and ears, which even 
 Grisi is said, once on a time, to have played in the choruses 
 of the La Scala theatre. The young countess felt herself 
 equal to the part of prima donna and made some essays in it. 
 To the great satisfaction of F6lix, she began to take her share 
 in conversation. Sharp repartees and shrewd reflections,
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 29 
 
 which were the fruit of talks with her husband, brought her 
 into notice, and this success emboldened her. Vandenesse, 
 whose wife had always been allowed to be pretty, was charmed 
 when she showed herself clever also. On her return from the 
 ball or concert or rout where she had shone, Marie, as she 
 laid aside her finery, would turn to Felix and say with a little 
 air of prim delight, " Please, have I done well to-night ? " 
 
 At this stage the countess began to rouse jealousy in the 
 breasts of certain women, amongst whom was the Marquise 
 de Listomere, her husband's sister, who hitherto had patron- 
 ized Marie, looking on her as a good foil for her own charms. 
 Poor innocent victim ! A countess with the sacred name of 
 Marie, beautiful, witty, and good, a musician and not a flirt 
 no wonder society whetted its teeth ! Felix de Vandenesse 
 numbered amongst his acquaintance several women who 
 although their connection with him was broken off, whether 
 by their own doing or his were by no means indifferent to 
 his marriage. When these ladies saw in Marie de Vandenesse 
 a sheepish little woman with red hands, rather silent, and to 
 all appearance stupid also, they considered themselves suffi- 
 ciently avenged. 
 
 Then came the disasters of July, 1830, and for the space of 
 two years society was broken up. Rich people spent the 
 troubled interval on their estates or traveling in Europe ; and 
 the salons hardly reopened before 1833. The Faubourg Saint- 
 Germain sulked, but it admitted as neutral ground a few 
 houses, amongst others that of the Ambassador of Austria. 
 In these select rooms legitimist society and the new society 
 met, represented by their most fashionable leaders. Van- 
 denesse, though strong in his convictions and attached by a 
 thousand ties of sympathy and gratitude to the exiled family, 
 did not feel himself bound to follow his party in its stupid 
 fanaticism. At a critical moment he had performed his duty 
 at the risk of life by breasting the flood of popular fury in 
 order to propose a compromise. He could afford therefore
 
 30 A DAUGHTER OF EVE, 
 
 to take his wife into a society which could not possibly expose 
 his good faith to suspicion. 
 
 Vandenesse's former friends hardly recognized the young 
 bride in the graceful, sparkling, and gentle countess, who 
 took her place with all the breeding of the high-born lady. 
 Mmes. d'Espard and de Manerville, Lady Dudley, and other 
 ladies of less distinction felt the stirring of a brood of vipers 
 in their hearts ; the dulcet moan of angry pride piped in 
 their ears. The happiness of Felix enraged them, and they 
 would have given a brand-new pair of shoes to do him an ill 
 turn. In place of showing hostility to the countess, these 
 amiable intriguers buzzed about her with protestations of 
 extreme friendliness and sang her praises to their male friends. 
 Felix, who perfectly understood their little game, kept his 
 eye upon their intercourse with Marie and warned her to be 
 upon her guard. Divining, every one of them, the anxiety 
 which their assiduity caused the count, they could not pardon 
 his suspicions. They redoubled their flattering attentions to 
 their rival and in this way contrived an immense success for 
 her, to the disgust of the Marquise de Listomere, who was 
 quite in the dark about it all. The Comtesse Felix de Vande- 
 nesse was everywhere pointed to as the most charming and 
 brilliant woman in Paris; and Marie's other sister-in-law, the 
 Marquise Charles de Vandenesse, endured many mortifications 
 from the confusion produced by the similarity of name and 
 the comparisons to which it gave rise. For, though the mar- 
 quise was also a handsome and clever woman, the countess 
 had the advantage of her in being twelve years younger, a 
 point of which her rivals did not fail to make use. They 
 well knew what bitterness the success of the countess would 
 infuse into her relations with her sisters-in-law, who, indeed, 
 were most chilling and disagreeable to Marie-Angelique in her 
 triumph. 
 
 And so danger lurked in the family, enmity in friendship. 
 It is well known how the literature of that day tried to over-
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 31 
 
 come the indifference of the public, engrossed in the exciting 
 political drama, by the production of more or less Byronic 
 works, exclusively occupied with illicit love affairs. Conjugal 
 infidelity furnished at this time the sole material of magazines, 
 novels, and plays. This perennial theme came more than 
 ever into fashion. The lover, that nightmare of the husband, 
 was everywhere, except perhaps in the family circle, which 
 saw less of him during that reign of the middle-class than at 
 any other period. When the streets are ablaze with light and 
 " Stop thief" is shouted from every window, it is hardly the 
 moment robbers choose to be abroad. If, in the course of 
 those years, so fruitful in civic, political, and moral upheavals, 
 an occasional domestic misadventure took place, it was excep- 
 tional and attracted less notice than it would have done under 
 the Restoration. Nevertheless, women talked freely among 
 themselves of a subject in which both lyric and dramatic 
 poetry then reveled. The lover, that being so rare and so 
 bewitching, was a favorite theme. The few intrigues which 
 came to light supplied matter for such conversation, which, 
 then as ever, was confined to women of unexceptionable life. 
 The repugnance to this sort of talk shown by women who 
 have a stolen joy to conceal is indeed a noteworthy fact. They 
 are the prudes of society, cautious, and even bashful ; their 
 attitude is one of perpetual appeal for silence or pardon. On 
 the other hand, when a woman takes pleasure in hearing of 
 such disasters and is curious about the temptations which lead 
 to them, you may be sure she is halting at the cross-roads, 
 uncertain and hesitating. 
 
 During this winter the Comtesse de Vandenesse caught 
 the distant roll of society's thunder, and the rising storm 
 whistled about her ears. Her so-called friends, whose repu- 
 tations were under the safeguard of exalted rank and position, 
 drew many sketches of the irresistible gallant for her benefit, 
 and dropped into her heart burning words about love, the one 
 solution of life for women, the master passion, according to
 
 32 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 Mme. de Stael, who did not speak without experience. When 
 the countess, in a friendly conclave, naively asked why a lover 
 was so different from a husband, not one of these women 
 failed to reply in such a way as to pique her curiosity, haunt 
 her imagination, touch her heart, and interest her mind. 
 They burned to see Vandenesse in trouble. 
 
 "With one's husband, dear, one simply rubs along; with a 
 lover it's life," said her sister-in-law, the Marquise de Van- 
 denesse. 
 
 " Marriage, my child, is our purgatory, love is paradise," 
 said Lady Dudley. 
 
 " Don't believe her," cried Mile, des Touches, " it's hell ! " 
 
 "Yes, but a hell with love in it," observed the Marquise 
 de Rochefide. "There may be more satisfaction in suffering 
 than in an easy life. Look at the martyrs ! " 
 
 "Little simpleton," said the Marquise d'Espard, " in mar- 
 riage we live, so to speak, our own life; love is living in 
 another. ' ' 
 
 " In short, a lover is the forbidden fruit, and that's enough 
 for me ! " laughingly spoke the pretty Moina de Saint-Heren. 
 
 When there were no diplomatic at homes, or balls given by 
 wealthy foreigners, such as Lady Dudley or the Princesse de 
 Galathionne, the countess went almost every evening after the 
 opera to one of the few aristocratic drawing-rooms still open 
 whether that of the Marquise d'Espard, Mme. de Listo- 
 mere, Mile, des Touches, the Comtesse de Montcornet, or the 
 Vicomtesse de Grandlieu. Never did she leave these gather- 
 ings without some seeds of evil scattered in her soul. She 
 heard talk about "completing her life," an expression much 
 in vogue then, or about being "understood," another word 
 to which women attach marvelous meanings. She would re- 
 turn home uneasy, pensive, dreamy, and curious. Her life 
 seemed somehow impoverished, but she had not yet gone so 
 far as to feel it entirely barren.
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 33 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A MAN OF NOTE. 
 
 The most lively, but also the most mixed, company to be 
 found in any of the houses where Mme. de Vandenesse 
 visited was decidedly that which met at the Comtesse de 
 Montcornet's. She was a charming little woman who opened 
 her doors to distinguished artists, commercial princes, and 
 celebrated literary men ; but the tests to which she submitted 
 them before admission were so rigorous that the most exclu- 
 sive need not fear rubbing up against persons of an inferior 
 grade ; the most unapproachable were safe from pollution. 
 During the winter, society (which never loses its rights, and 
 at all costs will be amused) began to rally again, and a few 
 drawing-rooms including those of Mines. d'Espard and de 
 Listomere, of Mile, des Touches, and of the Duchesse de 
 Grandlieu had picked up recruits from among the latest 
 celebrities in art, science, literature, and politics. At a con- 
 cert given by the Comtesse de Montcornet, toward the end of 
 the winter, Raoul Nathan, a well-known name in literature 
 and politics, made his entry, introduced by Emile Blondet, 
 a very brilliant but also very indolent writer. Blondet too 
 was a celebrity, but only among the initiated few ; much 
 made of by the critics, he was unknown to the general public. 
 Blondet was perfectly aware of this, and in general was a man 
 of few illusions. In regard to fame, he said, among other 
 disparaging remarks, that it was a poison best taken in small 
 doses. 
 
 Raoul Nathan had a long struggle before emerging to the 
 surface, Having reached it, he had at once made capital out 
 of that sudden craze for external form then distinguishing cer- 
 tain exquisites, who swore by the Middle Ages, and were hu- 
 3
 
 34 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 morously known as " young France." He adopted the eccen- 
 tricities of genius, and enrolled himself among these worshipers 
 of art, whose intentions at least we cannot but admire, since 
 nothing is more absurd than the dress of a Frenchman of the 
 nineteenth century, and courage was needed to change it. 
 Raoul, to do him justice, has something unusual and fantastic 
 in his person, which seems to demand a setting. His enemies 
 or his friends there is little to choose between them are 
 agreed that nothing in the world so well matches the inner 
 Nathan as the outer. He would probably look even more re- 
 markable if left to nature than he is when touched by art. His 
 worn and wasted features suggest a wrestling with spirits, good 
 or evil. His face has some likeness to that which German 
 painters give to the dead Christ, and bears innumerable traces 
 of a constant struggle between weak human nature and the 
 powers on high. But the deep hollows of his cheeks, the 
 knobs on his craggy and furrowed skull, the cavities round 
 his eyes and temples, point to nothing weak in the constitu- 
 tion. There is remarkable solidity about the tough tissues 
 and prominent bones; and though the skin, tanned by excess, 
 sticks to them as though parched by some fire within, it none 
 the less covers a massive framework. He is tall and thin. 
 His long hair, which always needs brushing, aims at effect. 
 He is a Byron, badly groomed and badly put together, with 
 legs like a heron's, congested knees, an exaggeratedly small 
 waist, a hand with muscles of whip-cord, the grip of a crab's 
 claw, and lean, nervous fingers. 
 
 Raoul's eyes are Napoleonic, blue and soul-piercing; his 
 nose is sensitive and finely chiseled, his mouth charming and 
 adorned with teeth white enough to excite a woman's envy. 
 There is life and fire in the head, genius on the brow. Raoul 
 belongs to the small number of men who would not pass un- 
 noticed in the street, and who, in a drawing-room, at once form 
 a centre of light, drawing all eyes. He attracts attention by 
 his neglige, if one may borrow from Moliere the word used by
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 35 
 
 Eliante to describe personal slovenliness. His clothes look 
 as though they had been pulled about, frayed and crumpled 
 on purpose to harmonize with his countenance. He habitually 
 thrusts one hand into his open vest in the pose which Girodet's 
 portrait of Chateaubriand has made famous, but not so much 
 for the sake of copying Chateaubriand (he would disdain to 
 copy any one) as to take the stiffness out of his shirt-front. 
 His tie becomes all in a moment a mere wisp, from a trick he 
 has of throwing back his head with a sudden convulsive move- 
 ment, like that of a race-horse champing its bit and tossing its 
 head in the effort to break loose from bridle and curb. His 
 long, pointed beard is very different from that of the dandy, 
 combed, brushed, scented, sleek, shaped like a fan or cut into 
 a peak ; Nathan's is left entirely to nature. His hair, caught 
 in by his coat-collar and tie, and lying thick upon his shoul- 
 ders, leaves a grease spot wherever it rests. His dry, stringy 
 hands are innocent of nail-brush or the luxury of a lemon. 
 There are even journalists who declare that only on rare occa- 
 sions is their grimy skin laved in baptismal waters. 
 
 In a word, this awe-inspiring Raoul is a caricature. He 
 moves in a jerky way, as though propelled by some faulty 
 machinery ; and when walking the boulevards of Paris he 
 offends all sense of order by impetuous zigzags and unexpected 
 halts, which bring him into collision with peaceful citizens as 
 they stroll along. His conversation, full of caustic humor 
 and stinging epigrams, imitates the gait of his body ; of a 
 sudden it will drop the tone of fury to become, for no apparent 
 reason, gracious, dreamy, soothing, and gentle ; then come 
 unaccountable pauses or mental somersaults, which at times 
 grow fatiguing. In society he does not conceal an unblushing 
 awkwardness, a scorn of convention, and an attitude of criti- 
 cism toward things usually held in respect there, which make 
 him objectionable to plain people, as well as to those who 
 strive to keep up the traditions of old-world courtliness. Yet, 
 after all, he is an oddity, like a Chinese image, and women
 
 36 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 have a weakness for such things. Beside, with women he 
 often puts on an air of elaborate suavity, and seems to take a 
 pleasure in making them forget his grotesque exterior, and in 
 vanquishing their antipathy. This is a salve to his vanity, 
 his self-esteem, and his pride. 
 
 " Why do you behave so?" said the Marquise de Vande- 
 nesse to him one day. 
 
 " Are not pearls found in oyster shells? " was the pompous 
 reply. 
 
 To some one else, who put a similar question, he an- 
 swered 
 
 " If I made myself agreeable to every one, what should I 
 have left for her whom I design to honor supremely?" 
 
 Raoul Nathan carries into his intellectual life the irregularity 
 which he has made his badge. Nor is the device misleading : 
 like poor girls, who go out as maids-of-all-work in humble 
 homes, he can turn his hand to anything. He began with 
 serious criticism, but soon became convinced that this was a 
 losing trade. His articles, he said, cost as much as books. 
 The profits of the theatre attracted him, but, incapable of the 
 slow, sustained labor involved in putting anything on the 
 boards, he was driven to ally himself with du Bruel, who 
 worked up his ideas and converted them into light paying 
 pieces with plenty of humor, and composed in view of some 
 particular actor or actress. Between them they unearthed 
 Florine, a popular actress. 
 
 Ashamed, however, of this Siamese-like union, Nathan 
 unaided, brought out at the Theatre-Francais a great drama, 
 which fell with all the honors of war amidst salvoes from the 
 artillery of the press. In his youth he had already tried the 
 theatre which represents the fine traditions of the French 
 drama with a splendid romantic play in the style of " Pinto," 
 and this at a time when classicism held undisputed sway. The 
 result was that the Od6on became for three nights the scene 
 of such disorder that the piece had to be stopped. The
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 37 
 
 second play, no less then the first, seemed to many people a 
 masterpiece, and it won for him, though only within the 
 select world of judges and connoisseurs, a far higher reputa- 
 tion than the light remunerative pieces at which he worked 
 with others. 
 
 " One more such failure," said Emile Blondet, "and you 
 will be immortal." 
 
 But Nathan, instead of sticking to this arduous path, was 
 driven by stress of poverty to fall back upon more profitable 
 work, such as the production of spectacular pieces or of an 
 eighteenth-century powder and patches vaudeville and the 
 adaptation of popular novels to the stage. Nevertheless, he was 
 still counted as a man of great ability, whose last word had 
 not yet been heard. He made an excursion also into pure 
 literature and published three novels, not reckoning those 
 which he kept going in the press, like fishes in an aquarium. 
 As often happens, when a writer has stuff in him for only one 
 work, the first of these three was a brilliant success. Its 
 author rashly put it at once in the front rank of his works as 
 an artistic creation, and lost no opportunity of getting it 
 puffed as the " finest book of the period," the " novel of the 
 century." 
 
 Yet he complained loudly of the exigencies of art, and did 
 as much as any man toward having it accepted as the one 
 standard for all kinds of creative work painting, sculpture, 
 literature, architecture. He had begun by perpetrating a 
 book of verse, which won him a place in the pleiad of poets 
 of the day, and which contained one obscure poem that was 
 greatly admired. Compelled by straitened circumstances to 
 go on producing, he turned from the theatre to the press, and 
 from the press back to the theatre, breaking up and scattering 
 his powers, but with unshaken confidence in his inspiration. 
 He did not suffer, therefore, from lack of a publisher for his 
 fame, differing in this from certain celebrities, whose flicker- 
 ing flame is kept from extinction by the titles of books still in
 
 88 DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 the future, for which a public will be a more pressing necessity 
 than a new edition. 
 
 Nathan came near to being a genius, and, had destiny 
 crowned his ambition by marching him to the scaffold, he 
 would have been justified in striking his forehead after Andre 
 de Chenier. The sudden accession to power of a dozen 
 authors, professors, metaphysicians, and historians fired him 
 with emulation, and he regretted not having devoted his pen 
 to politics rather than to literature. He believed himself supe- 
 rior to these upstarts, who had foisted themselves on to the 
 party-machine during the troubles of 1830-3 and whose for- 
 tune now filled him with consuming envy. He belonged to 
 the type of man who covets everything and looks on all suc- 
 cess as a fraud on himself, who is always stumbling on some 
 luminous track but settles down nowhere, drawing all the 
 while on the tolerance of his neighbors. At this moment he 
 was traveling from Saint-Simonism to Republicanism, which 
 might serve, perhaps, as a stage to Ministerialism. His eye 
 swept every corner for some bone to pick, some safe shelter 
 whence he might bark beyond the reach of kicks, and make 
 himself a terror to the passers-by. He had, however, the 
 mortification of finding himself not taken seriously by the 
 great de Marsay, then at the head of affairs, who had a low 
 opinion of authors as lacking in what Richelieu called the 
 logical spirit, or rather in coherence of ideas. Beside, no 
 minister could have failed to reckon on Raoul's constant 
 pecuniary difficulties which, sooner or later, would drive him 
 into the position of accepting rather than imposing conditions. 
 
 Raoul's real and studiously suppressed character accords 
 with that which he shows to the public. He is carried away 
 by his own acting, declaims with great eloquence, and could 
 not be more self-centred were he, like Louis XIV., the State 
 in person. None knows better how to play at sentiment or 
 to deck himself out in a shoddy greatness. The grace of 
 moral beauty and the language of self-respect are at his com-
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 39 
 
 mand, he is a very Alceste in pose, while acting like Philinte. 
 His selfishness ambles along under cover of this painted card- 
 board, and not seldom attains the end he has in view. Ex- 
 cessively idle, he never works except under the prick of 
 necessity. Continuous labor applied to the construction of a 
 lasting fabric is beyond his conception ; but in a paroxysm of 
 rage, the result of wounded vanity, or in some crisis precipi- 
 tated by his creditors, he will leap the Eurotas and perform 
 miracles of mental forestallment ; after which, worn out and 
 amazed at his own fertility, he falls back into the enervating 
 dissipations of Paris life. Does necessity once more threaten, 
 he has no strength to meet it ; he sinks a step and traffics 
 with his honor. Impelled by a false idea of his talents and 
 his future, founded on the rapid rise of one of his old com- 
 rades (one of the few cases of administrative ability brought 
 to light by the Revolution of July), he tries to regain his 
 footing by taking liberties with his friends, which are nothing 
 short of a moral outrage, though they remain buried among 
 the skeletons of private life, without a word of comment or 
 blame. 
 
 His heart devoid of nicety, his shameless hand, hail-fellow- 
 well-met with every vice, every degradation, every treachery, 
 every party, have placed him as much beyond reach of attack 
 as a constitutional king. The peccadillo, which would raise 
 hue and cry after a man of high character, counts for nothing 
 in him ; while conduct bordering on grossness is barely 
 noticed. In making his excuses people find their own. The 
 very man who would fain despise him shakes him by the hand, 
 fearing to need his help. So numerous are his friends that he 
 would prefer enemies. This surface good-nature which capti- 
 vates a new acquaintance and is no bar to treachery, which 
 knows no scruple and is never at fault for an excuse, which 
 makes an outcry at the wound which it condones, is one of 
 the most distinctive features of the journalist. This camara- 
 derie (the word is a stroke of genius) corrodes the noblest
 
 40 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 minds; it eats into their pride like rust, kills the germ of 
 great deeds, and lends a sanction to moral cowardice. There 
 are men who, by exacting this general slackness of conscience, 
 get themselves absolved for playing the traitor and the turn- 
 coat. Thus it is that the most enlightened portion of the 
 nation becomes the least worthy of respect. 
 
 From the literary point of view Nathan is deficient in style 
 and information. Like most young aspirants in literature he 
 gives out to-day what he learned yesterday. He has neither 
 the time nor the patience to make an author. He does not 
 use his own eyes, but can pick up from others, and, while he 
 fails in producing a vigorously constructed plot, he sometimes 
 covers this defect by the fervor he throws into it. He " went 
 in " for passion, to use a slang word, because there is no limit 
 to the variety of modes in which passion may express itself, 
 while the task of genius is to sift out from these various ex- 
 pressions the element in each which will appeal to every one 
 as natural. His heroes do not stir the imagination ; they are 
 magnified individuals, exciting only a passing sympathy ; they 
 have no connection with the wider interests of life, and there- 
 fore stand for nothing but themselves. Yet the author saves 
 himself by means of a ready wit and of those lucky hits which 
 billiard-players call " flukes." He is the best man for a flying 
 shot at the ideas which swoop down upon Paris, or which 
 Paris starts. His teeming brain is not his own, it belongs to 
 the period. He lives upon the event of the day, and, in order 
 to get all he can from it, exaggerates its bearing. In short, 
 we miss the accent of truth, his words ring false; there is 
 something of the juggler in him, as Count F6lix said. One 
 feels that his pen has dipped in the ink of an actress' dressing- 
 room. 
 
 In Nathan we find an image of the literary youth of the 
 day, with their sham greatness and real poverty ; he represents 
 their irregular charm and their terrible falls, their life of seeth- 
 ing cataracts, sudden reverses, and unlooked-for triumphs. He
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 41 
 
 is a true child of this jealousy-ridden age, in which a thousand 
 personal rivalries, cloaking themselves under the name of 
 schools, make profit out of their failures by feeding fat with 
 them a hydra-headed anarchy; an age which expects fortune 
 without work, glory without talent, and success without effort, 
 but which, after many a revolt and skirmish, is at last brought 
 by its vices to swell the civil list, in submission to the powers 
 that be. When so many young ambitions start on foot to 
 meet at the same goal, there must be competing wills, fright- 
 ful destitution, and a relentless struggle. In this merciless 
 combat it is the fiercest or the adroitest selfishness which 
 wins. The lesson is not lost on an admiring world ; spite of 
 bawling, as Moliere would say, it acquits and follows suit. 
 
 When, in his capacity of opponent to the new dynasty, 
 Raoul was introduced to Mme. de Montcornet's drawing- 
 room his spacious greatness was at its height. He was recog- 
 nized as the political critic of the de Marsays, the Rastignacs, 
 and the la Roche-Hugons, who constituted the party in power. 
 His sponsor, Emile Blondet, handicapped by his fatal inde- 
 cision and dislike of action where his own affairs were con- 
 cerned, stuck to his trade of scoffer and took sides with no 
 party, while on good terms with all. He was the friend of 
 Raoul, of Rastignac, and of Montcornet. 
 
 "You are a political triangle," said de Marsay, with a 
 laugh, when he met him at the opera; " that geometrical form 
 is the peculiar property of the deity, who can afford to be idle ; 
 but a man who wants to get on should adopt a curve, which is 
 the shortest road in politics." 
 
 Beheld from afar, Raoul Nathan was a resplendent meteor. 
 The fashion of the day justified his manner and appearance. 
 His pose as a Republican gave him, for the moment, that 
 puritan ruggedness assumed by champions of the popular cause, 
 men whom Nathan in his heart derided. This is not without 
 attraction for women, who love to perform prodigies, such as 
 shattering rocks, melting an iron will. Raoul's moral cos-
 
 42 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 tume, therefore, was in keeping with the external. He was 
 bound to be, and he was, for this Eve, listless in her paradise 
 of the Rue du Rocher, the insidious serpent, bright to the eye 
 and flattering to the ear, with magnetic gaze and graceful 
 motion, who ruined the first woman. 
 
 Marie, on seeing Raoul, at once felt that inward shock, the 
 violence of which is almost terrifying. This would-be great 
 man, by a mere glance, sent a thrill right through to her heart, 
 causing a delicious flutter there. The regal mantle which 
 fame had for the moment draped on Nathan's shoulders daz- 
 zled this simple-minded woman. When tea came Marie left 
 the group of chattering women, among whom she had stood 
 silent since the appearance of this wonderful being a fact 
 which did not escape her so-called friends. The countess 
 drew near the ottoman in the centre of the room where Raoul 
 was perorating. She remained standing, her arm linked in 
 that of Mme. Octave de Camps, an excellent woman, who kept 
 the secret of the nervous quivering by which Marie betrayed 
 her strong emotion. Despite the sweet magic distilled from 
 the eye of the woman who loves or is startled into self-betrayal, 
 Raoul was just then entirely occupied with a regular display 
 of fireworks. He was far too busy letting off epigrams like 
 rockets, winding and unwinding indictments like Catherine- 
 wheels, and tracing blazing portaits in lines of fire, to notice 
 the naive admiration of a little Eve, lost in the crowd of 
 women surrounding him. The love of novelty which would 
 bring Paris flocking to the Zoological Gardens, if a unicorn 
 had been brought there from those famous Mountains of the 
 Moon, virgin yet of European tread, intoxicates minds of a 
 lower stamp, as much as it saddens the truly wise. Raoul was 
 enraptured and far too much engrossed with women in general 
 to pay attention to one woman in particular. 
 
 " Take care, dear, you had better come away," her fair 
 companion, sweetest of women, whispered to Marie. 
 
 The countess turned to her husband and, with one of those
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 43 
 
 speaking glances which husbands are sometimes slow in inter- 
 preting, begged for his arm. Felix led her away. 
 
 "Well, you are in luck, my good friend," said Mme. 
 d'Espard in Raoul's ear. "You've done execution in more 
 than one quarter to-night, and, best of all, with that charming 
 countess who has just left us so abruptly." 
 
 "Do you know what the Marquise d'Espard meant?" 
 asked Raoul of Blondet, repeating the great lady's remark, 
 when almost all the other guests had departed, between one 
 and two in the morning. 
 
 "Why, yes, I have just heard that the Comtesse de Van- 
 denesse has fallen wildly in love with you. Lucky dog ! " 
 
 ' I did not see her," said Raoul. 
 
 "Ah ! but you will see her, you rascal," said Emile Blon- 
 det, laughing. " Lady Dudley has invited you to her great 
 ball with the very purpose of bringing about a meeting." 
 
 Raoul and Blondet left together, and joining Rastignac, 
 who offered them a place in his carriage, the three made merry 
 over this conjunction of an eclectic under-secretary of State 
 with a fierce Republican and a political skeptic. 
 
 " Suppose we sup at the expense of law and order?" said 
 Blondet, who had a fancy for reviving the old-fashioned 
 supper. 
 
 Rastignac took them to Very's, and dismissed his carriage ; 
 the three then sat down to table and set themselves to pull 
 to pieces their contemporaries amidst Rabelaisian laughter. 
 During the course of supper Rastignac and Blondet urged 
 their counterfeit opponent not to neglect the magnificent op- 
 portunity thrown in his way. The story of Marie de Van- 
 denesse was caricatured by these two profligates, who applied 
 the scalpel of epigram and the keen edge of mockery to that 
 transparent childhood, that happy marriage. Blondet con- 
 gratulated Raoul on having found a woman who so far had 
 been guilty only of execrable red-chalk drawings and feeble 
 water-color landscapes, of embroidering slippers for her bus-
 
 44 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 band, and performing sonatas with a most lady-like absence 
 of passion ; a woman who had been tied for eighteen years to 
 her mother's apron-strings, pickled in devotion, trained by 
 Vandenesse, and cooked to a turn by marriage for the palate 
 of love. At the third bottle of champagne Raoul Nathan 
 became more expansive than he had ever shown himself before. 
 
 " My dear friends," he said, " you know my relations with 
 Florine, you know my life, you will not be surprised to hear 
 me confess that I have never yet seen the color of a countess' 
 love. It has often been a humiliating thought to me that only 
 in poetry could I find a Beatrice, a Laura ! A pure and noble 
 woman is like a spotless conscience, she raises us in our own 
 estimation. Elsewhere we may be soiled, with her we keep 
 our honor, pride, and purity. Elsewhere life is a wild frenzy, 
 with her we breathe the peace, the freshness, the bloom of the 
 oasis." 
 
 "Come, come, my good soul," said Rastignac, "shift the 
 prayer of Moses on to the high notes, as Paganini does." 
 
 Raoul sat speechless with fixed and besotted eyes. At last 
 he opened his mouth. 
 
 " This beast of a 'prentice minister does not understand 
 me!" 
 
 Thus, whilst the poor Eve of the Rue du Rocher went to 
 bed, swathed in shame, terrified at the delight which had filled 
 her while listening to this poetic pretender, hovering between 
 the stern voice of gratitude to Vandenesse and the flattering 
 tongue of the serpent, these three shameless spirits trampled 
 on the tender white blossoms of her opening love. Ah ! if 
 women knew how cynical those men can be behind their 
 backs, who show themselves all meekness and cajolery when 
 by their side ! if they knew how they mock their idols ! 
 Fresh, lovely, and timid creature, whose charms lie at the 
 mercy of some graceless buffoon! And yet she triumphs! 
 The more the veils are rent, the clearer her beauty shines. 
 
 Marie at this moment was comparing Raoul and F6lix, all-
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 46 
 
 ignorant of the danger to her heart in such a process. No 
 better contrast could be found to the robust and unconven- 
 tional Raoul than Felix de Vandenesse, with his clothes fit- 
 ting like a glove, the finish of a fine lady in his person, his 
 charming natural ease (disinvolturd), combined with a touch 
 of English refinement, picked up from Lady Dudley. A con- 
 trast like this pleases the fancy of a woman, ever ready to fly 
 from one extreme to another. The countess was too well- 
 principled and pious not to forbid her thoughts dwelling on 
 Raoul, and next day, in the heart of her paradise, she took 
 herself to task for base ingratitude. 
 
 "What do you think of Raoul Nathan?" she asked her 
 husband during lunch. 
 
 "He is a charlatan," replied the count; "one of those 
 volcanoes which a sprinkling of gold-dust will keep tranquil. 
 The Comtesse de Montcornet ought not to have had him at 
 her house." 
 
 This reply was the more galling to Marie because Felix, 
 who knew the literary world well, supported his verdict with 
 proofs drawn from the life of Raoul a life of shifts, in 
 which Florine, a well-known actress, played a large part. 
 
 " Granting the man has genius," he concluded, " he is 
 without the patience and persistency which make genius a 
 thing apart and sacred. He tries to impress people by assum- 
 ing a position which he cannot live up to. That is not the 
 behavior of really able men and students ; if they are honor- 
 able men they stick to their own line, and don't try to hide 
 their rags under frippery." 
 
 A woman's thought has marvelous elasticity ; it may sink 
 under a blow, to all appearance crushed, but in a given time 
 it is up again, as though nothing had happened. 
 
 "Felix must be right," was the first thought of the 
 countess. 
 
 Three days later, however, her mind traveled back to the 
 tempter, allured by that sweet yet ruthless emotion which it
 
 46 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 was the mistake of Vandenesse not to have aroused. The 
 count and countess went to Lady Dudley's great ball, where 
 de Marsay made his last appearance in society. Two months 
 later he died, leaving the reputation of a statesman so pro- 
 found that, as Blondet said, he was unfathomable. Here 
 Vandenesse and his wife again met Raoul Nathan, amid a 
 concourse of people made remarkable by the number of actors 
 in the political drama whom, to their mutual surprise, it 
 brought together. 
 
 It was one of the chief social functions in the great world. 
 The reception-rooms offered a magic picture to the eye. 
 Flowers, diamonds, shining hair, the plunder of countless 
 jewel-cases, every art of the toilet all contributed to the 
 effect. The room might be compared to one of those show 
 hot-houses where wealthy amateurs collect the most marvelous 
 varieties. There was the same brilliancy, the same delicacy 
 of texture. It seemed as though the art of man would com- 
 pete also with the animal world. On all sides fluttered gauze, 
 white or painted like the wings of prettiest dragon-fly, crepe, 
 lace, blonde, tulle, pucked, puffed, or notched, vying in 
 eccentricity of form with the freaks of nature in the insect 
 tribe. There were spider's threads in gold or silver, clouds 
 of silk, flowers which some fairy might have woven or 
 imprisoned spirit breathed into life ; feathers, whose rich tints 
 told of a tropical sun, drooping willow-like over haughty 
 heads; ropes of pearls, drapery in broad folds, ribbed or 
 slashed, as though the genius of arabesque had presided over 
 French millinery. 
 
 This splendor harmonized with the beauties gathered to- 
 gether as though to form a " keepsake." The eye roamed 
 over a wealth of fair shoulders in every tone of white that 
 man could conceive some amber-tinted, others glistening 
 like some glazed surface or glossy as satin, others, again, of a 
 rich lustreless color which the brush of Rubens might have 
 mixed. Then the eyes, sparkling like onyx stones or tur-
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 47 
 
 quoises, with their dark velvet edging or fair fringes ; and 
 profiles of every contour, recalling the noblest types of dif- 
 ferent lands. There were brows lofty with pride ; rounded 
 brows, index of thought within ; level brows, the seat of an 
 indomitable will. Lastly most bewitching of all in a scene 
 of such studied splendor necks and bosoms in the rich vo- 
 luptuous folds, adored by George IV., or with the more del- 
 icate modeling which found favor in the eighteenth century 
 and at the court of Louis XV.; but all, whatever the type, 
 frankly exhibited, either without drapery or through the 
 dainty plaited tuckers of Raphael's portraits, supreme triumph 
 of his laborious pupils. Prettiest of feet, itching for the 
 dance, figures yielding softly to the embrace of the waltz, 
 roused the most apathetic to attention ; murmurings of gentle 
 voices, rustling dresses, whispering partners, vibrations of the 
 dance, made a fantastic burden to the music. 
 
 A fairy's wand might have called forth this witchery, be- 
 wildering to the senses, the harmony of scents, the rainbow 
 tints flashing in the crystal candelabra, the blaze of the can- 
 dles, the mirrors which repeated the scene on every side. 
 The groups of lovely women in costly attire stood out against 
 a dark background of men, where might be observed the deli- 
 cate, regular features of the aristocracy, the tawny mustache 
 of the sedate Englishman, the gay, smiling countenance of 
 the French noble. Every European order glittered in the 
 room, some hanging from a collar on the breast, others dan- 
 gling by the side. 
 
 To a watchful observer the scene presented more than this 
 gaily decorated surface. It had a soul ; it lived, it thought, 
 it felt, it found expression in the hidden passions which now 
 and again forced their way to the surface. Now it would be 
 an interchange of malicious glances ; now some fair young 
 girl, carried away by excitement and novelty, would betray 
 a touch of passion ; jealous women talked scandal behind 
 their fans and paid each other extravagant compliments.
 
 48 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 Society, decked out, curled, and perfumed, abandoned itself 
 to that frenzy of the fete which goes to the head like the 
 fumes of wine. From every brow, as from every heart, 
 seemed to emanate sensations and thoughts, which, forming 
 together one potent influence, inflamed the most cold- 
 blooded. 
 
 It was the most exciting moment of this entrancing even- 
 ing. In a corner of the gilded drawing-room, where a few 
 bankers, ambassadors, and retired ministers, together with 
 that old reprobate, Lord Dudley (an unexpected arrival), 
 were seated at play, Mme. Felix de Vandenesse found herself 
 unable to resist the impulse to enter into conversation with 
 Nathan. She, too, may have been yielding to that ballroom 
 intoxication which has wrung many a confession from the 
 lips of the most coy. 
 
 The sight of this splendid pageant of a world to which he 
 was still a stranger stung Nathan to the heart with redoubled 
 ambition. He looked at Rastignac, whose brother, at the 
 age of twenty-seven, had just been made a bishop, and whose 
 brother-in-law, Martial de la Roche-Hugon, held office, while 
 he himself was an under-secretary of State, and about to marry, 
 as rumor said, the only daughter of the Baron de Nucingen. 
 He saw among the members of the diplomatic body an obscure 
 writer who used to translate foreign newspapers for a journal 
 that passed over to the reigning dynasty after 1830; he saw 
 leader-writers members of the Council and professors peers of 
 France. And he perceived, with bitterness, that he had taken 
 the wrong road in preaching the overthrow of an aristocracy 
 which counted among its ornaments the true nobility of fortu- 
 nate talent and successful scheming. Blondet, though still a 
 mere journalistic hack, was made much of in society, and had 
 it- yet in his power to strike the road to fortune by means of 
 his intimacy with Mme. de Montcornet. Blondet, therefore, 
 with all his ill-luck, was a striking example in Nathan's eyes 
 of the importance of having friends in high places. In the
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 49 
 
 depths of his heart he resolved upon following the example of 
 men like de Marsay, Rastignac, Blondet, and Talleyrand, the 
 leader of the sect. He would throw conviction to the winds, 
 paying allegiance only to accomplished facts, which he would 
 wrest to his own advantage ; no system should be to him more 
 than an instrument ; and on no account would he upset the 
 balance of a society so admirably constructed, so decorative, 
 and so consonant with nature. 
 
 " My future," he said to himself, "is in the hands of a 
 woman belonging to the great world." 
 
 Full of this thought, the outcome of a frantic cupidity, 
 Nathan pounced upon the Comtesse de Vandenesse like a 
 hawk upon its prey. She was looking charming in a head- 
 dress of marabout feathers, which produced the delicious 
 melting effect of Lawrence's portraits, well suited to her 
 gentle character. The fervid rhapsodies of the poet, crazed 
 by ambition, carried the sweet creature quite off her feet. 
 Lady Dudley, whose eye was everywhere, secured the ttte-a- 
 tte by handing over the Comte de Vandenesse to Mme. de 
 Manerville. It was the first time the parted lovers had spoken 
 face to face since their rupture. The woman, strong in the 
 habit of ascendency, caught Felix in the toils of a coquettish 
 controversy, with plenty of blushing confidences, regrets deftly 
 cast like flowers at his feet, and recriminations, where self- 
 defense was intended to stimulate reproach. 
 
 Whilst her husband's former mistress was raking among the 
 ashes of dead joys to find some spark of life, Mme. Felix de 
 Vandenesse experienced those violent heart-throbs which as- 
 sail a woman with the certainty of going astray and treading 
 forbidden paths. These emotions are not without fascination, 
 and rouse many dormant faculties. Now, as in the days of 
 Blue Beard, all women love to use the blood-stained key, 
 that splendid mythological symbol which is one of Perrault's 
 glories. 
 
 The dramatist, who knew his Shakespeare, unfolded the 
 4
 
 50 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 tale of his hardships, described his struggle with men and 
 things, opened up glimpses of his unstable success, his political 
 genius wasting in obscurity, his life unblessed by any generous 
 affection. Without a word directly to that effect, he conveyed 
 to this gracious lady the suggestion that she might play for 
 him the noble part of Rebecca in "Ivanhoe," might love and 
 shelter him. Not a syllable overstepped the pure regions of 
 sentiment. The blue of the forget-me-not, the white of the 
 lily, are not more pure than were his flowers of rhetoric and 
 the things signified by them ; the radiance of a seraph lighted 
 the brow of this artist, who might yet utilize his discourse 
 with a publisher. He acquitted himself well of the serpent's 
 part, and flashed before the eyes of the countess the tempting 
 colors of the fatal fruit. Marie left the ball consumed by 
 remorse, which was akin to hope, thrilled by compliments 
 flattering to her vanity, and agitated to the remotest corner 
 of her heart. Her very goodness was her snare ; she could 
 not resist her own pity for the unfortunate. 
 
 Whether Mme. de Manerville brought Vandenesse to the 
 room where his wife was talking with Nathan, whether he 
 came there of his own accord, or whether the conversation 
 had roused in him a slumbering pain, the fact remains, what- 
 ever the cause, that, when his wife came to ask for his arm, 
 she found him gloomy and abstracted. The countess was 
 afraid she had been seen. As soon as she was alone with 
 Felix in the carriage, she threw him a smile full of meaning, 
 and began 
 
 " Was not that Madame de Manerville with whom you were 
 talking, dear?" 
 
 Felix had not yet gotten clear of the thorny ground, through 
 which his wife's neat little attack marched him, when the 
 carriage stopped at their door. It was the first stratagem 
 prompted by love. Marie was delighted to have gotten the 
 better of a man whom till then she thought so superior. She 
 tasted for the first time the joy of victory at a critical moment.
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 51 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 FLORINE. 
 
 In a passage between the Rue Basse-du-Rempart and the 
 Rue Neuve-des-Mathurins, Raoul had one or two bare, cold 
 rooms on the fourth floor of a thin, ugly house. This was his 
 abode for the general public, for literary novices, creditors, 
 intruders, and the whole race of bores who were not allowed 
 to cross the threshold of private life. His real home, which 
 was the stage of his wider life and public appearances, he 
 made with Florine, a second-rate actress who, ten years before, 
 had been raised to the rank of a great dramatic artist by the 
 combined efforts of Nathan's friends, the newspaper critics, 
 and a few literary men. 
 
 For ten years Raoul had been so closely attached to this 
 woman, that he spent half his life in her house, taking his 
 meals there whenever he had no engagements outside nor 
 friends to entertain. Florine, to a finished depravity, added 
 a very pretty wit, which constant intercourse with artists and 
 daily practice had developed and sharpened. Wit is generally 
 supposed to be a rare quality among actors. It seems an easy 
 inference that those who spend their lives in bringing the out- 
 side to perfection should have little left with which to furnish 
 the interior. But any one who considers the small number of 
 actors and actresses in a century, compared with the quantity 
 of dramatic authors and attractive women produced by the 
 same population, will see reason to dispute this notion. It 
 rests, in fact, on the common assumption that personal feeling 
 must disappear in the imitative expression of passion, whereas 
 the real fact is that intelligence, memory, and imagination are 
 the only powers employed in such imitation. Great artists 
 are those who, according to Napoleon's definition, can inter- 
 cept at will the communication established by nature between
 
 52 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 sensation and thought. Moliere and Talma loved more pas- 
 sionately in their old age than is usual with ordinary mortals. 
 
 Florine's position forced her to listen to the talk of alert and 
 calculating journalists and to the prophecies of garrulous 
 literary men, while keeping an eye on certain politicians who 
 used her house as a means of profiting by the sallies of her 
 guests. The mixture of angel and demon which she embodied 
 made her a fitting hostess for these profligates, who reveled 
 in her impudence and found unfailing amusement in the per- 
 versity of her mind and heart. 
 
 Her house, enriched with offerings from admirers, displayed 
 in its exaggerated magnificence an entire regardlessness of 
 cost. Women of this type set a purely arbitrary value on their 
 possessions ; in a fit of temper they will smash a fan or a scent- 
 bottle worthy of a queen, and they will be inconsolable if 
 anything happens to a ten-franc basin which their lap-dogs 
 drink out of. The dining-room, crowded with rare and costly 
 gifts, may serve as a specimen of the regal and insolent pro- 
 fusion of the establishment. 
 
 The whole room, including the ceiling, was covered with 
 carved oak, left unstained, and set off with lines of dull gold. 
 In the panels, encircled by groups of children playing with 
 chimeras, were placed the lights, which illuminated here a 
 rough sketch by Decamps ; there a plaster angel holding a 
 basin of holy water, a present from Antonin Moine ; further 
 on a dainty picture of Eugene Deveria ; the sombre figure of 
 some Spanish alchemist by Louis Boulanger; an autograph 
 letter from Lord Byron to Caroline in an ebony frame, carved 
 by Elschoet, with a letter of Napoleon to Josephine to match 
 it. The things were arranged without any view to symmetry, 
 and yet with a sort of unstudied art ; the whole effect took 
 one, as it were, by storm. There was a union of carelessness 
 and a desire to please, such as can only be found in the homes 
 of artists. The exquisitely carved mantelpiece was bare ex- 
 cept for a whimsical Florentine statue in ivory, attributed to
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 53 
 
 Michael Angelo, representing a Pan discovering a woman dis- 
 guised as a young herd, the original of which is at the Treasury 
 in Vienna. On either side of this hung an iron candelabrum, 
 the work of some Renaissance chisel. A Boule timepiece on 
 a tortoise-shell bracket, lacquered with copper arabesques, 
 glittered in the middle of a panel between two statuettes, 
 survivals from some ruined abbey. In the corners of the room 
 on pedestals stood gorgeously resplendent lamps the fee paid 
 by some maker to Florine for trumpeting his wares among her 
 friends, who were assured that Japanese pots, with rich fit- 
 tings, made the only possible stand for lamps. On a mar- 
 velous whatnot lay a display of silver, well-earned trophy of a 
 combat in which some English lord had been forced to ac- 
 knowledge the superiority of the French nation. Next came 
 porcelain reliefs. The whole room displayed the charming 
 profusion of an artist whose furniture represents all his 
 capital. 
 
 The bedroom, in violet, was a young ballet-girl's dream : 
 velvet curtains, lined with silk, were draped over inner folds 
 of tulle ; the ceiling was in white cashmere relieved with violet 
 silk ; at the foot of the bed lay an ermine rug ; within the 
 bed-curtains, which fell in the form of an inverted lily, hung 
 a lantern by which to read the proofs of next day's papers. 
 A yellow drawing-room, enriched with ornaments the color 
 of Florentine bronze, carried out the same impression of mag- 
 nificence, but a detailed description would make these pages 
 too much of a broker's inventory. To find anything com- 
 parable to these treasures, it would be necessary to visit the 
 Rothschilds' house close by. 
 
 Sophie Grignoult, who, following the usual custom of tak- 
 ing a stage name, was known as Florine, had made her debut, 
 beautiful as she was, in a subordinate capacity. Her triumph 
 and her wealth she owed to Raoul Nathan. The association 
 of these two careers, common enough in the dramatic and 
 literary world, did not injure Raoul, who, in his character as
 
 54 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 a. man of high pretensions, respected the proprieties. Never- 
 theless, Florine's fortune was far from assured. Her profes- 
 sional income, arising from her salary and what she could earn 
 in her holidays, barely sufficed for dress and housekeeping. 
 Nathan helped her with contributions levied on new ventures 
 in trade, and was always chivalrous and ready to act as her 
 protector; but the support he gave was neither regular nor 
 solid. This instability, this hand-to-mouth life, had no terrors 
 for Florine. She believed in her talent and her beauty ; and 
 this robust faith had something comic in it for those who 
 heard her, in answer to remonstrances, mortgaging her future 
 on such security. 
 
 " I can live on my means whenever I like," she would say ; 
 "I have fifty francs in the Funds now." 
 
 No one could understand how, with her beauty, Florine 
 had remained seven years in obscurity; but, as a matter of 
 fact, she was enrolled as a supernumerary at the age of thir- 
 teen, and made her debut two yea'rs later in a humble theatre 
 on the boulevards. At fifteen, beauty and talent do not exist ; 
 there can only be promise of the coming woman. She was 
 now twenty-eight, an age which with Frenchwomen is the 
 culminating point of their beauty. Painters admired most 
 of all her shoulders, glossy white, with olive tints about the 
 back of the neck, but firm and polished, reflecting the light 
 like watered silk. When she turned her head, the neck 
 made magnificent curves in which sculptors delighted. On 
 this neck rose the small, imperious head of a Roman empress, 
 graceful and finely moulded, round and self-assertive, like that 
 of Poppaea. The features were correct, yet expressive, and 
 the unlined forehead was that of an easy-going woman who 
 takes all trouble lightly, yet can be obstinate as a mule on 
 occasion and deaf to all reason. This forehead, with its pure 
 unbroken sweep, gave value to the lovely flaxen hair, gener- 
 ally raised in front, in Roman fashion, in two equal masses 
 and twisted into a high knot at the back, so as to prolong the
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 55 
 
 curve of the neck and bring out its whiteness. Dark, delicate 
 eyebrows, such as a Chinese artist pencils, framed the heavy 
 lids, covered with a network of tiny pink veins. The pupils, 
 sparkling with fire but spotted with patches of brown, gave to 
 her look the fierce fixity of a wild beast, emblematic of the 
 courtesan's cold heartlessness. The lovely gazelle-like iris 
 was a beautiful gray, and fringed with black lashes, a bewitch- 
 ing contrast which brought out yet more strikingly the expres- 
 sion of calm and expectant desire. Darker tints encircled 
 the eyes ; but it was the artistic finish with which she used 
 them that was most remarkable. Those darting, sidelong 
 glances which nothing escaped, the upward gaze of her 
 dreamy pose, the way she had of keeping the iris fixed, while 
 charging it with the most intense passion and without moving 
 the head or stirring a muscle of the face a trick, this, 
 learned on the stage the keen sweep which would embrace a 
 whole room to find out the man she wanted these were the 
 arts which made of her eyes the most terrible, the sweetest, 
 the strangest in the world. 
 
 Rouge had spoilt the delicate transparency of her soft 
 cheeks. But if it was beyond her power to blush or grow 
 pale, she had a slender nose, indented by pink, quivering 
 nostrils, which seemed to breathe the sarcasm and mockery of 
 Moliere's waiting-maids. Her mouth, sensual and luxurious, 
 lending itself to irony as readily as to love, owed much of its 
 beauty to the finely-cut edges of the little groove joining the 
 upper lip to the nose. Her white, rather fleshy, chin por- 
 tended storms in love. Her hands and arms might have been 
 an empress'. But the feet were short and thick, ineradicable 
 sign of low birth. Never had heritage wrought more woe. 
 In her efforts to change it, Florine had stopped short only at 
 amputation. But her feet were obstinate, like the Bretons 
 from whom she sprang, and refused to yield to any science or 
 manipulation. Florine therefore wore long boots, stuffed 
 with cotton, to give her an arched instep. She was of medium
 
 56 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 height, and threatened with corpulence, but her figure still 
 kept its curves and precision. 
 
 Morally, she was past mistress in all the airs and graces, 
 tantrums, quips, and caresses of her trade ; but she gave them 
 a special character by affecting childishness and edging in a 
 sly thrust under cover of innocent laughter. With all her 
 apparent ignorance and giddiness, she was at home in the 
 mysteries of discount and commercial law. She had waded 
 through so many bad times to reach her day of precarious 
 triumph ! She had descended, story by story, to the first 
 floor, through such a coil of intrigue ! She knew life under 
 so many forms ; from that which dines off bread and cheese 
 to that which toys listlessly with apricot fritters ; from that 
 which does its cooking and washing in the corner of a garret 
 with an earthen stove to that which summons its vassal host 
 of big-paunched chefs and impudent scullions. She had in- 
 dulged in credit without killing it. She knew everything of 
 which good women are ignorant, and could speak all lan- 
 guages. A child of the people by her origin, the refinement 
 of her beauty allied her to the upper classes. She was hard 
 to overreach and impossible to mystify ; for, like spies, barris- 
 ters, and those who have grown old in statecraft, she kept an 
 open mind for every possibility. She knew how to deal with 
 tradespeople and their little tricks, and could quote prices 
 with an auctioneer. Lying back, like some fair young bride, 
 on her couch, with the part she was learning in her hand, she 
 might have passed for a guileless and ignorant girl of sixteen, 
 protected only by her innocence. But let some important 
 creditor arrive, and she was on her feet like a startled fawn, a 
 good round oath upon her lips. 
 
 " My good fellow," she would address him, " your insolence 
 is really too high an interest on my debt. I am tired of the 
 sight of you ; go and send the bailiffs. Rather them than 
 your imbecile face." 
 
 Florine gave charming dinners, concerts, and crowded
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 57 
 
 receptions, where the play was very high. Her women friends 
 were all beautiful. Never had an old woman been seen at her 
 parties ; she was entirely free from jealousy, which seemed to 
 her a confession of weakness. Among her old acquaintances 
 were Coralie and la Torpille ; among those of the day, the 
 Tullias, Euphrasie, the Aquilinas, Madame du Val-Noble, and 
 Mariette those women who float through Paris like threads 
 of gossamer in the air, no one knowing whence they come or 
 whither they go ; queens to-day, to-morrow drudges. Her 
 rivals, too, came, actresses and singers, the whole company, 
 in short, of that unique feminine world, so kindly and gra- 
 cious in its recklessness, whose bohemian life carries away with 
 its dash, its spirit, its scorn of to-morrow, the men who join 
 the frenzied dance. Though in Florine's house bohemianism 
 flourished unchecked to a chorus of gay artists, the mistress 
 had all her wits about her, and could use them as could none 
 of her guests. Secret saturnalia of literature and art were 
 held there side by side with politics and finance. There 
 passion reigned supreme ; there temper and the whim of the 
 moment received the reverence which a simple society pays 
 to honor and virtue. There might be seen Blondet, Finot, 
 Etienne Lousteau (her seventh lover who believed himself to 
 be the first), Felicien Vernou the journalist, Couture, Bixiou, 
 Rastignac formerly, Claud Vignon the critic, Nucingen the 
 banker, du Tillet, Conti the composer ; in a word, the whole 
 diabolic legion of ferocious egotists in every walk of life. 
 There also came the friends of the singers, dancers, and act- 
 resses whom Florine knew. 
 
 Every member of this society hated or loved every other 
 member according to circumstances. This house of call, open 
 to celebrities of every kind, was a sort of brothel of wit, a 
 galleys of the mind. Not a guest there but had filched his 
 fortune within the four corners of' the law, had worked 
 through ten years of squalor, had strangled two or three love 
 affairs, and had made his mark, whether by a book or a vest,
 
 58 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 a drama or a carriage-and pair. Their time was spent in 
 hatching mischief, in exploring roads to wealth, in ridiculing 
 popular outbreaks, which they had incited the day before, 
 and in studying the fluctuations of the money market. Each 
 man, as he left the house, donned again the livery of his be- 
 liefs, which he had cast aside on entering in order to abuse at 
 his ease his own party, and admire the strategy and skill of 
 its opponents, to put in plain words thoughts which men keep 
 to themselves, to practice, in fine, that license of speech 
 which goes with license in action. Paris is the one place in 
 the world where houses of this eclectic sort exist, in which 
 every taste, every vice, every opinion, finds a welcome, so 
 long as it comes in decent garb. 
 
 It remains to be said that Florine is still a second-rate 
 actress. Further, her life is neither an idle nor an enviable 
 one. Many people, deluded by the splendid vantage-ground 
 which the theatre gives to a woman, imagine her to live in a 
 perpetual carnival. How many a poor girl, buried in some 
 porter's lodge or under an attic roof, dreams on her return 
 from the theatre of pearls and diamonds, of dresses bedecked 
 with gold and rich sashes ; and pictures herself, the glitter of 
 the footlights on her hair, applauded, purchased, worshiped, 
 carried off. And not one of them knows the facts of that 
 treadmill existence, how an actress is forced to attend re- 
 hearsals under penalty of a fine, to read plays, and perpetually 
 study new parts, at a time when two or three hundred pieces 
 a year are played in Paris. In the course of each performance, 
 Florine changes her dress two or three times, and often she 
 returns to her dressing-room half-dead with exhaustion. Then 
 she has to get rid of the red or white paint with the aid of 
 plentiful cosmetics, and dust the powder out of her hair, if 
 she has been playing an eighteenth-century part. Barely has 
 she time to dine. When she is playing, an actress can neither 
 lace her stays, nor eat, nor talk. For supper, again, Florine 
 has no time. On returning from a performance, which now-
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 59 
 
 a-days is not over till past midnight, she has her toilet for the 
 night to make and orders to give. After going to bed at one 
 or two in the morning, she has to be up in time to revise her 
 parts, to order her dresses, to explain them and try them on ; 
 then lunch, read her love-letters, reply to them, transact busi- 
 ness with her hired applauders, so that she may be properly 
 greeted on entering and leaving the stage, and, while paying 
 the bill for her triumphs of the past month, order wholesale 
 those of the present. In the days of Saint Genest, a canon- 
 ized actor, who neglected no means of grace and wore a hair- 
 shirt, the stage, we must suppose, did not demand this relent- 
 less activity. Often Florine is forced to feign an illness if 
 she wants to go into the country and pick flowers like an 
 ordinary mortal. 
 
 Yet these purely mechanical occupations are nothing in 
 comparison with the mental worries, arising from intrigues to 
 be conducted, annoyances to vanity, preferences shown by 
 authors, competition for parts, with its triumphs and dis- 
 appointments, unreasonable actors, ill-natured rivals, and the 
 importunities of managers and critics, all of which demand 
 another twenty-four hours in the day. 
 
 And, lastly, there is the art itself and all the difficulties it 
 involves the interpretation of passion, details of mimicry, 
 and stage effects, with thousands of opera-glasses ready to 
 pounce on the slightest flaw in the most brilliant presentment. 
 These are the things which wore away the life and energy of 
 Talma, Lekain, Baron, Contat, Clairon, Champmesle'. In 
 the pandemonium of the greenroom self-love is sexless ; the 
 successful artist, man or woman, has all other men and women 
 for enemies. 
 
 As to profits, however handsome Florine's salaries may be, 
 they do not cover the cost of the stage finery, which not to 
 speak of costumes demands an enormous expenditure in long 
 gloves and shoes, and does not do away with the necessity for 
 evening and visiting dresses. One-third of such a life is spent
 
 60 A DAUGHTER Of EVE. 
 
 in begging favors, another in making sure the ground already 
 won, and the remainder in repelling attacks ; but all alike is 
 work. If it contains also moments of intense happiness, that 
 is because happiness here is rare and stolen, long waited a 
 chance godsend amid the hateful grind of forced pleasure and 
 stage smiles. 
 
 To Florine, Raoul's power was a sovereign protection. He 
 saved her many a vexation and worry, in the fashion of a great 
 noble of former days defending his mistress ; or, to take a 
 modern instance, like the old men who go on their knees to 
 the editor when their idol has been scarified by some five- 
 centime print. He was more than a lover to her ; he was a 
 staff to lean on. She tended him like a father, and deceived 
 him like a husband ; but there was nothing in the world she 
 would not have sacrificed for him. Raoul was indispensable 
 to her artistic vanity, to the tranquillity of her self-esteem, and 
 to her dramatic future. Without the intervention of some 
 great writer, no great actress can be produced ; we owe la 
 Champmesle to Racine, as we owe Mars to Monvel and 
 Andrieux. Florine, on her side, could do nothing for Raoul, 
 much as she would have liked to be useful or necessary to 
 him. She counted on the seductions of habit, and was always 
 ready to open her rooms and offer the profusion of her table 
 to help his plans or his friends. In fact, she aspired to be for 
 him what Madame de Pompadour was for Louis XV.; and 
 there were actresses who envied her position, just as there 
 were journalists who would have changed places with Raoul. 
 
 Now, those who know the bent of the human mind to op- 
 position and contrast will easily understand that Raoul, after 
 ten years of this rakish bohemian life, should weary of its ups 
 and downs, its revelry and its writs, its orgies and its fasts, 
 and should feel drawn to a pure and innocent love, as well as 
 to the gentle harmony of a great lady's existence. In the 
 same way, the Comtesse Felix longed to introduce the tor- 
 ments of passion into a life the bliss of which had cloyed
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 61 
 
 through its sameness. This law of life is the law of all art, 
 which exists only through contrast. A work produced inde- 
 pendently of such aid is the highest expression of genius, as 
 the cloister is the highest effort of Christianity. 
 
 Raoul, on returning home, found a note from Florine, which 
 her maid had brought, but was too sleepy to read it. He 
 went to bed in the restful satisfaction of a tender love, which 
 had so far been lacking to his life. A few hours later, he 
 found important news in this letter, news of which neither 
 Rastignac nor de Marsay had dropped a hint. Florine had 
 learned from some indiscreet friend that the Chamber was to 
 be dissolved at the close of the session. Raoul at once went 
 to Florine's, and sent for Blondet to meet him there. 
 
 In Florine's boudoir, their feet upon the fire-dogs, Emile 
 and Raoul dissected the political situation of France in 1834. 
 On what side lay the best chance for a man who wanted to 
 get on ? Every shade of opinion was passed in review Re- 
 publicans pure and simple, Republicans with a president, Re- 
 publicans without a republic, Dynastic Constitutionalists and 
 Constitutionalists without a dynasty, Conservative Ministeri- 
 alists and Absolutist Ministerialists ; lastly, the compromising 
 right, the aristocratic right, the Legitimist right, the Henri- 
 quinquist right, and the Carlist right. As between the party 
 of obstruction and the party of progress there could be no 
 question ; as well might one hesitate between life and death. 
 
 The vast number of newspapers at this time in circulation, 
 representing different shades of party, was significant of the 
 chaotic confusion the "slush," as it might vulgarly be called 
 to which politics were reduced. Blondet, the man of his 
 day with most judgment, although, like a barrister unable to 
 plead his own cause, he could use it only on behalf of others, 
 was magnificent in these friendly discussions. His advice to 
 Nathan was not to desert abruptly. 
 
 " It was Napoleon who said that young republics cannot be 
 made out of old monarchies. Therefore, do you, my friend,
 
 62 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 become the hero, the pillar, the creator of a Left Centre in the 
 next Chamber, and a political future is before you. Once 
 past the barrier, once in the Ministry, a man can do what he 
 pleases, he can wear the winning colors." 
 
 Nathan decided to start a political daily paper, of which he 
 should have the complete control, and to affiliate to it one of 
 those small society sheets with which the press swarmed, estab- 
 lishing at the same time a connection with some magazine. 
 The press had been the mainspring of so many fortunes around 
 him that Nathan refused to listen to Blondet's warnings against 
 trusting to it. In Blondet's opinion, the speculation was un- 
 safe, because of the multitude of competing papers, and be- 
 cause the power of the press seemed to him used up. Raoul, 
 strong in his supposed friends and in his courage, was keen to 
 go forward ; with a gesture of pride he sprang to his feet and 
 exclaimed 
 
 "I shall succeed!" 
 
 " You haven't a penny ! " 
 
 "I shall write a play! " 
 
 "It will fall dead." 
 
 "Let it," said Nathan. 
 
 He paced up and down Florine's room, followed by Blondet, 
 who thought he had gone crazy ; he cast covetous glances on 
 the costly treasures piled up around ; then Blondet under- 
 stood him. 
 
 "There's more than one hundred thousand francs' worth 
 here," said Emile. 
 
 "Yes," said Raoul, with a sigh toward Florine's sumptuous 
 bed ; " but I would sell patent safety-chains on the boulevards 
 and live on fried potatoes all my life rather than sell a single 
 patera from these rooms." 
 
 " Not one patera, no," said Blondet, " but the whole lot ! 
 Ambition is like death ; it clutches all because life, it knows, 
 is hounding it on." 
 
 " No ! a thousand times, no ! I would accept anything
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 63 
 
 from that countess of yesterday, but to rob Florine of her 
 nest?" 
 
 "To overthrow one's mint," said Blondet, with a tragic 
 air, " to smash up the coining-press, and break the stamp, is 
 certainly serious." 
 
 "From what I can gather, you are abandoning the stage 
 for politics," said Florine, suddenly breaking in on them. 
 
 "Yes, my child, yes," said Raoul good-naturedly, putting 
 his arm round her neck and kissing her forehead* "Why 
 that frown ? It will be no loss to you. Won't the minister be 
 better placed then the journalist for getting a first-rate engage- 
 ment for the queen of the boards ? You will still have your 
 parts and your holidays." 
 
 " Where is the money to come from ? " she asked. 
 
 " From my uncle," replied Raoul. 
 
 Florine knew this "uncle." The word meant a money- 
 lender, just as " my aunt " was the vulgar name for a pawn- 
 broker. 
 
 " Don't bother yourself, my pretty one," said Blondet to 
 Florine, patting her on the shoulder. "I will get Massol to 
 help him. He's a barrister, and, like the rest of them, intends 
 to have a turn at being Minister of Justice. Then there's du 
 Tillet, who wants a seat in the Chamber ; Finot, who is still 
 backing a society paper; Plantin, who has his eye on a post 
 under the Conseil d'Etat, and who has some share in a maga- 
 zine. No fear ! I won't let him ruin himself. We will get 
 a meeting here with Etienne Lousteau, who will do the light 
 stuff, and Claud Vignon for the serious criticism. Felicien 
 Vernou will be the charwoman of the paper, the barrister will 
 sweat for it, du Tillet will look after trade and the Exchange, 
 and we shall see where this union of determined men and 
 their tools will land us." 
 
 "In the workhouse or on the Government bench, those 
 refuges for the ruined in body or mind," said Raoul. 
 
 " What about the dinner ? "
 
 64 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 "We'll have it here," said Raoul, " five days hence." 
 
 " Let me know how much you need," said Florine simply. 
 
 " Why, the barrister, du Tillet, and Raoul can't start with 
 less than one hundred thousand francs a-piece," said Blondet. 
 " That will run the paper very well for eighteen months, time 
 enough to make a hit or miss in Paris." 
 
 Florine made a gesture of approval. The two friends then 
 took a coach and set out in quest of guests, pens, ideas, and 
 sources of support. The beautiful actress on her part sent for 
 four dealers in furniture, curiosities, pictures, and jewelry. 
 The dealers, who were all men of substance, entered the 
 sanctuary and made an inventory of its whole contents, just 
 as though Florine were dead. She threatened them with a 
 public auction in case they hardened their hearts in hope of a 
 better opportunity. She had, she told them, excited the 
 admiration of an English lord in a mediaeval part, and she 
 wished to dispose of all her personal property, in order that 
 her apparently destitute condition might move him to present 
 her with a splendid house, which she would furnish as a rival 
 to Rothschild's. With all her arts, she only succeeded in 
 getting an offer of seventy thousand francs for the whole of 
 the spoil, which was well worth one hundred and fifty thou- 
 sand. Florine, who did not care a button for the things, 
 promised they should be handed over in seven days for eighty 
 thousand francs. 
 
 "You can take it or leave it," she said. 
 
 The bargain was concluded. When the dealers had gone, 
 the actress skipped for joy, like the little hills of King David. 
 She could not contain herself for delight ; never had she 
 dreamed of such wealth. When Raoul returned, she pretended 
 to be offended with him, and declared that she was deserted. 
 She saw through it all now ; men don't change their party or 
 leave the stage for the Chamber without some reason. There 
 must be a rival ! Her instinct told her so ! Vows of eternal 
 love rewarded her little comedy.
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 65 
 
 Five days later, Florine gave a magnificent entertainment. 
 The ceremony of christening the paper was then performed 
 amidst floods of wine and wit, oaths of fidelity, of good fellow- 
 ship, and of serious alliance. The name, forgotten now, like 
 the "Liberal," the "Communal," the " Departemental," 
 the "Garde National," the "Federal," the "Impartial," 
 was something which ended in al, and was bound not to take. 
 Descriptions of banquets have been so numerous in a literary 
 period which had more first-hand experience of starving in 
 an attic, that it would be difficult to do justice to Florine's. 
 Suffice it to say that, at three in the morning, Florine was 
 able to undress and go to bed as if she had been alone, though 
 not one of her guests had left. These lights of their age were 
 sleeping like pigs. When, early in the morning, the packers, 
 commissionaires, and porters arrived to carry off the gorgeous 
 trappings of the famous actress, she laughed aloud to see them 
 lifting these celebrities like heavy pieces of furniture and de- 
 positing them on the floor. 
 
 Thus the splendid collection went its way. 
 
 Florine carried her personal remembrances to stores where 
 the sight of them did not enlighten passers-by as to how and 
 when these flowers of luxury had been paid for. It was agreed 
 to leave her until the evening a few specially reserved articles, 
 including her bed, her table, and her crockery, so that she 
 might offer breakfast to her guests. These witty gentlemen, 
 having falling asleep under the beauteous drapery of wealth, 
 awoke to the cold, naked walls of poverty, studded with nail- 
 marks and disfigured by those incongruous patches which are 
 found at the back of wall decorations, as ropes behind an 
 opera scene. 
 
 " Why, Florine, the poor girl has an execution in the 
 house!" cried Bixiou, one of the guests. "Quick! your 
 pockets, gentlemen ! A subscription ! " 
 
 At these words the whole company was on foot. The net 
 sweepings of the pockets came to thirty-seven francs, which 
 5
 
 66 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 Raoul handed over with mock ceremony to the laughing 
 Florine. The happy courtesan raised her head from the pil- 
 low and pointed to a heap of bank-notes on the sheet, thick as 
 in the golden days of her trade. Raoul called Blondet. 
 
 "I see it now," said Blondet. "The little rogue has sold 
 off without a word to us. Well done, Florine ! " 
 
 Delighted with this stroke, the few friends who remained 
 carried Florine in triumph and deshabille to the dining-room. 
 The barrister and the bankers had gone. That evening Florine 
 had a tremendous reception at the theatre. The rumor of her 
 sacrifice was all over the house. 
 
 "I should prefer to be applauded for my talent," said 
 Florine's rival to her in the greenroom. 
 
 " That is very natural on the part of an artist who has never 
 yet won applause except for the lavishness of her favors," she 
 replied. 
 
 During the evening Florine's maid had her things moved 
 to Raoul's flat in the Passage Sandrie. The journalist was to 
 pitch his camp in the building where the newspaper office was 
 opened. 
 
 Such was the rival of the ingenuous Mme. de Vandenesse. 
 Raoul's fancy was a link binding the actress to the lady of 
 title. It was a ghastly tie like this which was severed by that 
 Duchess of Louis XIV. 's time who poisoned Lecouvreur; nor 
 can such an act of vengeance be wondered at, considering the 
 magnitude of the offense, 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 LOVE VERSUS SOCIETY. 
 
 Florine proved no difficulty in the early stages of Raoul's 
 passion. Foreseeing financial disappointments in the hazard- 
 ous scheme into which he had plunged, she begged leave of 
 absence for six months. Raoul took an active part in the
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 67 
 
 negotiation, and by bringing it to a successful issue still further 
 endeared himself to Florine. With the good sense of the 
 peasant in La Fontaine's fable, who makes sure of his dinner 
 while the patricians are chattering over plans, the actress 
 hurried off to the provinces and abroad, to glean the where- 
 withal to support the great man during his place-hunting. 
 
 Up to the present time the art of fiction has seldom dealt 
 with love as it shows itself in the highest society, a compound 
 of noble impulse and hidden wretchedness. There is a terri- 
 ble strain in the constant check imposed on passion by the 
 most trivial and trumpery incidents, and not infrequently the 
 thread snaps from sheer lassitude. Perhaps some glimpse of 
 what it means may be obtained here. 
 
 The day after Lady Dudley's ball, although nothing ap- 
 proaching a declaration had escaped on either side, Marie 
 felt that Raoul's love was the realization of her dreams, and 
 Raoul had no doubt that he was the chosen of Marie's heart. 
 Neither of. the two had reached that point of depravity where 
 preliminaries are curtailed, and yet they advanced rapidly 
 toward the end. Raoul, sated with pleasure, was in the mood 
 for Platonic affection ; whilst Marie, from whom the idea of 
 an actual fault was still remote, had never contemplated pass- 
 ing beyond it. Never, therefore, was love more pure and 
 innocent in fact, or more impassioned and rapturous in thought, 
 than this of Raoul and Marie. The countess had been fasci- 
 nated by ideas which, though clothed in modern dress, belonged 
 to the times of chivalry. In her role, as she conceived it, 
 her husband's dislike to Nathan no longer appeared an obstacle 
 to her love. The less Raoul merited esteem, the nobler was 
 her mission. The inflated language of the poet stirred her 
 imagination rather than her blood. It was charity which 
 wakened at the call of passion. This queen of the virtues lent 
 what in the eyes of the countess seemed almost a sanction to 
 the tremors, the delights, the turbulence of her love. She 
 felt it a fine thing to be the human providence of Raoul.
 
 68 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 How sweet to think of supporting with her feeble, white hand 
 this colossal figure, whose feet of clay she refused to see, of 
 sowing life where none had been, of working in secret at the 
 foundation of a great destiny. With her help this man of 
 genius should wrestle with and overcome his fate ; her hand 
 should embroider his scarf for the tourney, buckle on his 
 armor, give him a charm against sorcery, and balm for all his 
 wounds. 
 
 In a woman with Marie's noble nature and religious up- 
 bringing this passionate charity was the only form love could 
 assume. Hence her boldness. The pure in mind have a 
 superb disdain for appearances, which may be mistaken for 
 the shamelessness of the courtesan. No sooner had the 
 countess assured herself by casuistical arguments that her 
 husband's honor ran no risk, than she abandoned herself com- 
 pletely to the bliss of loving Raoul. The most trivial things 
 in life had now a charm for her. The boudoir in which she 
 dreamed of him became a sanctuary. Even her pretty 
 writing-table recalled to her the countless joys of correspond- 
 ence ; there she would have to read, to hide, his letters; 
 there reply to them. Dress, that splendid poem of a woman's 
 life, the significance of which she had either exhausted or 
 ignored, now appeared to her full of a magic hitherto un- 
 known. Suddenly it became to her what it is to all women 
 a continuous expression of the inner thought, a language, a 
 symbol. What wealth of delight in a costume designed for 
 his pleasure, in his honor ! She threw herself with all sim- 
 plicity into those charming nothings which make the business 
 of a Paris woman's life, and which charge with meaning 
 every detail in her house, her person, her clothes. Rare 
 indeed are the women who frequent dress stores, milliners, 
 and fashionable tailors simply for their own pleasure. As 
 they become old they cease to think of dress. Scrutinize the 
 face which in passing you see for a moment arrested before a 
 store-front: "Would he like me better in this?" are the
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 69 
 
 words written plain in the clearing brow, in eyes sparkling 
 with hope, and in the beaming, angelic smile that plays upon 
 the lips. 
 
 Lady Dudley's ball took place on a Saturday evening; on 
 the Monday the countess went to the opera, allured by the 
 certainty of seeing Raoul. Raoul, in fact, was there, planted 
 on one of the staircases which lead down to the amphitheatre 
 stalls. He lowered his eyes as the countess entered her box. 
 With what ecstasy did Mme. de Vandenesse observe the un- 
 wonted carefulness of her lover's attire ! This contemner of 
 the laws of elegance might be seen with well-brushed hair, 
 which shone with scent in the recesses of every curl, a fashion- 
 able vest, a well-fastened tie, and an immaculate shirt-front. 
 Under the yellow gloves, which were the order of the day, his 
 hands showed very white. Raoul kept his arms crossed over 
 his breast, as though posing for his portrait, superbly indifferent 
 to the whole house, which murmured with barely restrained 
 impatience. His eyes, though bent on the ground, seemed 
 turned toward the red velvet bar on which Marie's arm rested. 
 Felix, seated in the opposite corner of the box, had his back 
 to Nathan. The countess had been adroit enough to place 
 herself so that she looked straight down on the pillar against 
 which Raoul leaned. In a single hour, then, Marie had 
 brought this clever man to abjure his cynicism in dress. The 
 humblest, as well as the most distinguished, woman must feel 
 her head turned by the first open declaration of her power in 
 such a transformation. Every change is a confession of servi- 
 tude. 
 
 " They were right, there is a great happiness in being un- 
 derstood," she said to herself, calling to mind her unworthy 
 instructors. 
 
 When the two lovers had scanned the house in a rapid all- 
 embracing survey, they exchanged a glance of intelligence. 
 For both it was as though a heavenly dew had fallen with 
 cooling power upon their fevered suspense. "I have been in
 
 70 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 hell for an hour; now the heavens open," spoke the eyes of 
 Raoul. 
 
 " I knew you were there, but am I free? " replied those of 
 the countess. 
 
 None but slaves of every variety, including thieves, spies, 
 lovers, and diplomatists, know all that a flash of the eye can 
 convey of information or delight. They alone can grasp the 
 intelligence, the sweetness, the humor, the wrath, and the 
 malice with which this changeful lightning of the soul is preg- 
 nant. Raoul felt his passion kick against the pricks of neces- 
 sity and grow more vigorous in presence of obstacles. Be- 
 tween the step on which he was perched and the box of the 
 Comtesse Felix de Vandenesse was a space of barely thirty 
 feet, impassable for him. To a passionate man who, so far in 
 his life, had known but little interval between desire and 
 satisfaction, this abyss of solid ground, which could not be 
 spanned, inspired a wild desire to spring upon the countess 
 in a tiger-like bound. In a paroxysm of fury he tried to feel 
 his way. He bowed openly to the countess, who replied with 
 a slight, scornful inclination of the head, such as women use 
 for snubbing their admirers. Felix turned to see who had 
 greeted his wife, and perceiving Nathan, of whom he took no 
 notice beyond a mute inquiry as to the cause of this liberty, 
 turned slowly away again, with some words probably approv- 
 ing of his wife's assumed coldness. Plainly the door of the 
 box was barred against Nathan, who hurled a threatening 
 glance at Felix, which it required no great wit to interpret by 
 one of Florine's sallies : " Lookout for your hat ; it will soon 
 not rest on your head ! " 
 
 Mme. d'Espard, one of the most insolent women of her 
 time, who had been watching these manoeuvres from her box, 
 now raised her voice in some meaningless bravo. Raoul, who 
 was standing beneath her, turned. He bowed, and received 
 in return a gracious smile, which so clearly said : " If you are 
 dismissed there, come to me!" that Raoul left his column
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 71 
 
 and went to pay a visit to Mme. d'Espard. He wanted to be 
 seen there in order to show that fellow Vandenesse that his 
 fame was equal to a patent of nobility, and that before Nathan 
 blazoned doors flew open. The marchioness made him sit 
 down in the front of the box opposite to her. She intended 
 to play the inquisitor. 
 
 " Madame Felix de Vandenesse looks charming to-night," 
 she said, congratulating him on the lady's dress, as though it 
 were a book he had just published. 
 
 "Yes," said Raoul carelessly, " feathers are very becoming 
 to her. But she is too constant, she wore them the day before 
 yesterday," he added, with an easy air, as though by his 
 critical attitude to repudiate the flattering complicity which 
 the marchioness had laid to his charge. 
 
 "You know the proverb?" she replied. "'Every feast 
 day should have a morrow.' ' 
 
 At the game of repartee literary giants are not always equal 
 to ladies of title. Raoul took refuge in a pretended stupidity, 
 the last resource of clever men. 
 
 " The proverb is true for me," he said, casting an admiring 
 look on the marchioness. 
 
 "Your pretty speech, sir, comes too late for me to accept 
 it," she replied, laughing. " Come, come, don't be a prude ; 
 in the small hours of yesterday morning, you thought Mme. 
 de Vandenesse entrancing in feathers; she was perfectly aware 
 of it, and puts them on again to please you. She is in love 
 with you, and you adore her; no time has been lost, certainly; 
 still I see nothing in it but what is most natural. If it were 
 not as I say, you would not be tearing your glove to pieces in 
 your rage at having to sit here beside me, instead of in the 
 box of your idol which has just been shut in your face by 
 supercilious authority whispering low what you would fain 
 hear said aloud." 
 
 Raoul was in fact twisting one of his gloves, and the hand 
 which he showed was surprisingly white.
 
 72 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 "She has won from you," she went on, fixing his hand 
 with an impertinent stare, " sacrifices which you refused to 
 society. She ought to be enchanted at her success, and, I 
 daresay, she is a little vain of it ; but in her place I think 
 I should be more so. So far she has only been a woman of 
 good parts, now she will pass for a woman of genius. We 
 shall find her portrait in one of those delightful books of 
 yours. But, my dear friend, do me the kindness not to for- 
 get Vandenesse. That man is really too fatuous. I could 
 not stand such self-complacency in Jupiter Olympus himself, 
 who is said to have been the only god in mythology exempt 
 from domestic misfortune." 
 
 "Madame," cried Raoul, "you credit me with a very 
 base soul if you suppose that I would make profit out of my 
 feelings, out of my love. Sooner than be guilty of such liter- 
 ary dishonor, I would follow the English custom, and drag a 
 woman to market with a rope round her neck." 
 
 "But I know Marie," said the marquise; "she will ask 
 you to do it." 
 
 " No, she is incapable of it," protested Raoul. 
 
 " You know her intimately then ? " 
 
 Nathan could not help laughing that he, a playwright, 
 should be caught in this little comedy dialogue. 
 
 "The play is no longer there," he said, pointing to the 
 footlights; " it rests with you." 
 
 To hide his confusion, he took the opera-glass and began 
 to examine the house. 
 
 "Are you vexed with me?" said the marchioness, with a 
 sidelong glance at him. "Wouldn't your secret have been 
 mine in any case? It won't be hard to make peace. Come 
 to my house, I am at home every Wednesday; the dear 
 countess won't miss an evening when she finds you come, 
 and I shall be the gainer. Sometimes she comes to me before 
 four and five o'clock ; I will be very good-natured, and add 
 you to the select few admitted at that hour."
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 73 
 
 " Only see," said Raoul, " how unjust people are! I was 
 told you were spiteful." 
 
 " Oh ! so I am," she said, " when I want to be. One has 
 to fight for one's own hand. But as for your countess, I 
 adore her. You have no idea how charming she is ! You 
 will be the first to have your name inscribed on her heart 
 with that infantine joy which causes all lovers, even drill- 
 sergeants, to cut their initials on the bark of a tree. A 
 woman's first love is a luscious fruit. Later, you see, there is 
 always some calculation in our attentions and caresses. I'm 
 an old woman, and can say what I like ; nothing frightens 
 me, not even a journalist. Well, then, in the autumn of life, 
 we know how to make you happy ; but when love is a new 
 thing, we are happy ourselves, and that gives endless satisfac- 
 tion to your pride. We are full of delicious surprises then, 
 because the heart is fresh. You, who are a poet, must prefer 
 flowers to fruit. Six months hence you shall tell me about it." 
 
 Raoul began with denying everything, as all men do when 
 they are brought to the bar, but found that this only supplied 
 weapons to so practiced a champion. Entangled in the noose 
 of a dialogue, manipulated with all the dangerous adroitness 
 of a woman and a Parisian, he dreaded to let fall admissions 
 which would serve as fuel for the lady's wit, and he beat a 
 prudent retreat when he saw Lady Dudley enter. 
 
 " Well," said the Englishwoman, " how far have they gone?" 
 
 " They are desperately in love. Nathan has just told me so." 
 
 "I wish he had been uglier," said Lady Dudley, with a 
 venomous scowl at Felix. " Otherwise, he is exactly what I 
 would have wished ; he is the son of a Jewish broker, who 
 died bankrupt shortly after his marriage ; unfortunately, his 
 mother was a Catholic, and has made a Christian of him." 
 
 Nathan's origin, which he kept a most profound secret, was 
 a new discovery to Lady Dudley, who gloated in advance over 
 the delight of drawing thence some pointed shaft to aim at 
 Vandenesse.
 
 74 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 "And I've just asked him to my house! " exclaimed the 
 marchioness. 
 
 " Wasn't he at my ball yesterday? " replied Lady Dudley. 
 "There are pleasures, my dear, for which one pays heavily." 
 
 The news of a mutual passion between Raoul and Mme. de 
 Vandenesse went the round of society that evening, not with- 
 out calling forth protests and doubts ; but the countess was 
 defended by her friends, Lady Dudley, Mmes. d'Espard and 
 de Manerville, with a clumsy eagerness which gained some 
 credence for the rumor. Yielding to necessity, Raoul went 
 on Wednesday evening to Mme. d'Espard's, and found there 
 the usual distinguished company. As Felix did not accom- 
 pany his wife, Raoul was able to exchange a few words with 
 Marie, the tone of which expressed more than the matter. 
 The countess, warned against malicious gossips by Mme. 
 Octave de Camps, realized her critical position before society, 
 and contrived to make Raoul understand it also. 
 
 Amidst this gay assembly, the lovers found their only joy 
 in a long draught of the delicious sensations arising from the 
 words, the voice, the gestures, and the bearing of the loved 
 one. The soul clings desperately to such trifles. At times 
 the eyes of both will converge upon the same spot, embedding 
 there, as it were, a thought of which they thus risk the inter- 
 change. They talk, and longing looks follow the peeping 
 foot, the quivering hand, the fingers which toy with some 
 ornament, flicking it, twisting it about, then dropping it, in 
 significant fashion. It is no longer words or thoughts which 
 make themselves heard, it is things ; and that in so clear a 
 voice, that often the man who loves will leave to others the 
 task of handing a cup of tea, a sugar-basin, or what not, to his 
 lady-love, in dread lest his agitation should be visible to eyes 
 which, apparently seeing nothing, see all. Thronging de- 
 sires, mad wishes, passionate thoughts, find their way into a 
 glance and die out there. The pressure of a hand, eluding a 
 thousand Argus eyes, is eloquent as written pages, burning as a
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 75 
 
 kiss. Love grows by all that it denies itself; it treads on ob- 
 stacles to reach the higher. And barriers, more often cursed 
 than cleared, are hacked and cast into the fire to feed its flames. 
 Here it is that women see the measure of their power, when 
 love, that is boundless, coils up and hides itself within a thirsty 
 glance, a nervous thrill, behind the screen of formal civility. 
 How often has not a single word, on the last step of a staircase, 
 paid the price of an evening's silent agony and empty talk ! 
 
 Raoul, careless of social forms, gave rein to his anger in 
 brilliant oratory. Everybody present could hear the lion's 
 roar, and recognized the artist's nature, intolerant of disap- 
 pointment. This Orlando-like rage, this cutting and slashing 
 wit, this laying on of epigrams as with a club, enraptured 
 Marie and amused the onlookers, much as the spectacle of a 
 maddened bull, covered with streamers, in a Spanish amphi- 
 theatre, might have done. 
 
 " Hit out as much as you like, you can't clear the ring," 
 Blondet said to him. 
 
 This sarcasm restored to Raoul his presence of mind ', he 
 ceased making an exhibition of himself and his vexation. The 
 marchioness came to offer him a cup of tea, and said, loud 
 enough for Marie to hear 
 
 " You are really very amusing; come and see me sometimes 
 at four o'clock." 
 
 Raoul took offense at the word "amusing," although it 
 had served as passport to the invitation. He began to give 
 ear, as actors do, when they are attending to the house and 
 not to the stage. 
 
 Blondet took pity on him. 
 
 " My dear fellow," he said, drawing him aside into a 
 corner, "you behave in polite society exactly as you might at 
 Florine's. Here nobody flies into a passion, nobody lectures ; 
 from time to time a smart thing may be said, and you must 
 look most impassive at the very moment when you long to 
 throw some one out of the window ; a gentle raillery is
 
 76 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 allowed, and some show of attention to the lady you adore, 
 but you can't lie down and kick like a donkey in the middle of 
 the road. Here, my good soul, love proceeds by rule. 
 Either carry off Madame de Vandenesse or behave like a 
 gentleman. You are too much the lover of one of your own 
 romances." 
 
 Nathan listened with hanging head ; he was a wild beast 
 caught in the toils. 
 
 "I shall never set foot here again," said he. "This 
 papier-mache marchioness puts too high a price upon her tea. 
 She thinks me amusing, does she? Now I know why St. 
 Just guillotined all these people." 
 
 "You'll come back to-morrow." 
 
 Blondet was right. Passion is as cowardly as it is cruel. 
 The next day, after fluctuating long between "I'll go" and 
 " I won't go," Raoul left his partners in the middle of an im- 
 portant discussion to hasten to the Faubourg St. Honore and 
 Mme. d'Espard's house. The sight of Rastignac's elegant 
 cabriolet driving up as he was paying his cabman at the door 
 hurt Nathan's vanity; he too would have such a cabriolet, he 
 resolved, and the correct tiger. The carriage of the countess 
 was in the court, and Raoul's heart swelled with joy as he 
 perceived it. Marie's movements responded to her longings 
 with the regularity of a clock-hand propelled by its spring. 
 She was reclining in an armchair by the fire-place in the 
 small drawing-room. Instead of looking at Nathan as he 
 entered, she gazed at his reflection in the mirror, feeling sure 
 that the mistress of the house would turn to him. Love, 
 baited by society, is forced to have recourse to these little 
 tricks ; it endows with life mirrors, muffs, fans, and numberless 
 objects, the purpose of which is not clear at first sight, and is 
 indeed never found out by many of the women who make use 
 of them. 
 
 "The prime minister," said Mme. d'Espard, with a glance 
 at de Marsay, as she drew Nathan into the conversation,
 
 MARIE HELD OUT HER HAND TO KAOUL.
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 77 
 
 " was just declaring, when you came in, that there is an under- 
 standing between the Royalists and Republicans. What do 
 you say? You ought to know something about it." 
 
 "Supposing it were so, where would be the harm?" said 
 Raoul. " The object of our animosity is the same; we agree 
 in our hatred, and differ only in what we love." 
 
 "The alliance is at least singular," said de Marsay, with a 
 glance which embraced Raoul and the Comtesse Felix. 
 
 "It will not last," said Rastignac, who, like all novices, 
 took his politics a little too seriously. 
 
 "What do you say, darling?" asked Mme. d'Espard of 
 the countess. 
 
 " I ! oh ! I know nothing about politics." 
 
 "You will learn, madame," said de Marsay, "and then 
 you will be doubly our enemy." 
 
 Neither Nathan nor Marie understood de Marsay's sally till 
 he had gone. Rastignac followed him, and Mme. d'Espard 
 went with them both as far as the door of the first drawing- 
 room. Not another thought did the lovers give to the 
 minister's epigram ; they saw the priceless wealth of a few 
 minutes before them. Marie swiftly removed her glove, and 
 held out her hand to Raoul, who took it and kissed it with 
 the fervor of eighteen. The eyes of the countess were elo- 
 quent of a devotion so generous and absolute that Raoul felt 
 his own moisten. A tear is always at the command of men 
 of nervous temperament. 
 
 " Where can I see you speak to you? " he said. " It will 
 kill me if I must perpetually disguise my looks and my voice, 
 my heart and my love." 
 
 Moved by the tear, Marie promised to go to the Bois when- 
 ever the weather did not make it impossible. This promise 
 gave Raoul more happiness than Florine had brought him in 
 five years. 
 
 " I have so much to say to you ! I suffer so from the silence 
 to which we are condemned ! "
 
 78 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 The countess was gazing at him rapturously, unable to reply, 
 when the marchioness returned. 
 
 "So! " she exclaimed as she entered, "you had no retort 
 for de Marsay ! ' ' 
 
 " One must respect the dead," replied Raoul. " Don't you 
 see that he is at the last gasp? Rastignac is acting as nurse, 
 and hopes to be mentioned in the will." 
 
 The countess made an excuse of having calls to pay, and 
 took leave, as a precaution against gossip. For this quarter 
 of an hour Raoul had sacrified precious time and most urgent 
 claims. Marie as yet knew nothing of the details of a life, 
 which, while to all appearance gay and idle as a bird's, had 
 yet its side of very complicated business and extremely taxing 
 work. When two beings, united by an enduring love, lead a 
 life which each day knits them more closely in the bonds of 
 mutual confidence and by the interchange of counsel over dif- 
 ficulties as they arise ; when two hearts pour forth their sorrows, 
 night and morning, with mingled sighs; when they share the 
 same suspense and shudder together at a common danger, then 
 everything is taken into account. The woman then can 
 measure the love in an averted gaze, the cost of a hurried 
 visit, she has her part in the business, the hurrying to and fro, 
 the hopes and anxieties of the hard- worked, harassed man. 
 If she complains, it is only of the actual conditions; her 
 doubts are at rest, for she knows and appreciates the details 
 of his life. But in the opening chapters of passion, when all 
 is eagerness, suspicion, and demands; when neither of the 
 two know themselves or each other; when, in addition, the 
 woman is an idler, expecting love to stand guard all day at 
 her door one of those who have an exaggerated estimate of 
 their own claims, and choose to be obeyed even when obed- 
 ience spells ruin to a career then love, in Paris and at the 
 present time, becomes a superhuman task. Women of fashion 
 have not yet thrown off the traditions of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, when every man had his own place marked out for him.
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 79 
 
 Few of them know anything of the difficulties of existence for 
 the bulk of men, all with a position to carve out, a distinction 
 to win, a fortune to consolidate. Men of well-established for- 
 tune are, at present, rare exceptions. Only the old have time 
 for love ; men in their prime are chained, like Nathan, to the 
 galleys of ambition. 
 
 Women, not yet reconciled to this change of habits, cannot 
 bring themselves to believe any man short of the time which 
 is so cheap a commodity with them; they can imagine no 
 occupations or aims other than their own. Had the gallant 
 vanquished the hydra of Lerna to get at them, he would not 
 rise one whit in their estimation ; the joy of seeing him is 
 everything. They are grateful because he makes them happy, 
 but never think of asking what their happiness has cost him. 
 Whereas, if they, in an idle hour, have devised some strata- 
 gem such as they abound in, they flaunt it in your eyes as 
 something superlative. You have wrenched the iron bars of 
 destiny, while they have played with subterfuge and diplomacy 
 and yet the palm is theirs, dispute were vain. After all, 
 are they not right ? The woman who gives up all for you, 
 should she not receive all? She exacts no more than she 
 gives. 
 
 Raoul, during his walk home, pondered on the difficulty of 
 directing at one and the same time a fashionable intrigue, the 
 ten-horse chariot of journalism, his theatrical pieces, and his 
 entangled personal affairs. 
 
 "It will be a wretched paper to-night," he said to himself 
 as he went ; " nothing from my hand, and the second number 
 too!" 
 
 Mme. Felix de Vandenesse went three times to the Bois de 
 Boulogne without seeing Raoul ; she came home agitated and 
 despairing. Nathan was determined not to show himself till 
 he could do so in all the glory of a press magnate. He spent 
 the week in looking out for a pair of horses and a suitable 
 cabriolet and tiger, in persuading his partners of the necessity
 
 80 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 of sparing time so valuable as his, and in getting the purchase 
 put down to the general expenses of the paper. Massol and 
 du Tillet agreed so readily to this request that he thought 
 them the best fellows in the world. But for this assistance, 
 life would have been impossible for Raoul. As it was, it be- 
 came so taxing, in spite of the exquisite delights of ideal love 
 with which it was mingled, that many men, even of excellent 
 constitution, would have broken down under the strain of 
 such distractions. A violent and reciprocal passion is bound 
 to bulk largely even in an ordinary life ; but when its object 
 is a woman of conspicuous position, like Mme. de Vandenesse, 
 it cannot fail to play havoc with that of a busy man like 
 Nathan. 
 
 Here are some of the duties to which his passion gave the 
 first place : Almost every day between two and three o'clock 
 he rode to the Bois de Boulogne in the style of the purest 
 dandy. He then learned in what house or at what theatre he 
 might meet Mme. de Vandenesse again that evening. He 
 never left a reception till close upon midnight, when he had 
 at last succeeded in snapping up some long watched-for words, 
 a few crumbs of tenderness, artfully dropped below the table, 
 or in a corridor, or on the way to the carriage. Marie, who 
 had launched him in the world of fashion, generally got him 
 invitations to dinner at the houses where she visited. Nothing 
 could be more natural. Raoul was too proud, and also too 
 much in love, to say a word about business. He had to obey 
 every caprice and whim of his innocent tyrant ; while, at the 
 same time, following closely the debates in the Chamber and 
 the rapid current of politics, directing his paper, and bringing 
 out two plays which were to furnish the sinews of war. If 
 ever he asked to be let off a ball, a concert, or a drive, a look 
 of annoyance from Mme. de Vandenesse was enough to make 
 him sacrifice his interests to her pleasure. 
 
 When he returned home from these engagements at one or 
 two in the morning, he worked till eight or nine, leaving
 
 A DAUGHTER GF EVE. 81 
 
 scant time for sleep. Directly he was up, he plunged into 
 consultations with influential supporters as to the policy of 
 the paper. A thousand and one internal difficulties mean- 
 time would await his settlement, for journalism nowadays has 
 an ail-embracing grasp. Business, public and private interests, 
 new ventures, the personal sensitiveness of literary men, as 
 well as their compositions nothing is alien to it. When, 
 harassed and exhausted, Nathan flew from his office to the 
 theatre, from the theatre to the Chamber, from the Chamber 
 to a creditor, he had next to present himself, calm and smil- 
 ing, before Marie, and canter beside her carriage with the 
 ease of a man who has no cares, and whose only business is 
 pleasure. When, as sole reward for so many unnoticed acts 
 of devotion, he found only the gentlest of words or prettiest 
 assurances of undying attachment, a warm pressure of the 
 hand, if by chance they escaped observation for a moment, or 
 one or two passionate expressions in response to his own, 
 Raoul began to feel that it was mere Quixotism not to make 
 known the extravagant price he paid for these " modest 
 favors," as our fathers might have called them. 
 
 The opportunity for an explanation was not long in coming. 
 On a lovely April day the countess took Nathan's arm in a 
 secluded corner of the Bois de Boulogne. She had a pretty 
 little quarrel to pick with him about one of those molehills 
 which women have the art of turning into mountains. There 
 was no smiling welcome, no radiant brow, the eyes did not 
 sparkle with fun or happiness ; it was a serious and burdened 
 woman who met him. 
 
 "What is wrong?" said Nathan. 
 
 " Oh ! Why worry about trifles ? " she said. " Surely you 
 know how childish women are." 
 
 "Are you angry with me?" 
 
 "Should I be here?" 
 
 "But you don't smile, you don't seem a bit glad to see 
 me." 
 6
 
 82 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 "I suppose you mean that I am cross," she said, with the 
 resigned air of a woman determined to be a martyr. 
 
 Nathan walked on a few steps, an overshadowing fear grip- 
 ping at his heart. After a moment's silence, he went on 
 
 "It can only be one of those idle fears, those vague suspi- 
 cions, to which you give such exaggerated importance. A 
 straw, a thread in your hands is enough to upset the balance 
 of the world ! " 
 
 "Satire next! Well, I expect it," she said, hanging 
 
 her head. 
 
 " Marie, my beloved, do you not see that I say this only to 
 wring your secret from you ? ' ' 
 
 "My secret will remain a secret, even after I have told 
 you." 
 
 "Well, tell me " 
 
 "I am not loved," she said, with the stealthy side-look, 
 which is a woman's instrument for probing the man she means 
 to torture. 
 
 " Not loved ! " exclaimed Nathan. 
 
 " No ; you have too many things on your mind. What am 
 I in the midst of this whirl ? You are only too glad to forget 
 me. Yesterday I came to the Bois, I waited for you 
 
 "But " 
 
 " I had put on a new dress for you, and you did not come. 
 Where were you ? ' ' 
 
 "But " 
 
 "I couldn't tell. I went to Mme. d'Espard's; you were 
 not there." 
 
 But " 
 
 " At the opera in the evening my eyes never left the bal- 
 cony. Every time the door opened my heart beat so that I 
 thought it would break." 
 
 "But " 
 
 " What an evening ! You have no conception of such 
 agony! "
 
 A DAUGHTER OP EVE. 83 
 
 But- 
 
 "It eats into life " 
 
 "But " 
 
 "Well," she said. 
 
 "Yes," replied Nathan, " it does eat into life, and in a few 
 months you will have consumed mine. Your wild reproaches 
 have torn from me my secret also. Ah t you are not loved ! 
 My God, you are loved too well." 
 
 He drew a graphic picture of his straits. He told her how 
 he sat up at nights, how he had to keep certain engagements 
 at fixed hours, and how, above all things, he was bound to 
 succeed. He showed her how insatiable were the claims of a 
 paper, compelled, at risk of losing its reputation, to be before- 
 hand with an accurate judgment on every event that took 
 place, and how incessant was the call for a rapid survey of 
 questions, which chased each other like clouds over the hori- 
 zon in that period of political convulsions. 
 
 In a moment the mischief was done. Raoul had been told 
 by the Marquise d'Espard that nothing is so ingenuous as a 
 first love, and it soon appeared that the countess erred in 
 loving too much. A loving woman meets every difficulty 
 with delight and fresh proof of her passion. On seeing the 
 panorama of this varied life unrolled before her, the countess 
 was filled with admiration. She had pictured Nathan a great 
 man, but now he seemed transcendent. She blamed herself 
 for an excessive love, and begged him to come only when he 
 was at liberty; Nathan's ambitious struggles sank to nothing 
 before the glance she cast toward heaven ! She would wait ! 
 Henceforth her pleasure should be sacrificed. She, who had 
 wished to be a stepping-stone, had proved only an obstacle. 
 She wept despairingly. 
 
 "Women, it seems," she said with tearful eyes, "are fit 
 only to love. Men have a thousand different ways of spending 
 their energy ; all we can do is to dream, and pray, and wor- 
 ship."
 
 84 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 So much love deserved a recompense. Peeping around, 
 like a nightingale ready to alight from its branch beside a 
 spring of water, she tried to make sure whether they were 
 alone in this solitude, and whether no spectator lurked in the 
 silence. Then raising her head to Raoul, who bent his to 
 meet her, she allowed him a kiss, the first, the only, contra- 
 band kiss she was destined to give. At that instant she was 
 happier than she had been for five years, while Raoul felt him- 
 self repaid for all that he had gone through. 
 
 They had to return to their carriages, and walked on, hardly 
 knowing whither, along the road from Auteuil to Boulogne, 
 moving with the even rhythmic step familiar to lovers. Con- 
 fidence came to Raoul in that kiss, tendered with the modest 
 frankness that is the outcome of a pure mind. All the evil 
 came from society, not from this woman, who was so abso- 
 lutely his. The hardships of his frenzied existence were noth- 
 ing now to him ; and Marie, in the ardor of her first passion, 
 was bound, womanlike, soon to forget them, since she could 
 not witness from hour to hour the terrible throes of a life too 
 exceptional to be easily imagined. 
 
 Marie, penetrated by the grateful veneration, characteristic 
 of a woman's love, hastened with resolute and active tread 
 along the sand-strewn alley. Like Raoul, she spoke but little, 
 but that little came from the heart, and was full of meaning. 
 The sky was clear ; buds were forming on the larger trees, 
 where already spots of green enlivened the delicate brown 
 tracery ; while the shrubs, birches, willows, and poplars 
 showed their first tender and still unsubstantial foliage. What 
 heart can resist the harmony of such a scene ? Love was now 
 interpreting nature to the countess, as it had already inter- 
 preted the ways of men. 
 
 " If only I were your first love I " she breathed. 
 
 "You are," replied Raoul. " We have each been the first 
 to reveal true love to the other." 
 
 Nor did he speak falsely. In posing before this fresh young
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 85 
 
 heart as a man of pure life, he became affected by the noble 
 sentiments with which he embroidered his talk. His passion, 
 at first a matter of policy and ambition, had become sincere. 
 Starting from falsehood, he had arrived at truth. Add to this 
 that all authors have a natural instinct, repressed only with 
 effort, to admire moral beauty. Lastly, a man has but to 
 make enough sacrifices in order to become attached to the 
 person demanding them. Women of the world know this in- 
 tuitively, just as courtesans do, and it may even be that they 
 unconsciously act upon the knowledge. 
 
 The countess, after her first burst of surprised gratitude, 
 was delighted to have inspired so much devotion and been 
 the cause of such astounding feats. The man who loved her 
 was worthy of her. Raoul had not the least idea to what 
 this playing at greatness would commit him. He forgot that 
 no woman will allow her lover to fall below her ideal of him, 
 and that nothing paltry can be suffered in a god. Marie had 
 never heard that solution of the problem which Raoul had dis- 
 closed to his friends in the course of the supper at Vary's. 
 His struggles as a man of letters, forcing his way upward from 
 the masses, had filled the first ten years of early manhood \ 
 now he was resolved to be loved by one of the queens of the 
 fashionable world. Vanity, without which, as Chamfort said, 
 love has no backbone, sustained his passion, and could not 
 fail to augment it day by day. 
 
 "Can you swear to me," said Marie, "that you are noth- 
 ing, and never will be anything, to another woman? " 
 
 " My life has no space for another, even were my heart 
 free," was his reply, made in all sincerity, so completely had 
 Florine dropped out of sight. 
 
 And she believed him. 
 
 When they reached the road where the carriages were 
 waiting, Marie let go the arm of Nathan, who at once 
 assumed a respectful attitude, as though this were a chance 
 meeting. He walked with her, hat in hand, as far as the
 
 86 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 carriage, and then followed it down the avenue Charles X., 
 inhaling the dust it raised, and watching the drooping feathers 
 swaying in the wind. 
 
 In spite of Marie's generous resolutions of sacrifice, Raoul, 
 spurred on by passion, continued to appear wherever she 
 went ; he adored the half-vexed, half-smiling air with which 
 she vainly tried to scold him for wasting the time he could so 
 badly spare. Marie began to take Raoul's work in hand, laid 
 down what he was to do every hour in the day, and remained 
 at home herself, so as to leave him no excuse for taking a 
 holiday. She read his paper every morning, and she trump- 
 eted the praises of Etienne Lousteau the feuilletonist, whom 
 she thought charming, of Felicien Vernou, Claud Vignon, 
 and all the staff. It was she who advised Raoul to deal gener- 
 ously with de Marsay when he died, and she read with dizzy 
 pride the fine dignified tribute which he paid the late Minis- 
 ter, while deploring his Machiavellianism and hatred of the 
 masses. She was, of course, present in a stage-box at the 
 Gymnase on the first night of the play, to which Raoul was 
 trusting for the funds of his undertaking, and which seemed 
 to her, deceived by the hired applause, an immense success. 
 
 "You did not come to say farewell to the opera?" asked 
 Lady Dudley, to whose house she went after the perform- 
 ance. 
 
 " No ; I was at the Gymnase. It was a first night." 
 
 " I can't bear vaudeville. I feel to it as Louis XIV. did to 
 a Teniers," said Lady Dudley. 
 
 "For my part," remarked Mme. d'Espard, "I think they 
 have improved very much. Vaudevilles now are charming 
 comedies, full of wit, and the work of very clever men. I 
 enjoy them immensely." 
 
 "The acting is so good too," said Marie. "The play 
 to-night at the Gymnase went capitally ; it seemed to suit the 
 actors, and the dialogue is spirited and amusing." 
 
 "A regular Beaumarchais business," said Lady Dudley.
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 87 
 
 "Monsieur Nathan is not a Moliere yet, but " said 
 
 Mme. d'Espard, with a look at the countess. 
 
 " But he makes vaudevilles," said Mme. Charles de Vande- 
 nesse. 
 
 " And unmakes ministers,'* retorted Mme. de Manerville. 
 
 The countess remained silent ; she racked her brains for 
 pungent epigrams ; her heart burned with rage, but nothing 
 better occurred to her than 
 
 " Some day perhaps he will make one." 
 
 All the women exchanged glances of mysterious under- 
 standing. When Mme. de Vandenesse had gone, Mo'ina de 
 Saint-Heren exclaimed 
 
 " Why, she adores Nathan !" 
 
 " She makes no mystery of it," said Mme. d'Espard. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SUICIDE. 
 
 With the month of May, Vandenesse took his wife away to 
 their country seat. Here her only comfort was in passionate 
 letters from Raoul, to whom she wrote every day. 
 
 The absence of the countess might possibly have saved 
 Raoul from the abyss over which he hung had Florine been 
 with him. But he was alone amongst friends, secretly turned 
 to enemies ever since his determination to take the whip 
 hand became plain. For the moment he was an object of 
 hatred to his staff, who reserved, however, the right of hold- 
 ing out a consoling hand in case he failed, or of cringing to 
 him should he succeed. This is the way in the literary world, 
 where people are friendly only to their inferiors, and the 
 rising man has everybody against him. This universal 
 jealousy increases tenfold the chance of mediocrities, who 
 arouse neither envy nor suspicion. Like moles, they work 
 their way underground, and, with all their incompetence, find
 
 88 A DAUGHTER OF EVE, 
 
 more than one snug corner in the official lists, while really 
 able men are struggling and blocking each other at the dooi 
 of promotion. Florine, with the inborn gift of such women 
 for putting their finger on the real thing among a thousand 
 presentments of it, would at once have detected the under- 
 hand animosity of these false friends. 
 
 But this was not Raoul's greatest danger. His two partners, 
 the barrister Massol and the banker du Tillet, had conceived 
 the idea of harnessing his energy to the car in which they 
 should loll at ease, with the full intention of turning him 
 adrift as soon as his resources failed to keep the paper going, 
 or of wresting it from his hands the moment they saw their 
 way to using this powerful instrument for their own purposes. 
 To their minds, Nathan represented so much capital to run 
 through, a literary force, equal to that of ten ordinary writers, 
 to exploit. 
 
 Massol belonged to the type of barrister who takes a flux of 
 words for eloquence and can weary any audience by his pro- 
 lixity, who in every gathering of men acts as a blight, shrivel- 
 ing up their enthusiasm, yet who is determined at all costs 
 to be a somebody. Massol's ambition, however, no longer 
 pointed to the ministry of justice. Within four years he had 
 seen five or six men clothed with the robes of office, and this 
 had cured him of the fancy. Meanwhile he was ready to 
 accept, as something in hand, a professorship or a post under 
 the Council, with of course the cross of the Legion of Honor 
 to season the dish. Du Tillet and the Baron de Nucingen 
 had guaranteed him the cross and the desired post if he fell 
 in with their views; and as he judged them to be in a better 
 position than Nathan for fulfilling their promises, he followed 
 them blindly. 
 
 The better to hoodwink Raoul, these men allowed him to 
 exercise uncontrolled power. Du Tillet only made use of the 
 paper for his stock-jobbing interests, which were outside 
 Raoul's ken. He had, however, already given Rastignac to
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 89 
 
 understand, through the Baron de Nucingen, that this organ 
 was ready to give a silent adhesion to the Government, on the 
 one condition that the Government should support du Tillet's 
 candidature as successor to M. de Nucingen, who would be a 
 peer some day, and who at present sat for a rotten borough, 
 where the paper was lavishly circulated, gratis. Thus was 
 Raoul jockeyed by both the banker and the barrister, who 
 took a huge delight in seeing him lord it at the office, pocket- 
 ing all the gains, as well as the less substantial dues of vanity 
 and the like. Nathan could not praise them enough ; again, 
 as when they furnished his stables, they were " the best fellows 
 in the world," and he actually believed that he was duping 
 them. 
 
 Men of imagination, whose whole life is based on hope, 
 never will admit that in business the moment of danger is that 
 when everything goes to a wish. Such a moment of triumph 
 had come for Nathan, and he made full use of it, letting him- 
 self be seen both in political and financial circles. Du Tillet 
 introduced him to the Nucingens, and he was received in a 
 most friendly way by Mme. de Nucingen, not so much for his 
 own sake as for that of Mme. de Vandenesse. Yet, when she 
 alluded to the countess, Nathan thought himself a marvel of 
 discretion for taking refuge behind Florine, and he enlarged 
 with generous self-complacency on his relations with the actress, 
 which nothing, he declared, could break. How could any 
 man abandon an assured happiness for the coquetry of the 
 Faubourg Saint-Germain ? 
 
 Nathan, beguiled by Nucingen and Rastignac, du Tillet and 
 Blondet, lent an ostentatious support to the doctrinaire party 
 in the formation of one of their ephemeral cabinets. At the 
 same time, wishing to start in public life with clean hands, he 
 refused, with much parade, to accept any share in the profits 
 of certain enterprises, which had been launched by the help 
 of his paper. And this was the man who never hesitated to 
 compromise a friend, or was hampered by a scruple in his
 
 90 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 relations with a certain class of business men at critical 
 moments ! Such startling contrasts, born of vanity and ambi- 
 tion, may often be found in careers like his. The mantle 
 must make a brave show to the public, but scraps raised from 
 a friend will serve to patch it. 
 
 But in the very midst of all his successes, Nathan was 
 roused to some uneasiness by a bad quarter of an hour which 
 he spent over his business accounts two months after the de- 
 parture of the countess. Du Tillet had advanced a hundred 
 thousand francs. The money given by Florine, the third 
 part of his original capital, had gone in government dues and 
 in the expenses of starting the paper : which were enormous. 
 The future had to be provided for. The banker assisted him 
 by accepting bills for fifty thousand francs at four months, 
 and thereby fastened a halter round the author's neck. Thanks 
 to this subvention, the paper was in funds again for six months. 
 In the eyes of many literary men, six months is an eternity. 
 Further, by dint of puffs and by sending round canvassers, 
 who offered illusory advantages to subscribers, they managed 
 to raise the circulation by two thousand. This semi-triumph 
 was an incentive to cast his latest borrowings into the melting 
 pot. One more effort of his wits, and a political lawsuit or a 
 sham persecution might give Raoul a place among those 
 modern Condottieri,* whose ink has to-day taken the place of 
 gunpowder. 
 
 Unfortunately, these steps were already taken when Florine 
 returned with about fifty thousand francs. Instead of setting 
 this aside as a reserve, Raoul, confident of a success which 
 was his only safety, humiliated at the thought of having once 
 before accepted money from the actress, feeling that his love 
 had raised him to a higher plane, and dazzled by the specious 
 plaudits of his flatterers, deceived Florine as to his situation, 
 and obliged her to spend the money in setting up house again. 
 Under present circumstances, a smart and dashing style was, 
 * Mercenary Italian soldiers.
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 91 
 
 he assured her, essential. The actress, who needed no spur- 
 ring, got into debt for thirty thousand francs. Instead of a 
 flat, Florine took a charming house in the Rue Pigalle, where 
 her old friends came about her again. The house of a woman 
 in Florine's position supplied a neutral ground, most con- 
 venient for pushing politicians, who, following the example 
 of Louis XIV. with the Dutch, entertained at Raoul's house 
 in Raoul's absence. 
 
 Nathan had reserved for the return of the actress a play, the 
 chief part in which suited her admirably. This vaudeville- 
 drama was intended as Raoul's farewell to the theatre. The 
 newspapers, by an attention to Raoul which cost them noth- 
 ing, planned beforehand such an ovation to Florine that the 
 Comedie-Fransaise began to speak of engaging her. Critics 
 pointed to her as the direct successor of Mile. Mars. This 
 triumph threw the actress so far off her balance as to prevent 
 her examining carefully the state of Nathan's affairs; her life 
 was a whirl of banquets and revelry. Queen in a horde of 
 bustling suitors, each with something to push a book, a play, 
 a ballet-girl, a theatre, a company, or an advertisement she 
 reveled in the delights of this press influence, which she 
 pictured as the dawn of ministerial patronage. In the mouths 
 of those who frequented her house, Nathan was a politician of 
 high standing. His scheme would succeed, he would be 
 elected to the Chamber, and beyond doubt have a turn at 
 office, like so many others. Actresses are rarely slow to be- 
 lieve what flatters their hopes. How could Florine, lauded 
 in the notices, mistrust the paper or its contributors? She 
 was too ignorant of the mechanism of the press to be un- 
 easy about its resources, and women of her stamp look only 
 to results. 
 
 As for Nathan, he no longer doubted that in the course of 
 the next session he would come to the front, along with two 
 former journalists, one of whom, already in office, was anxious 
 to strengthen his position by turning out his colleagues. After
 
 92 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 six months of absence, Nathan was glad to see Florine again, 
 and lazily fell back into his old habits. The coarse web of his 
 life was covertly embroidered by him with the loveliest flowers 
 of his ideal passion and with the pleasures scattered by Florine. 
 His letters to Marie were masterpieces of love, elegance, and 
 style. He made of her the guiding star of his life ; he under- 
 took nothing without consulting his good genius. Miserable 
 at being on the popular side, he was tempted at times to join 
 the aristocrats ; but, with all his skill in turning his back on 
 himself, it seemed impossible to make the leap from left to 
 right ; it was easier to get office. 
 
 Marie's precious letters were kept in a portfolio with secret 
 springs, an invention either of Huret or Fichet, the two me- 
 chanics who carry on a war of emulation in the newspaper 
 columns and on the walls of Paris as to the comparative effi- 
 cacy and unobtrusiveness of their locks. The portfolio lay in 
 Florine's new boudoir, where Raoul worked. No one is more 
 easily deceived than the woman who is used to frankness ; she 
 has no suspicions, because she believes herself to know and see 
 all that goes on. Moreover, since her return the actress took 
 her part in Nathan's daily life, which appeared to go on just 
 as usual. It never would have occurred to her that this writ- 
 ing-case, which she had barely noticed, and which Raoul 
 made no mystery about locking, contained love tokens in the 
 shape of a rival's letters, addressed, at Raoul's request, to the 
 office. To all appearance, therefore, Nathan's situation was 
 of the brightest. He had plenty of nominal friends. Two 
 plays, at which he had worked jointly with others, and which 
 had just made a success, kept him in luxuries and removed all 
 anxiety for the future. Indeed, his debt to his friend du Tillet 
 never gave him a moment's uneasiness. 
 
 " How can one suspect a friend ? " he said, when now and 
 again Blondet would give utterance to doubts, which were 
 natural to his analytic turn of mind. 
 
 " But we have no need to fear our enemies," said Florine.
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 93 
 
 Nathan stood up for du Tillet. Du Tillet was the best, 
 most good-natured, and most honorable of men. 
 
 This life upon the tight-rope, without even a steadying pole, 
 which might have appalled a mere onlooker who had grasped 
 its meaning, was watched by du Tillet with the stoicism and 
 hard-heartedness of a parvenu. At times a fierce irony broke 
 through the genial cordiality of his manner with Nathan. 
 One day he pressed his hand as he was leaving Florine's, and 
 watched him get into his cabriolet. 
 
 " There goes our dandy off to the Bois in tiptop style," he 
 said to Lousteau, the very incarnation of envy, " and in six 
 months he may be laid by the heels in Clichy." 
 
 " Not he ! " exclaimed Lousteau ; " think of Florine." 
 
 " And how do you know, my good fellow, that he'll keep 
 Florine? I tell you, you're worth a thousand of him, and I 
 expect six months will see you in the editorial chair." 
 
 In October the bills fell due, and du Tillet graciously re- 
 newed them, but this time for two months only, and the 
 amount was increased by the discount and by a new loan. 
 Confident of victory, Raoul drained his till. An overmaster- 
 ing desire to see him was bringing the countess back to town 
 a month earlier than usual within a few days, in fact and 
 it would not do to be crippled for lack of funds when the 
 moment had come for entering the field again. 
 
 The pen is always bolder than the tongue, and the letters 
 she received had raised the Comtesse de Vandenesse to the 
 highest pitch of excitement. Thoughts clothed in the flowers 
 of rhetoric can express so much without meeting a repulse. 
 She saw in Raoul one of the finest intellects of the day, a 
 delicately strung and unappreciated heart, which in its un- 
 stained purity was worthy of adoration. She watched him 
 put forth a bold hand upon the citadel of power. Ere long 
 that voice, so tuneful in love, would thunder from the tiibune. 
 Marie was now entirely absorbed in that life of intersecting 
 circles, which resemble the orbits of the planets, and revolve
 
 94 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 around the sun of society as their centre. Finding no flavor 
 in the calm pleasures of home, she received the shock of every 
 agitation in this whirling life, brought home to her by the 
 pen of a literary artist and a lover. She showered kisses on 
 letters which had been written in the thick of press combats, 
 or purloined from hours of study. She realized now what 
 they had cost and was well assured of being his only love, 
 with no rivals but glory and ambition. Even in the depths of 
 her solitude she found occupation for all her powers and could 
 dwell with satisfaction upon the choice of her heart. There 
 was no one like Nathan. 
 
 Fortunately, her withdrawal into the country and the bar- 
 riers thus placed between her and Raoul had silenced ill- 
 natured gossip. During the last days of autumn, therefore, 
 Marie and Raoul were able once more to begin their walks in 
 the Bois de Boulogne, their only meeting-place until the 
 season opened. Raoul had now a little more leisure to enjoy 
 the exquisite delights of his ideal life, and also to practice con- 
 cealment with Florine ; his work at the office had ceased to be 
 so hard since things were well in train there and each member 
 of the staff understood his duty. Involuntarily he made com- 
 parisons which, though always favorable to Florine, did the 
 countess no injury. Exhausted once more by the various shifts 
 to which his passion, alike of the head and of the heart, for a 
 woman of fashion impelled him, Raoul put forth superhuman 
 energy in the effort to appear simultaneously on three different 
 stages society, the office, and the greenroom. While Florine, 
 always grateful and taking almost a partner's share in his work 
 and difficulties, appeared and vanished as required, and show- 
 ered on him a wealth of substantial and unpretentious happi- 
 ness, which called forth no remorse, the unapproachable 
 countess, with her hungry eyes, had already forgotten his 
 stupendous labors and the trouble it often cost him to get a 
 passing glimpse of her. Florine, far from trying to impose 
 her will, would let herself be taken up and put down with the
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 95 
 
 good-natured indifference of a cat, which always falls on its 
 feet and walks off, shaking its ears. This easy way of life is 
 admirably fitted to the habits of brain-workers ; and it is only 
 in the artist's nature to take full advantage of it, as Nathan 
 did, whilst not abandoning the pursuit of that fine ideal love, 
 that splendid passion, which delighted at once his poetic 
 instincts, the germ of greatness in him, and his social ambi- 
 tions. Fully aware how disastrous would be the effect of any 
 indiscretion, he told himself it was impossible that either the 
 countess or Florine should find out anything. The chasm 
 between them was too great. 
 
 With the beginning of winter Raoul once more made his 
 appearance in society, and this time in the heyday of his 
 glory ; he was all but a personage. Rastignac, who had 
 fallen with the Government which went to pieces on de 
 Marsay's death, leaned upon Raoul, and in return .gave him 
 the support of his good word. Mme. de Vandenesse was 
 curious to know whether her husband had changed his opinion 
 of Raoul. After the lapse of a year she questioned him 
 again, in the expectation of a signal revenge, such as the 
 noblest and least earthly of women do not disdain ; for we 
 may be sure that the angels in heaven have not lost all 
 thought of self as they range themselves round the throne. 
 
 " That he should become the tool of unscrupulous men was 
 the one thing lacking to him," replied the count. 
 
 Felix, with the keen insight of a politician and a man of 
 the world, had thoroughly gauged Raoul's position. He 
 calmly explained to his wife how the attempt of Fieschi had 
 resulted in rallying many lukewarm people round the interests 
 threatenad in the person of Louis-Philippe. The compara- 
 tively neutral papers would go down in circulation as journal- 
 ism, along with politics, fell into more definite lines. If 
 Nathan had put his capital into his paper, he would soon be done 
 for. This summary of the situation, so clear and accurate in 
 spite of its brevity and the purely abstract point of view from
 
 96 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 which it was made, and coming from a man well used to 
 calculate the chances of party, frightened Mme. de Van- 
 denesse. 
 
 " Do you take much interest in him then ? " asked Felix of 
 his wife. 
 
 " Oh ! I like his humor, and he talks well." 
 
 The reply came so naturally that it did not rouse the 
 count's suspicions. 
 
 At four o'clock next day at Mme. d'Espard's, Marie and 
 Raoul held a long whispered conversation. The countess 
 gave expression to fears which Raoul dissipated, only too 
 glad of this opportunity to damage the husband's authority 
 under a battery of epigrams. He had his revenge to take. 
 The count, thus handled, appeared a man of narrow mind 
 and behind the clay, who judged the Revolution of July by 
 the standard of the Restoration, and shut his eyes to the 
 triumph of the middle-class, that new and substantial factor 
 to be reckoned with, for a time at least if not permanently, 
 in every society. The great feudal lords of the past were 
 impossible now, the reign of true merit had begun. Instead 
 of weighing well the indirect and impartial warning he had 
 received from an experienced politician in the expression of 
 his deliberate opinion, Raoul made it an occasion for display, 
 mounted his stilts, and draped himself in the purple of 
 success. Where is the woman who would not believe her 
 lover rather than her husband ? 
 
 Mme. de Vandenesse, reassured, plunged once more into 
 that life of repressed irritation, of little stolen pleasures, and 
 of covert hand-pressings which had carried her through the 
 preceding winter ; but which can have no other end than to 
 drag a woman over the boundary-line if the man she loves 
 has any spirit and chafes against the curb. Happily for her, 
 Raoul, kept in check by Florine, was not dangerous. He was 
 engrossed, too, in business which did not allow him to turn 
 his good fortune to account. Nevertheless, some sudden
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 97 
 
 disaster, a renewal of difficulties, an outburst of impatience, 
 might at any moment precipitate the countess into the abyss. 
 
 Raoul was becoming conscious of this disposition in Marie 
 when, toward the end of December, du Tillet asked for his 
 money. The wealthy banker told Raoul he was hard up, and 
 advised him to borrow the amount for a fortnight from a 
 money-lender called Gigonnet a twenty-five per cent, prov- 
 idence for all young men in difficulties. In a few days the 
 paper would make a fresh financial start with the new year, 
 there would be cash in the counting-house, and then du Tillet 
 would see what he could do. Beside, why should not Nathan 
 write another play ? Nathan was too proud not to resolve on 
 paying at any cost. Du Tillet gave him a letter for the 
 money-lender, in response to which Gigonnet handed him the 
 amount required and took bills payable in twenty days. 
 Raoul, instead of having his suspicions aroused by this accom- 
 modating reception, was only vexed that he had not asked for 
 more. This is the way with men of the greatest intellectual 
 power; they see only matter for pleasantry in a grave predica- 
 ment, and reserve their wits for writing books, as though 
 afraid there might not be enough of them to go round if ap- 
 plied to daily life. Raoul told Florine and Blondet how he 
 had spent his morning ; he drew a faithful picture of Gigonnet 
 and his surroundings, his cheap fleur-de-lys (lily-flowered) 
 wall-paper, his staircase, his asthmatic bell, his stag's-foot 
 knocker, his worn little door-mat, his heart as devoid of fire 
 as his eye; he made them laugh at this new "uncle," and 
 neither du Tillet's professed need of money nor the facility of 
 the usurer caused them the least uneasiness. One can't ac- 
 count for every whim ! 
 
 " He has only taken fifteen per cent, from you," said 
 Blondet ; " he deserves your thanks. At twenty-five they 
 cease to be gentlemen ; at fifty, usury begins ; at this figure 
 they are only contemptible ! " 
 
 " Contemptible ! " cried Florine. " I should like to know 
 7
 
 93 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 which of your friends would lend you money at this rate with- 
 out posing as a benefactor? " 
 
 "She is quite right; I am heartily glad to be quit of du 
 Tillet's debt," said Raoul. 
 
 Most mysterious is this lack of penetration in regard to 
 their private affairs on the part of men generally so keen- 
 sighted ! It may be that it is impossible for the mind to be 
 fully equipped on every side; it maybe that artists live too 
 entirely in the present to trouble about the future ; or it may 
 be that, always on the lookout for the ridiculous, they are 
 blind to traps, and cannot believe in any one daring to fool 
 them. 
 
 The end did not tarry. Twenty days later the bills were 
 protested ; but in the court Florine had a respite of twenty- 
 five days applied for and granted. Raoul made an effort to 
 see where he stood ; he sent for the books ; and from these it 
 appeared that the receipts of the paper covered two-thirds of 
 the cost, and that the circulation was going down. The great 
 man became uneasy and gloomy, but only in the company of 
 Florine, in whom he confided. Florine advised him to bor- 
 row on the security of plays not yet written, selling them in a 
 lump, and parting at the same time with the royalties on his 
 acted plays. By this means Nathan raised twenty thousand 
 francs, and reduced his debt to forty thousand. 
 
 On the loth of February the twenty-five days expired. Du 
 Tillet, determined to oust Nathan, as a rival, from the con- 
 stituency, where he intended to stand himself (leaving to 
 Massol another which was in the pocket of the Government), 
 got Gigonnet to refuse Raoul all quarter. A man laid by the 
 heels for debt can hardly present himself as a candidate; and 
 the embryo minister might disappear in the maw of a debtor's 
 prison. Florine herself was in constant communication with 
 the bailiffs on account of her own debts, and in this crisis the 
 only resource left to her was the "I!" of Medea, for her 
 furniture was seized. The aspirant to fame heard on every
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 99 
 
 side the crack of ruin in his freshly reared but baseless fabric. 
 Unequal to the task of sustaining so vast an enterprise, how 
 could he think of beginning again to lay the foundations ? 
 Nothing remained, therefore, but to perish beneath his crum- 
 bling visions. His love for the countess still brought flashes 
 of life, but only to the outer mask; within, all hope was dead. 
 He did not suspect du Tillet ; the usurer alone filled his view. 
 Rastignac, Blondet, Lousteau, Vernou, Finot, Massol, care- 
 fully refrained from enlightening a man of such dangerous 
 energy. Rastignac, who aimed at getting back to power, 
 made common cause with Nucingen and du Tillet. The rest 
 found measureless delight in watching the expiring agony of 
 one of their comrades, convicted of the crime of aiming at 
 mastery. Not one of them would breathe a word to Florine ; 
 to her, on the contrary, they were full of Raoul's praises. 
 " Nathan's shoulders were broad enough to bear the world ; 
 he would come out all right, no fear ! " 
 
 "The circulation went up two yesterday," said Blondet 
 solemnly. " Raoul will be elected yet. As soon as the bud- 
 get is through the dissolution will be announced." 
 
 Nathan, dogged by the law, could no longer look to money- 
 lenders ; Florine, her furniture distrained, had no hope left 
 save in the chance of inspiring a passion in some good-natured 
 fool, who never turns up at the right moment. Nathan's 
 friends were all men without money or credit. His political 
 chances would be ruined by his arrest. To crown all, he saw 
 himself pledged to huge tasks, paid for in advance ; it was a 
 bottomless pit of horrors into which he gazed. 
 
 Before an outlook so threatening his self-confidence deserted 
 him. Would the Comtesse de Vandenesse unite her fate to 
 his and fly with him ? Only a fully developed passion can 
 bring a woman to this fatal step, and theirs had never bound 
 them to each other in the mysterious ties of illicit rapture. 
 Even supposing the countess would follow him abroad, she 
 would come penniless, bare, and stripped, and would prove
 
 100 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 an added burden. A proud man, of second-rate quality, like 
 Nathan, could not fail to see in suicide, as Nathan did, the 
 sword with which to cut this Gordian knot. The idea of 
 overthrow, in full view of that society into which he had 
 worked his way and which he had aspired to dominate, of 
 leaving the countess enthroned there, while he fell back to 
 join the mud-spattered rank and file, was unbearable. Mad- 
 ness danced and rang her bells before the door of that airy 
 palace in which the poet had made his home. In this ex- 
 tremity, Nathan waited upon a chance, and put off killing 
 himself till the last moment. 
 
 During the last days, occupied with the notice of judgment, 
 the writs, and publication of order of arrest, Raoul could not 
 succeed in throwing off that coldly sinister look, observed by 
 noticing people to haunt those marked out for suicide, or 
 whose minds are dwelling on it. The dismal ideas which 
 they fondle cast a gray, gloomy shade over the forehead ; 
 their smile is vaguely ominous, and they move with solemnity. 
 The unhappy wretches seem resolved to suck dry the golden 
 fruit of life ; they cast appealing glances on every side, the 
 toll of the passing-bell is in their ears, and their minds 
 wander. These alarming symptoms were perceived by Marie 
 one night at Lady Dudley's. Raoul had remained alone on 
 a sofa in the boudoir, while the rest of the company were 
 conversing in the drawing-room ; when the countess came to 
 the door, he did not raise his head ; he heard neither Marie's 
 breath nor the rustle of her silk dress ; his eyes, stupid with 
 pain, were fixed on a flower in the carpet. " Sooner die 
 than abdicate," was his thought. It is not every man who 
 has a Saint-Helena to retire upon. Suicide, moreover, was 
 at that time in vogue in Paris : what more suitable key to the 
 mystery of life for a skeptical society? Raoul, then, had just 
 resolved to put an end to himself. Despair must be propor- 
 tioned to hope, and that of Raoul could find no issue but tne 
 grave.
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 101 
 
 " What is the matter? " said Marie, flying to him. 
 
 " Nothing," he replied. 
 
 " Lovers have a way of using this word " nothing " which 
 implies exactly the opposite. Marie gave a little shrug. 
 
 " What a child you are ! " she said. " Something has gone 
 wrong with you?" 
 
 " Not with me," he said. "Beside," he added affection- 
 ately, "you will know it all too soon, Marie." 
 
 "What were you thinking of when I came in?" she said, 
 with an air that would not be denied. 
 
 "Are you determined to know the truth?" 
 
 She bowed her head. 
 
 " I was thinking of you ; I said to myself that many men 
 in my place would have wished to be loved without reserve : 
 I am loved, am I not ? " 
 
 "Yes," she said. 
 
 Braving the risk of interruption, Raoul put his arm around 
 her and drew her near enough to kiss her on the forehead, as 
 he continued 
 
 "And I am leaving you pure and free from remorse. I 
 might drag you into the abyss, but you stand upon the brink 
 in all your stainless glory. One thought, though, haunts 
 me " 
 
 "What thought?" 
 
 "You will despise me." 
 
 She smiled a proud smile. 
 
 "Yes, you will never believe in the holiness of my love for 
 you; and then they will slander me, I know. No woman 
 can conceive how, from out of the filth in which we wallow, 
 we raise our eyes to heaven in single-hearted worship of some 
 radiant star some Marie. They mix up this adoration with 
 painful questions ; they cannot understand that men of high 
 intellect and poetic vision are able to wean their souls from 
 pleasure and keep them to lay entire upon some cherished 
 altar. And yet, Marie, our devotion to the ideal is more
 
 102 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 ardent than yours; we embody it in a woman, while she does 
 not even seek for it in us." 
 
 " Why this effusion ? " she said, with the irony of a woman 
 who has no misgivings. 
 
 "I am leaving France; you will learn how and why to- 
 morrow from a letter which my servant will bring you. Fare- 
 well, Marie." 
 
 Raoul went out, after pressing the countess to his heart in 
 an agonized embrace, and left her dazed with misery. 
 
 "What is wrong, dear?" said the Marquise d'Espard, 
 coming to look for her. "What has Monsieur Nathan been 
 saying? He left us with quite a melodramatic air. You 
 must have been terribly foolish or terribly prudent." 
 
 The countess took Mme. d'Espard's arm to return to the 
 drawing-room, where, however, she only stayed a few instants. 
 
 "Perhaps she is going to her first appointment," said Lady 
 Dudley to the marchioness. 
 
 "I shall make sure as to that," replied Mme. d'Espard, 
 who left at once to follow the countess' carriage. 
 
 But the coupe of Mme. de Vandenesse took the road to the 
 Faubourg St. Honored When Mme. d'Espard entered her 
 house, she saw the countess driving along the faubourg in the 
 direction of the Rue du Rocher. Marie went to bed, but not 
 to sleep, and spent the night in reading a voyage to the North 
 Pole, of which she did not take in a word. 
 
 At half-past eight next morning she got a letter from Raoul 
 and opened it in feverish haste. The letter began with the 
 classic phrase 
 
 " My loved one, when this paper is in your hands, I shall 
 be no more." 
 
 She read no further, but crushing the paper with a nervous 
 motion, rang for her maid, hastily put on a loose gown, and 
 the first pair of shoes that came to hand, wrapped a shawl
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 103 
 
 round her, took a bonnet, and then went out, instructing her 
 maid to tell the count that she had gone to her sister, Mme. 
 du Tillet. 
 
 " Where did you leave your master? " she asked of Raoul's 
 servant. 
 
 "At the newspaper office." 
 
 "Take me there," she said. 
 
 To the amazement of the household, she left the house on 
 foot before nine o'clock, visibly distraught. Fortunately for 
 her, the maid went to tell the count that her mistress had just 
 received a letter from Mme. du Tillet which had upset her 
 very much, and that she had started in a great hurry for her 
 sister's house, accompanied by the servant who had brought 
 the letter. Vandenesse waited for further explanations till 
 his wife's return. The countess got a cab and was borne 
 rapidly to the office. At that time of day the spacious rooms 
 occupied by the paper, in an old house in the Rue Feydeau, 
 were deserted. The only occupant was an attendant, whose 
 astonishment was great when a pretty and distracted young 
 woman rushed up and demanded M. Nathan. 
 
 "I expect he is with Mademoiselle Florine," he replied, 
 taking the countess for some jealous rival, bent on making a 
 scene. 
 
 " Where does he work?" she asked. 
 
 "In a small room, the key of which is in his pocket." 
 
 " I must go there." 
 
 The man led her to a dark room, looking out on a back- 
 yard, which had formerly been the dressing-closet attached 
 to a large bedroom. This closet made an angle with the bed- 
 room, in which the recess for the bed still remained. By 
 opening the bedroom window, the countess was able to see 
 through that of the closet what was happening within. 
 
 Nathan lay in the editorial chair, the death-rattle in his 
 throat. 
 
 " Break open that door, and tell no one ! I will pay you
 
 104 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 to keep silence," she cried. " Can't you see that Monsieur 
 Nathan is dying?" 
 
 "Ah ! " was the only reply. 
 
 The man rushed to the compositors' room to fetch an iron 
 chase with which to force the door. Raoul was killing him- 
 self, like some poor work-girl, with the fumes from a pan of 
 charcoal. He had just finished a letter to Blondet, in which he 
 begged him to attribute his death to a fit of apoplexy. The 
 countess was just in time ; she had Raoul carried into the 
 cab; and not knowing where to get him looked after, she 
 went to a hotel, took a room there, and sent the attendant to 
 fetch a doctor. Raoul in a few hours was out of danger ; but 
 the countess did not leave his bedside till she had obtained a full 
 confession. When the prostrate wrestler with fate had poured 
 into her heart the terrible elegy of his sufferings, she returned 
 home a prey to all the torturing fancies which the evening 
 before had brooded over Nathan's brow. 
 
 "Leave it all to me," she had said, hoping to win him 
 back to life. 
 
 "Well, what is wrong with your sister?" asked Felix, on 
 seeing his wife return. " You look like a ghost." 
 
 "It is a frightful story, but I must keep it an absolute 
 secret," she replied, summoning all her strength to put on an 
 appearance of composure. 
 
 In order to be alone and able to think in peace, she went 
 to the opera in the evening, and thence had gone on to 
 unbosom her woes to Mme. du Tillet. After describing the 
 ghastly scene of the morning, she implored her sister's 
 advice and aid. Neither of them had an idea then that it 
 was du Tillet whose hand had put the match to that vulgar 
 pan of charcoal, the sight of which had so dismayed Mme. 
 de Vandenesse. 
 
 " He has no one but me in the world," Marie had said to 
 her sister, "and I shall not fail him." 
 
 In these words may be read the key to women's hearts.
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 105 
 
 They become heroic in the assurance of being all in all to a 
 great and honorable man. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A LOVER SAVED AND LOST. 
 
 Du Tillet had heard many speculations as to the greater or 
 less probability of his sister-in-law's love for Nathan ; but he 
 was one of those who deemed the liaison incompatible with 
 that existing between Raoul and Florine, or who denied it 
 on other grounds. In his view, either the actress made the 
 countess impossible, or vice versA. But when, on his return 
 that evening, he found his sister-in-law, whose agitation had 
 been plainly written on her face at the opera, he surmised that 
 Raoul had confided his plight to the countess. This meant 
 that the countess loved him, and had come to beg from Marie- 
 Eugenie the amount due to old Gigonnet. Mme. du Tillet, 
 at a loss how to explain this apparently miraculous insight, 
 had betrayed so much confusion, that du Tillet's suspicion 
 became a certainty. The banker was confident that he could 
 now get hold of the clue to Nathan's intrigues. 
 
 No one knew of the poor wretch who lay ill in a private 
 hotel in the Rue du Mail, under the name of the attendant, 
 Frangois Quillet, to whom the countess had promised five 
 hundred francs as the reward for silence on the events of the 
 night and morning. Quillet in consequence had taken the 
 precaution of telling the portress that Nathan was ill from 
 overwork. It was no surprise to du Tillet not to see Nathan, 
 for it was only natural the journalist should keep in hiding 
 from the bailiffs. When the detectives came to make inquiry, 
 they were told that a lady had been there that morriing and 
 carried off the editor. Two days elapsed before they had dis- 
 covered the number of the cab, questioned the driver, and 
 identified and explored the house in which the poor insolvent
 
 106 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 was coming back to life. Thus Marie's wary tactics had won 
 for Nathan a respite of three days. 
 
 Each of the sisters passed an agitated night. Such a tragedy 
 casts a lurid light, like the glow of its own charcoal, upon the 
 whole substance of a life, throwing out its shoals and reefs 
 rather than the heights which hitherto had struck the eye. 
 Mme. du Tillet, overcome by the frightful spectacle of a 
 young man dying in his editorial chair, and writing his last 
 words with Roman stoicism, could think of nothing but how 
 to help him, how to restore to life the being in whom her 
 sister's life was bound up. It is a law of the mind to look at 
 effects before analyzing causes. Eugenie once more approved 
 the idea, which had occurred to her, of applying to the 
 Baronne Delphine de Nucingen, with whom she had a din- 
 ing acquaintance, and felt that it promised well. With the 
 generosity natural to those whose hearts have not been ground 
 in the polished mill of society, Mme. du Tillet determined to 
 take everything upon herself. 
 
 The countess again, happy in having saved Nathan's life, 
 spent the night in scheming how to lay her hands on forty 
 thousand francs. In such a crisis women are beyond praise. 
 Under the impulse of feeling they light upon contrivances 
 which would excite, if anything could, the admiration of 
 thieves, brokers, and usurers, those three more or less licensed 
 classes of filchers who live by their wits. The countess would 
 sell her diamonds and wear false ones. Then she was for 
 asking Vandenesse to give her the money for her sister, whom 
 she had already used as a pretext ; but she was too high- 
 minded not to recoil from such degrading expedients, which 
 occurred to her only to be rejected. To give Vandenesse's 
 money to Nathan ! At the very thought she leaped up in 
 bed, horrified at her own baseness. Wear false diamonds ! 
 her husband would find out sooner or later. She would go and 
 beg the money from the Rothschilds, who had so much ; from 
 the Archbishop of Paris, whose duty it was to succor the poor.
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 107 
 
 Thus in her extremity she rushed from one religion to another 
 with impartial prayers. She lamented being in opposition ; 
 in old days she could have borrowed from persons near to 
 royalty. She thought of applying to her father. But the 
 ex-judge had a horror of any breach of the law ; his children 
 had learned from experience how little sympathy he had with 
 love troubles ; he refused to hear of them, he had become a 
 misanthrope, he could not away with intrigue of any descrip- 
 tion. As to the Comtesse de Granville, she had gone to live 
 in retirement on one of her estates in Normandy, and, icy to 
 the last, was ending her days, pinching and praying, between 
 money-bags and priests. Even were there time for Marie to 
 reach Bayeux, would her mother give her so large a sum with- 
 out knowing for what it was wanted? Imaginary debts? 
 Yes, possibly her favorite child might move her to compas- 
 sion. Well, then, as a last resource, to Normandy the 
 countess would go. The Comte de Granville would not re- 
 fuse to give her a pretext by sending false news of his wife's 
 serious illness. 
 
 The tragedy which had given her such a shock in the morn- 
 ing, the care she had lavished on Nathan, the hours passed by 
 his bedside, the broken tale, the agony of a great mind, the 
 career of genius cut short by a vulgar and ignoble detail, all 
 rushed upon her memory as so many spurs to love. Once 
 more she lived through every heart-throb, and felt her love 
 stronger in the hour of Nathan's abasement than in that of his 
 success. Would she have kissed that forehead crowned with 
 triumph ? Her heart answered : No. The parting words 
 Nathan had spoken to her in Lady Dudley's boudoir touched 
 her unspeakably by their noble dignity. Was ever farewell 
 more saintly ? What could be more heroic than to abandon 
 happiness because it would have made her misery? The 
 countess had longed for sensations in her life, truly she had a 
 wealth of them now, fearful, agonizing, and yet dear to her. 
 Her life seemed fuller in pain than it had ever been in pleasure.
 
 ]08 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 With what ecstasy she repeated to herself: "I have saved 
 him already, and I will save him again ! " She heard his 
 cry: " Only the miserable know the power of love ! " when 
 he had felt his Marie's lips upon his forehead. 
 
 " Are you ill ? " asked her husband, coming into her room 
 to fetch her for lunch. 
 
 " I cannot get over the tragedy which is being enacted at 
 my sister's," she said, truthfully enough. 
 
 " She has fallen into bad hands ; it's a disgrace to the 
 family to have a du Tillet in it, a worthless fellow like that. 
 If your sister got into any trouble, she would find scant pity 
 with him.'* 
 
 ''What woman could endure pity?" said the countess, 
 with an involuntary shudder. " Your ruthless harshness is the 
 truest homage." 
 
 " There speaks your noble heart ! " said Felix, kissing his 
 wife's hand, quite touched by her fine scorn. "A woman 
 who feels like that does not need guarding." 
 
 "Guarding?" she answered; "that again is another dis- 
 grace which recoils on you." 
 
 Felix smiled, but Marie blushed. When a woman has 
 committed a secret fault, she cloaks herself in an exaggerated 
 .womanly pride, nor can we blame the fraud, which points to 
 a reserve of dignity or even high-mindedness. 
 
 Marie wrote a line to Nathan, under the name of M. Quil- 
 let, to tell him that all was going well and sent it by a com- 
 missionaire to the Mail Hotel. At the opera in the evening 
 the countess reaped the benefit of her falsehoods, her husband 
 finding it quite natural that she should leave her box to go 
 and see her sister. Flix waited to give her his arm till du 
 Tillet had left his wife alone. What were not Marie's feel- 
 ings as she crossed the passage, entered her sister's box, and 
 took her seat there, facing with calm and serene countenance 
 the world of fashion, amazed to see the sisters together ! 
 
 "Tell me," she said.
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 109 
 
 The reply was written on Marie-Eugenie's face, the radi- 
 ance of which many people ascribed to gratified vanity. 
 
 ''Yes, he will be saved, darling, but for three months only, 
 during which time we will put our heads together and find 
 some more substantial help. Madame de Nucingen will take 
 four bills, each for ten thousand francs, signed by any one 
 you like, so as not to compromise you. She has explained to 
 me how they are to be made out ; I don't understand in the 
 least, but Monsieur Nathan will get them ready for you. 
 Only it occurred to me that perhaps our old master, Schmucke, 
 might be useful to us now ; he would sign them. If, in addi- 
 tion to these four securities, you write a letter guaranteeing 
 their payment to Madame de Nucingen, she will hand you 
 the money to-morrow. Do the whole thing yourself; don't 
 trust to anybody. Schmucke, you see, would, I think, make 
 no difficulty if you asked him. To disarm suspicion, I said 
 that you wanted to do a kindness to our old music-master, a 
 German, who was in trouble. In this way I was able to beg 
 for the strictest secrecy." 
 
 " You angel of cleverness ! If only the Baronne de Nucin- 
 gen does not talk till after she has given the money! " said 
 the countess, raising her eyes as though in prayer, regardless 
 of her surroundings. 
 
 " Schmucke lives in the little Rue de Nevers, on the Quai 
 Conti ; don't forget, and go yourself." 
 
 "Thanks," said the countess, pressing her sister's hand. 
 " Ah ! I would give ten years of my life " 
 
 "From your old age " 
 
 "To put an end to all these horrors," said the countess, 
 with a smile at the interruption. 
 
 The crowd at this moment, spying the two sisters through 
 their opera-glasses, might suppose them to be talking of triviali- 
 ties, as they heard the ring of their frank laughter. But any 
 one of those idlers, who frequent the opera rather to study 
 dress and faces than to enjoy themselves, would be able to
 
 110 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 detect the secret of the countess in the wave of feeling which 
 suddenly blotted all cheerfulness out of their fair faces. 
 Raoul, who did not fear the bailiffs at night, appeared, pale 
 and ashy, with anxious eye and gloomy brow, on the step of 
 the staircase where he regularly took his stand. He looked 
 for the countess in her box, and, finding it empty, buried his 
 face in his hands, leaning his elbows on the balustrade. 
 
 " Can she be here ! " he thought. 
 
 "Look up, unhappy hero," whispered Mme. du Tillet. 
 
 As for Marie, at all risks she fixed on him that steady mag- 
 netic gaze, in which the will flashes from the eye, as rays of 
 light from the sun. Such a look, mesmerizers say, penetrates 
 to the person on whom it is directed, and certainly Raoul 
 seemed as though struck by a magic wand. Raising his head, 
 his eyes met those of the sisters. With that charming femi- 
 nine readiness which is never at fault, Mme. de Vandenesse 
 seized a cross, sparkling on her neck, and directed his atten- 
 tion to it by a swift smile, full of meaning. The brilliance of 
 the gem radiated even upon Raoul's forehead, and he replied 
 with a look of joy; he had understood. 
 
 "Is it nothing, then, Eugenie," said the countess, "thus 
 to restore life to the dead ?" 
 
 "You have a chance yet with the Royal Humane Society," 
 replied Eugenie, with a smile. 
 
 " How wretched and depressed he looked when he came, 
 and how happy he will go away 1 " 
 
 At this moment du Tillet, coming up to Raoul with every 
 mark of friendliness, pressed his hand, and said 
 
 " Well, old fellow, how are you ? " 
 
 " As well as a man is likely to be who has just got the best 
 possible news of the election. I shall be successful," replied 
 Raoul, radiant. 
 
 " Delighted," said du Tillet. " We shall want money for 
 the paper." 
 
 "The money will be found," said Raoul.
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. Ill 
 
 " The devil is with these women ! " exclaimed du Tillet, 
 still unconvinced by the words of Raoul, whom he had nick- 
 named Charnathan carriage-gift. 
 
 "What are you talking about?" said Raoul. 
 
 " My sister-in-law is there witli my wife, and they are hatch- 
 ing something together. You seem in high favor with the 
 countess; she is bowing to you right across the house." 
 
 "Look," said Mme. du Tillet to her sister, "they told us 
 wrong. See how my husband fawns on Monsieur Nathan, 
 and it is he who they declared was trying to get him put in 
 prison ! " 
 
 "And men call us slanderers!" cried the countess. "I 
 will give him a warning." 
 
 She rose, took the arm of Vandenesse, who was waiting in 
 the passage, and returned jubilant to her box ; by-and-by she 
 left the opera, ordered her carriage for the next morning be- 
 fore eight o'clock, and found herself at half-past eight on the 
 Quai Conti, having called at the Rue du Mail on her way. 
 
 The carriage could not enter the narrrow Rue de Nevers; 
 but, as Schmucke's house stood at the corner of the quay, the 
 countess was not obliged to walk to it through the mud. She 
 almost leapt from the step of the carriage on to the dirty and 
 dilapidated entrance of the grimy old house, which was held 
 together by iron clamps, like a poor man's crockery, and over- 
 hung the street in quite an alarming fashion. 
 
 The old organist lived on the fourth floor, and rejoiced in 
 a beautiful view of the Seine, from the Pont Neuf to the rising 
 ground of Chaillot. The simple fellow was so taken aback 
 when the footman announced his former pupil, that, before he 
 could recover himself, she was in the room. Never could the 
 countess have imagined or guessed at an existence such as 
 that suddenly laid bare to her, though she had long known 
 Schmucke's scorn for appearances and his indifference to 
 worldly things. Who could have believed in so neglected a 
 life, in carelessness carried to such a pitch ? Schmucke was
 
 112 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 a musical Diogenes ; he felt no shame for the hugger-mugger 
 in which he lived ; indeed, custom had made him insensible 
 to it. 
 
 The constant use of a fat, friendly, German pipe had spread 
 over the ceiling and the flimsy wall-paper well rubbed by the 
 cat a faint yellow tint, which gave a pervading impression of 
 the golden harvests of Ceres. The cat, whose long ruffled 
 silky coat made a garment such as a portress might have en- 
 vied, did the honors of the house, sedately whiskered, and en- 
 tirely at her ease. From the top of a first-rate Vienna piano, 
 where she lay couched in state, she cast on the countess as she 
 entered the gracious yet chilly glance with which any woman, 
 astonished at her beauty, might have greeted her. She did 
 not stir, except to wave the two silvery threads of her upright 
 mustache and to fix upon Schmucke two golden eyes. The 
 piano, which had known better days, and was cased in a good 
 wood, painted black and gold, was dirty, discolored, chipped, 
 and its keys were worn like the teeth of an old horse and 
 mellowed by the deeper tints which fell from the pipe. Little 
 piles of ashes on the ledge proclaimed that the night before 
 Schmucke had bestridden the old instrument to some witches' 
 rendezvous. The brick floor, strewn with dried mud, torn 
 paper, tobacco-ashes, and odds and ends that defy description, 
 suggested the boards of a lodging-house floor, when they have 
 not been swept for a week and heaps of litter, a cross between 
 the contents of the ash-pit and the rag-bag, await the servants' 
 brooms. A more practiced eye than that of the countess 
 might have read indications of Schmucke's way of living in 
 the chestnut scraps, parings of apple-peel, and shells of Easter 
 eggs, which covered broken fragments of plates, all messed 
 with sauer kraut. This German detritus formed a carpet of 
 dusty filth which grated under the feet and lost itself in a 
 mass of cinders, dropping with slow dignity from a painted 
 stone fireplace, where a lump of coal lorded it over two half- 
 burnt logs that seemed to waste away before it. On the
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 113 
 
 mantel was a pier-glass with figures dancing a saraband round 
 it ; on one side the glorious pipe hung on a nail, on the other 
 stood a china pot in which the professor kept his tobacco. 
 Two armchairs, casually picked up, together with a thin, 
 flattened couch, a worm-eaten bureau with the marble top 
 gone, and a maimed table, on which lay the remains of a 
 frugal breakfast, made up the furniture, unpretending as that 
 of a Mohican wigwam. A shaving-glass hanging from the 
 catch of a curtainless window, and surmounted by a rag, 
 striped by razor scrapings, were evidence of the sole sacrifices 
 paid by Schmucke to the graces and to society. 
 
 The cat, petted as a feeble and dependent being, was the 
 best off. It rejoiced in an old armchair cushion, beside which 
 stood a white china cup and dish. But what no pen can de- 
 scribe is the state to which Schmucke, the cat, and the pipe 
 trinity of living beings had reduced the furniture. The pipe 
 had scorched the table in places. The cat and Schmucke's head 
 had greased the green Utrecht velvet of the two armchairs till 
 it was worn quite smooth. But for the cat's magnificent tail, 
 which did a part of the cleaning, the dust would have lain for 
 ever undisturbed on the uncovered parts of the chest of drawers 
 and piano. In a corner lay the army of slippers, to which only 
 a Homeric catalogue could do justice. The tops of the bureau 
 and of the piano were blocked with broken-backed, loose- 
 paged music-books, the boards showing all the pages peeping 
 through, with corners white and dogs-eared. Along the walls 
 the addresses of pupils were glued with little wafers. The 
 wafers without papers showed the number of obsolete ad- 
 dresses. On the wall-paper chalk additions might be read. 
 The bureau was adorned with last night's beer tankards, which 
 stood out quite fresh and bright in the midst of all this stuffi- 
 ness and decay. Hygiene was represented by a water-jug 
 crowned with a towel and a bit of common soap, white 
 marbled with blue, which left its damp-mark here and there 
 on the red wood. Two hats, equally ancient, hung on pegs,
 
 114 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 from which was also suspended the familiar blue ulster with 
 its three capes, without which the countess would hardly have 
 known Schmucke. Beneath the window stood three pots of 
 flowers, German flowers presumably, and close by a holly 
 walking-stick. 
 
 Though the countess was disagreeably affected both in sight 
 and smell, yet Schmucke's eyes and smile transformed the 
 sordid scene with heavenly rays, that gave a glory to the 
 dingy tones and animation to the chaos. The soul of this 
 man, who seemed to belong to another world and revealed so 
 many of its mysteries, radiated light like the sun. His frank 
 and hearty laugh at the sight of one of his Saint Cecilias 
 diffused the brightness of youth, mirth, and innocence. He 
 poured out treasures of that which mankind holds dearest, and 
 made a cloak of them to veil his poverty. The most purse- 
 proud upstart would perhaps have blushed to think twice of 
 the surroundings within which moved this noble apostle of the 
 religion of music. 
 
 "Eh, py vot tchance came you here, tear Montame la 
 Gondesse? " he said. " Must I den zing de zong ov Zimeon 
 at mein asche?" 
 
 This idea started him on another peal of ringing laughter. 
 
 "Is it dat I haf a conqvest made?" he went on, with a 
 look of cunning. 
 
 Then, laughing like a child again 
 
 "You com for de musike, not for a boor man, I know," 
 he said sadly; "but com for vat you vill, you know dat all 
 is here for you, pody, zoul, ant coots ! " 
 
 He took the hand of the countess, kissed it, and dropped 
 a tear, for with this good man every day was the morrow of a 
 kindness received. His joy had for a moment deprived him 
 of memory, only to bring it back in greater force. He seized 
 on the chalk, leaped on the armchair in front of the piano, 
 and then, with the alacrity of a young man, wrote on the wall 
 in large letters, "February 1710, 1835." This movement,
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 115 
 
 so pretty and artless, came with such an outburst of gratitude 
 that the countess was quite moved. 
 
 " My sister is coming too," she said. 
 
 " De oder alzo ! Ven ? Ven ? May it pe bevor I tie ! " 
 he replied. 
 
 " She will come to thank you for a great favor which I am 
 here now to ask from you on her behalf." 
 
 "Qvick! qvick ! qvick ! qvick ! " cried Schmucke, " vot 
 is dis dat I mosd to ? Mosd I to de teufel go ? " 
 
 "I only want you to write, 'I promise to pay the sum of 
 ten thousand francs' on each of these papers," she said, 
 drawing from her muff the four bills, which Nathan had pre- 
 pared in accordance with the formula prescribed. 
 
 " Ach ! dat vill pe soon tone," replied the German with a 
 lamblike docility. " Only, I know not vere are mem bens 
 and baber. Get you away, Meinherr Mirr," he cried to the 
 cat, who stared at him frigidly. " Dis is mein gat," he said, 
 pointing it out to the countess. " Dis is de boor peast vich 
 lifs mit de boor Schmucke. He is peautivul, dot zo? " 
 
 The countess agreed. 
 
 "You vould vish him?" 
 
 " What an idea ! Take away your friend ! " 
 
 The cat, who was hiding the ink-bottle, divined what 
 Schmucke wanted and jumped on to the bed. 
 
 "He is naughty ass ein monkey! " he went on, pointing 
 to it on the bed. " I name him Mirr, for to glorivy our 
 creat Hoffmann at Berlin, dat I haf mosh known." 
 
 The good man signed with the innocence of a child doing 
 its mother's bidding, utterly ignorant what it is about, but 
 sure that all will be right. He was far more taken up with 
 presenting the cat to the countess than with the papers, which, 
 by the laws relating to foreigners, might have deprived him 
 for ever of liberty. 
 
 " You make me zure dat dese leetl stambed babers." 
 
 "Don't have the least uneasiness," said the countess.
 
 116 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 " I haf not oneasiness," he replied hastily. " I ask if dese 
 leetl stambed babers vil plees der Montame ti Dilet?" 
 
 " Oh yes," she said ; " you will be helping her as a father 
 might." 
 
 " I am rer habby do pe coot do her for zomting. Com, 
 do mein music ! " he said, leaving the papers on the table 
 and springing to the piano. 
 
 In a moment the hands of this unworldly being were flying 
 over the well-worn keys, in a moment his glance pierced the 
 roof to heaven, in a moment the sweetest of songs blossomed 
 in the air and penetrated the soul. But only while the ink 
 was drying could this simple-minded interpreter of heavenly 
 things be allowed to draw forth eloquence from wood and 
 string, like Raphael's St. Cecilia playing to the listening 
 hosts of heaven. The countess then slipped the bills into her 
 muff again, and recalled the radiant master from the ethereal 
 spheres in which he soared by a touch on the shoulder. 
 
 "My good Schmucke," she cried. 
 
 "Zo zoon," he exclaimed, with a submissiveness painful to 
 see. " Vy den are you com ? ' ' 
 
 He did not complain, he stood like a faithful dog, waiting 
 for a word from the countess. 
 
 " My good Schmucke," she again began, " this is a question 
 of life and death, minutes now may be the price of blood and 
 tears." 
 
 "Efer de zame ! " he said. "Go den! try de tears ov 
 oders ! Know dat de boor Schmucke counts your fisit for 
 more dan your pounty." 
 
 "We shall meet again," she said. "You must come and 
 play to me and dine with me every Sunday, or else we shall 
 quarrel. I shall expect you next Sunday." 
 
 "Truly?" 
 
 " Indeed, I hope you will come ; and my sister, I am sure, 
 will fix a day for you also." 
 
 "Mein habbiness vill be den gomplete," he said, "vor I
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 117 
 
 tid not zee you put at de Champes-Hailysees, ven you passed 
 in de carrisch, fery rarely." 
 
 The thought of this dried the tears which had gathered in 
 the old man's eyes, and he offered his arm to his fair pupil, 
 who could feel the wild beats of his heart. 
 
 " You thought of us then sometimes?" she said. 
 
 " E fery time ven I mein pret eat!" he replied. "Virst 
 ass mein pountivul laties, ant den ass de two virst young girls 
 vurty of luf dat I haf zeen." 
 
 The countess dared say no more ! There was a marvelous 
 and respectful solemnity in these words, as though they formed 
 part of some religious service, breathing fidelity. That smoky 
 room, that den of refuse, became a temple for two goddesses. 
 Devotion there waxed stronger, all unknown to its objects. 
 
 " Here, then, we are loved, truly loved," she thought. 
 
 The countess shared the emotion with which old Schmucke 
 saw her get into her carriage, as she blew from the ends of 
 her fingers one of those airy kisses, which are a woman's dis- 
 tant greeting. At this sight, Schmucke stood transfixed long 
 after the carriage had disappeared. 
 
 A few minutes later, the countess entered the courtyard of 
 Mme. de Nucingen's house. The baroness was not yet up; 
 but, in order not to keep a lady of position waiting, she flung 
 a shawl and dressing-gown around her. 
 
 " I come on the business of others, and promptitude is then 
 a virtue," said the countess. "This must be my excuse for 
 disturbing you so early." 
 
 "Not at all! I am only too happy," said the banker's 
 wife, taking the four papers and the guarantee of the countess. 
 
 She rang for her maid. 
 
 " Theresa, tell the cashier to bring me up himself, at once, 
 forty thousand francs." 
 
 Then she sealed the letter of Mme. de Vandenesse, and 
 locked it into a secret drawer of her table. 
 
 " What a pretty room you have ! " said the countess.
 
 118 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 "Monsieur de Nucingen is going to deprive me (jfcjt ; he 
 is getting a new house built." 
 
 "You will no doubt give this one to your daughter. I 
 hear that she is engaged to Monsieur de Rastignac." 
 
 The cashier appeared as Mme. de Nucingen was on the 
 point of replying. She took the notes and handed him the 
 four bills of exchange. 
 
 "That balances," said the baroness to the cashier. 
 
 " Egzebd for de disgound," said the cashier. "Dis 
 Schmucke iss ein musician vrom Ansbach," he added, with a 
 glance at the signature, which sent a shiver through the 
 countess. 
 
 " Do you suppose I am transacting business?" said Mme. 
 de Nucingen, with a haughty glance of rebuke at the cashier. 
 "This is my affair." 
 
 In vain did the cashier cast sly glances now at the countess, 
 now at the baroness ; not a line of their faces moved. 
 
 " You can leave us now. Be so good as remain a minute 
 or two, so that you may not seem to have anything to do 
 with this matter," said the baroness to Mme. de Vandenesse. 
 
 " I must beg of you to add to your other kind services that 
 of keeping my secret," said the countess. 
 
 " In a matter of charity that is of course," replied the 
 baroness, with a smile. " I shall have your carriage sent to 
 the end of the garden ; it will start without you ; then we 
 shall cross the garden together, no one will see you leave this. 
 The whole thing will remain a mystery." 
 
 " You must have known suffering to have learned so much 
 thought for others," said the countess. 
 
 " I don't know about thoughtfulness, but I have suffered 
 a great deal," said the baroness; "you, I trust, have paid 
 less dearly for yours." 
 
 The orders given, the baroness took her fur shoes and 
 cloak and led the countess to the side-door of the garden. 
 
 When a man is plotting against any one, as du Tillet did
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 119 
 
 against Nathan, he makes no confidant. Nucingen had some 
 notion of what was going on, but his wife remained entirely 
 outside this Machiavellian scheming. She knew, however, 
 that Raoul was in difficulties, and was not deceived therefore 
 by the sisters ; she suspected shrewdly into whose hands the 
 money would pass, and it gave her real pleasure to help the 
 countess. Entanglements of the kind always roused her 
 deepest sympathy. 
 
 Rastignac, who was playing the detective on the intrigues 
 of the two bankers, came to lunch with Mme. de Nucingen. 
 Delphine and Rastignac had no secrets from each other, and 
 she told him of her interview with the countess. Rastignac, 
 unable to imagine how the baroness had become mixed up in 
 this affair, which in his eyes was merely incidental, one weapon 
 amongst many, explained to her that she had this morning in 
 all probability demolished the electoral hopes of du Tillet and 
 rendered abortive the foul play and sacrifices of a whole year. 
 He then went on to enlighten her as to the whole position, 
 urging her to keep silence about her own mistake. 
 
 " If only," she said, " the cashier does not speak of it to 
 Nucingen." 
 
 Du Tillet was at lunch when, a few minutes after twelve, 
 M. Gigonnet was announced. 
 
 " Show him in," said the banker, regardless of his wife's 
 presence. "Well, old Shylock, is our man under lock and 
 key?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " No ! Didn't I tell you Rue du Mail, at the hotel ? " 
 
 "He has paid," said Gigonnet, drawing from his pocket- 
 book forty bank-notes. 
 
 A look of despair passed over du Tillet's face. 
 
 "You should never look askance at good money," said the 
 impassive crony of du Tillet ; " it's unlucky." 
 
 "Where did you get this money, madame ? " said the
 
 120 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 banker, with a scowl at his wife, which made her scarlet to 
 the roots of her hair. 
 
 " I have no idea what you mean," she said. 
 
 " I shall get to the bottom of this," he replied, starting up 
 in a fury. "You have upset my most-cherished plans." 
 
 "You will upset your lunch," said Gigonnet, laying hold 
 of the tablecloth, which had caught in the skirts of du 
 Tillet's dressing-gown. 
 
 Mme. du Tillet rose with frigid dignity, for his words had 
 terrified her. She rang, and a footman came. 
 
 " My horses," she said. "And send Virginie ; I wish to 
 dress." 
 
 " Where are you going? " said du Tillet. 
 
 " Men who have any manners do not question their wives. 
 You profess to be a gentleman." 
 
 " You have not been yourself for the last two days, since 
 your flippant sister has twice been to see you." 
 
 "You ordered me to be flippant," she said. " I am prac- 
 ticing on you." 
 
 Gigonnet, who took no interest in family broils, saluted 
 Mme. du Tillet and went out. 
 
 Du Tillet looked fixedly at his wife, whose eyes met his 
 without wavering. 
 
 " What is the meaning of this? " he said. 
 
 " It means that I am no longer a child to be cowed by 
 you," she replied. " I am, and shall remain all my life, a 
 faithful, attentive wife to you ; you may be master if you like, 
 but tyrant, no." 
 
 Du Tillet left her, and Marie-Eugenie retired to her room, 
 quite unnerved by such an effort. 
 
 "But for my sister's danger," she said to herself, "I 
 should never have ventured to beard him thus ; as the proverb 
 says, ' It's an ill wind that blows no good.' ' 
 
 During the night Mme. du Tillet again passed in review 
 her sister's confidences. Raoul's safety being assured, her
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 121 
 
 reason was no longer overpowered by the thought of this 
 imminent danger. She recalled the alarming energy with 
 which the countess had spoken of flying with Nathan, in 
 order to console him in his calamity if she could not avert it. 
 She foresaw how this man, in the violence of his gratitude 
 and love, might persuade her sister to do what to the well- 
 balanced Eugenie seemed an act of madness. There had 
 been instances lately in the best society of such elopements, 
 which pay the price of a doubtful pleasure in remorse and the 
 social discredit arising out of a false position, and Eugenie 
 recalled to mind their disastrous results. Du Tillet's words 
 had put the last touch to her panic ; she dreaded discovery ; 
 she saw the signature of the Comtesse de Vandenesse in the 
 archives of the Nucingen firm and she resolved to implore her 
 sister to confess everything to Felix. 
 
 Mme. du Tillet did not find the countess next morning ; 
 but Felix was at home. A voice within called on Eugenie 
 to save her sister. To-morrow even might be too late. It 
 was a heavy responsibility, but she decided to tell everything 
 to the count. Surely he would be lenient, since his honor 
 was still safe and the countess was not so much depraved as 
 misguided. Eugenie hesitated to commit what seemed like 
 an act of cowardice and treachery by divulging secrets which 
 society, at one in this, universally respects. But then came 
 the thought of her sister's future, the dread of seeing her 
 some day deserted, ruined by Nathan, poor, ill, unhappy, 
 despairing ; she hesitated no longer, and asked to see the 
 count. Felix, greatly surprised by this visit, had a long con- 
 versation with his sister-in-law, in the course of which he 
 showed such calm and self-mastery that Eugenie trembled at 
 the desperate steps he might be resolving. 
 
 "Don't be troubled," said Vandenesse; "I shall act so 
 that the day will come when your sister will bless you. How- 
 ever great your repugnance to keeping from her the fact that 
 you have spoken to me, I must ask you to give me a few days'
 
 122 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 grace. I require this in order to see rny way through certain 
 mysteries, of which you know nothing, and above all to take 
 my measures with prudence. Possibly I may find out every- 
 thing at once ! I am the only one to blame, dear sister. All 
 lovers play their own game, but all women are not fortunate 
 enough to see life as it really is." 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A HUSBAND'S TRIUMPH. 
 
 Mme. du Tillet left Vandenesse's house somewhat com- 
 forted. Felix, on his part, went at once to draw forty thou- 
 sand francs from the Bank of France, and then hastened to 
 Mme. de Nucingen. He found her at home, thanked her for 
 the confidence she had shown in his wife, and returned her 
 the money. He gave, as the reason for this mysterious loan, 
 an excessive almsgiving, on which he had wished to impose 
 some limit. 
 
 " Do not trouble to explain, since Madame de Vandenesse 
 has told you about it," said the Baronne de Nucingen. 
 
 "She knows all," thought Vandenesse. 
 
 The baroness handed him his wife's guarantee and sent for 
 the four bills. Vandenesse, while this was going on, scanned 
 the baroness with the statesman's piercing eye ; she flinched a 
 little, and he judged the time had come for negotiating. 
 
 " We live, madame," he said, " at a period when nothing is 
 stable. Thrones rise and disappear in France with a discon- 
 certing rapidity. Fifteen years may see the end of a great 
 empire, of a monarchy, and also of a revolution. No one can 
 take upon himself to answer for the future. You know my 
 devotion to the legitimist party. Such words in my mouth 
 cannot surprise you. Imagine a catastrophe : would it not 
 be a satisfaction to you to have a friend on the winning 
 side?"
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 123 
 
 "Undoubtedly," she replied with a smile. 
 
 " Supposing such a. case to occur, will you have in me, un- 
 known to the world, a grateful friend, ready to secure for 
 Monsieur de Nucingen under these circumstances the peerage 
 to which he aspires ? " 
 
 " What do you ask from me ? " she said. 
 
 "Not much. Only the facts in your possession about 
 Monsieur Nathan." 
 
 The baroness repeated her conversation of the morning with 
 Rastignac, and said to the ex-peer of France, as she handed 
 him the four bills which the cashier brought her 
 
 "Don't forget your promise." 
 
 So far was Vandenesse from forgetting this magical promise, 
 that he dangled it before the eyes of the Baron de Rastignac 
 in order to extract from him further information. 
 
 On leaving the baron, he dictated to a scrivener the follow- 
 ing letter addressed to Florine : 
 
 " If Mile. Florine wishes to know what part is awaiting 
 her, will she be so good as come to the approaching masked 
 ball, and bring M. Nathan as her escort?" 
 
 This letter posted, he went next to his man of business, a 
 very astute fellow, full of resource, and withal honest. 
 
 Him he begged to personate a friend, to whom the visit of 
 Mme. de Vandenesse should have been confided by Schmucke, 
 aroused to a tardy suspicion by the fourfold repetition of the 
 words, "I promise to pay ten thousand francs," and who 
 should have come to request from M. Nathan a bill for forty 
 thousand francs in exchange. It was a risky game. Nathan 
 might already have learned how the thing had been arranged, 
 but something had to be dared for so great a prize. In her 
 agitation, Marie might easily have forgotten to ask her beloved 
 Raonl for an acknowledgment for Schmucke. The man of 
 business went at once to Nathan's office, and returned triumph-
 
 124 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 ant to the count by five o'clock with the bill for forty thousand 
 francs. The very first words exchanged with Nathan had 
 enabled him to pass for an emissary from the countess. 
 
 This success obliged Felix to take steps for preventing a 
 meeting between Raoul and his wife before the masked ball, 
 whither he intended to escort her, in order that she might 
 discover for herself the relation in which Nathan stood to 
 Florine. He knew the jealous pride of the countess, and was 
 anxious to bring her to renounce the love affair of her own 
 will, so that she might be spared from humiliation before him- 
 self. He also hoped to show her before it was too late her 
 letters to Nathan sold by Florine, from whom he reckoned on 
 buying them back. This prudent plan, so swiftly conceived 
 and in part executed, was destined to fail through one of those 
 chances to which the affairs of mortals are subject. After 
 dinner Felix turned the conversation on the masked ball, re- 
 marking that Marie had never been to one, and proposed to 
 take her there the following day by way of diversion. 
 
 " I will find some one for you to mystify." 
 
 "Ah ! I should like that immensely." 
 
 "To make it really amusing, a woman ought to get hold 
 of a foeman worthy of her steel, some celebrity or wit, and 
 make mincemeat of him. What do you say to Nathan ? A 
 man who knows Florine could put me up to a few little things 
 that would drive him wild." 
 
 "Florine," said the countess, "the actress?" 
 
 Marie had already heard this name from the lips of Quillet, 
 the office attendant ; a thought flashed through her like light- 
 ning. 
 
 "Well, yes, his mistress," replied the count. "What is 
 there surprising in that?" 
 
 " I should have thought Monsieur Nathan was too busy for 
 such things. How can literary men find time for love?" 
 
 " I say nothing about love, my dear, but they have to lodge 
 somewhere, like other people ; and when they have no home
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 125 
 
 and the bloodhounds of the law are after them, they lodge 
 with their mistresses, which may seem a little strong to you, 
 but which is infinitely preferable to lodging in prison." 
 
 The fire was less red than the cheeks of the countess. 
 
 "Would you like him for your victim? You could easily 
 give him a fright," the count went on, paying no attention to 
 his wife's looks. "I can give you proofs by which you can 
 show him that he has been a mere child in the hands of your 
 brother-in-law du Tillet. The wretch wanted to clap him in 
 prison in order to disqualify him for opposing his candidature 
 in Nucingen's constituency. I have learned from a friend of 
 Florine's the amount produced by the sale of her furniture, 
 the whole of which she gave to Nathan for starting his paper, 
 and I know what portion was sent to him of the harvest which 
 she reaped this year in the provinces and Belgium ; money 
 which, in the long run, all goes into the pockets of du Tillet, 
 Nucingen, and Massol. These three have sold the paper in 
 advance to the Government, so confident are they of dispos- 
 sessing the great man." 
 
 " Monsieur Nathan would never take money from an 
 actress." 
 
 "You don't know these people, my dear," said the count; 
 " he won't deny the fact." 
 
 " I shall certainly go to the ball," said the countess. 
 
 "You will have some fun," replied Vandenesse. "Armed 
 with such weapons, you will read a sharp lesson to Nathan's 
 vanity, and it will be a kindness to him. You will watch the 
 ebb and flow of his rage, and his writhings under your sting- 
 ing epigrams. Your badinage will be quite enough to show a 
 clever man like him the danger in which he stands, and you 
 will have the satisfaction of getting a good trouncing for the 
 
 juste milieu* team within their own stables You are 
 
 not listening, my child." 
 
 "Yes, indeed, I am only too much interested," she an- 
 * Right Centre.
 
 126 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 swered. "I will tell you later why I am so anxious to be 
 certain about all this." 
 
 "Certain?" replied Vandenesse. "If you keep on your 
 mask, I will take you to supper with Florine and Nathan. 
 It will be sport for a great lady like you to take in an actress 
 after having kept a famous man on the stretch, manoeuvring 
 round his most precious secrets ; you can harness them both 
 to the same mystification. I shall put myself on the track of 
 Nathan's infidelities. If I can lay hold of the details of any 
 recent affair, you will be able to indulge yourself in the 
 spectacle of a courtesan's rage, which is worth seeing. The 
 fury of Florine will seethe like an Alpine torrent. She adores 
 Nathan ; he is everything to her, precious as the marrow of 
 her bones, dear as her cubs to a lioness. I remember in my 
 youth having seen a celebrated actress, whose writing was 
 like a kitchen-maid's, come to demand back her letters from 
 one of my friends. I have never seen anything like it since ; 
 
 that quiet fury, that impudent dignity, that barbaric pose 
 
 Are you ill, Marie ? ' ' 
 
 " No ! only the fire is hot." 
 
 The countess went to fling herself down on a sofa. All at 
 once an incalculable impulse, inspired by the consuming ache 
 of jealousy, drove her to her feet. Trembling in every limb, 
 she crossed her arms, and advanced slowly toward her 
 husband. 
 
 " How much do you know?" she asked. "It is not like 
 you to torture me. Even were I guilty, you would give me 
 an easy death." 
 
 "What should I know, Marie?" 
 
 "About Nathan?" 
 
 "You believe you love him," he replied, "but you love 
 only a phantom made of words." 
 
 " Then you do know ? " 
 
 "Everything," he said. 
 
 The word fell like a blow on Marie's head.
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 127 
 
 "If you wish," he continued, "it shall be as though I 
 knew nothing. My child, you have fallen into an abyss, and 
 I must save you; already I have done something. See " 
 
 He drew from his pocket her guarantee and Schmucke's four 
 'bills, which the countess recognized, and threw into the fire. 
 
 " What would have become of you, poor Marie, in three 
 months from now? You would have been dragged into Court 
 by bailiffs. Don't hang your head, don't be ashamed ; you 
 have been betrayed by the noblest of feelings ; you have 
 trifled, not with a man, but with your own imagination. 
 There is not a woman not one, do you hear, Marie ? who 
 would not have been fascinated in your place. It would be 
 absurd that men, who, in the course of twenty years, have 
 committed a thousand acts of folly, should insist that a woman 
 is not to lose her head once in a lifetime. Pray heaven I may 
 never triumph over you or burden you with a pity such as you 
 repudiated with scorn the other day ! Possibly this wretched 
 man was sincere when he wrote you, sincere in trying to put 
 an end to himself, and sincere in returning that very evening 
 to Florine. A man is a poor creature compared to a woman. 
 I am speaking now for you, not for myself. I am tolerant, 
 but society is not ; it shuns the woman who makes a scandal ; 
 it will allow none to be rich at once in its regard and in the 
 indulgence of passion. Whether this is just or not, I cannot 
 say. Enough that the world is cruel. It may be that, taken 
 in the mass, it is harsher than are the individuals separately. 
 A thief, sitting in the pit, will applaud the triumph of inno- 
 cence, and filch its jewels as he goes out. Society has no balm 
 for the ills it creates ; it honors clever roguery, and leaves 
 unrewarded silent devotion. All this I see and know ; but if 
 I cannot reform the world, at least I can protect you from 
 yourself. We have here to do with a man who brings you 
 nothing but trouble, not with a saintly and pious love, such 
 as sometimes commands self-effacement and brings its own 
 excuse with it. Perhaps I have been to blame in not bring-
 
 128 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 ing more variety into your peaceful life ; I ought to have en- 
 livened our calm routine with the stir and excitement of 
 travel and change. I can see also an explanation of the 
 attraction which drew you to a man of note, in the envy you 
 aroused in certain women. Lady Dudley, Madame d'Espard, 
 Madame de Manerville, and my sister-in-law Emilie count for 
 something in all this. These women, whom I warned you 
 against, have no doubt worked on your curiosity, more with 
 the object of annoying me than in order to precipitate you 
 a-inong storms which, I trust, may have only threatened with- 
 out breaking over you." 
 
 The countess, as she listened to these generous words, was 
 tossed about by a host of conflicting feelings, but lively ad- 
 miration for Felix dominated the tempest. A noble and high- 
 spirited soul quickly responds to gentle handling. This sensi- 
 tiveness is the counterpart of physical grace. Marie appreciated 
 a magnanimity which sought in self-depreciation a screen for 
 the blushes of an erring woman. She made a frantic motion 
 to leave the room, the*h turned back, fearing lest her husband 
 should misunderstand and take alarm. 
 
 " Wait ! " she said, as she vanished. 
 
 Felix had artfully prepared her defense, and he was soon 
 recompensed for his adroitness ; for his wife returned with the 
 whole of Nathan's letters in her hand, and held them out to 
 him. 
 
 " Be my judge," she said, kneeling before him. 
 
 " How can a man judge where he loves? " he replied. 
 
 He took the letters and threw them on the fire ; later, the 
 thought that he had read them might have stood between him 
 and his wife. Marie, her head upon his knees, burst into 
 tears. 
 
 "My child, where are yours?" he said, raising her head. 
 
 At this question, the countess no longer felt the intolerable 
 burning of her cheeks, a cold chill went through her. 
 
 " That you may not suspect your husband of slandering the
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 129 
 
 man whom you have thought worthy of you, I will have those 
 letters restored to you by Florine herself." 
 
 "Oh! surely he would give them back if I asked him," 
 she returned. 
 
 " And supposing he refused ? " 
 
 The countess hung her head. 
 
 " The world is horrid," she said; "I will not go into it 
 any more; I will live alone with you, if you forgive me." 
 
 "You might weary again. Beside, what would the world 
 say if you left it abruptly ? When spring comes, we will travel, 
 we will go to Italy, we will wander about Europe, until an- 
 other child comes to need your care. We must not give up 
 the ball to morrow, for it is the only way to get hold of your 
 letters without compromising ourselves; and when Florine 
 brings them to you, will not that be the measure of her 
 power? " 
 
 "And I must see that? " said the terrified countess. 
 
 "To-morrow night." 
 
 Toward midnight next evening Nathan was pacing the 
 promenade at the masked ball, giving his arm to a domino 
 with a very fair imitation of the conjugal manner. After two 
 or three turns two masked women came up to them. 
 
 " Fool ! you have done for yourself; Marie is here and sees 
 you," said Vandenesse, in the disguise of a woman, to Nathan, 
 while the countess, all trembling, addressed Florine 
 
 " If you will listen, I will tell you secrets which Nathan has 
 kept from you, and which will show you the dangers that 
 threaten your love for him." 
 
 Nathan had abruptly dropped Florine's arm in order to 
 follow the count, who escaped him in the crowd. Florine 
 went to take a seat beside the countess, who had drawn her 
 away to a form by the side of Vandenesse, now returned to 
 look after his wife. 
 
 "Speak out, my dear," said Florine, "and don't suppose 
 you can keep me long on the tenter-hooks. Not a creature
 
 luO A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 in the world can get Raoul from me, I can tell you. He is 
 bound to me by habit, which is better than love any day." 
 
 " In the first place, are you Florine? " said Felix, resuming 
 his natural voice. 
 
 " A pretty question indeed ! If you don't know who I am, 
 why should I believe you, pray?" 
 
 " Go and ask Nathan, who is hunting now for the mistress 
 of whom I speak, where he spent the night three days ago ! 
 He tried to stifle himself with charcoal, my dear, unknown to 
 you, because he was ruined. That's all you know about the 
 affairs of the man whom you profess to love ; you leave him 
 penniless, and he kills himself, or rather he doesn't, he tries 
 to and fails. Suicide when it doesn't come off is much on a 
 par with a bloodless duel." 
 
 "It is a lie," said Florine. " He dined with me that day, 
 but not till after sunset. The bailiffs were after him, poor 
 boy. He was in hiding, that's all." 
 
 "Well, you can go and ask at the Hotel du Mail, Rue du 
 Mail, whether he was not brought there at the point of death 
 by a beautiful lady, with whom he has had clandestine rela- 
 tions for a year ; the letters of your rival are hidden in your 
 house, under your very nose. If you care to catch Nathan 
 out, we can go all three to your house ; there I shall give you 
 ocular proof that you can get him clear of his difficulties very 
 shortly if you like to be good-natured." 
 
 "That's not good enough for Florine, thank you, my 
 friend. I know very well that Nathan can't have a love 
 affair." 
 
 " Because, I suppose, he has redoubled his attentions to 
 you of late, as if that were not the very proof that he is 
 tremendously in love " 
 
 " With a society woman ? Nathan?" said Florine. "Oh! 
 I don't trouble about a trifle like that." 
 
 " Very well, would you like him to come and tell you him- 
 self that he won't take you home this evening?"
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 131 
 
 "If you get him to say that," answered Florine, "I will 
 let you come with me, and we can hunt together for those 
 letters, which I shall believe in when I see them." 
 
 "Stay here," said Felix, " and watch." 
 
 He took his wife's arm and waited within a few steps of 
 Florine. Before long Nathan, who was walking up and down 
 the promenade, searching in all directions for his mask like a 
 dog who has lost its master, returned to the spot where the 
 mysterious warning had been spoken. Seeing evident marks 
 of disturbance on Raoul's brow, Florine planted herself firmly 
 in front of him and said in a commanding voice : 
 
 " You must not leave me ; I have a reason for wanting 
 you." 
 
 "Marie! " whispered the countess, by her husband's in- 
 structions, in Raoul's ear. Then she added: " Who is that 
 woman ? Leave her immediately, go outside, and wait for 
 me at the foot of the staircase." 
 
 In this terrible strait, Raoul shook off roughly the arm of 
 Florine, who was quite unprepared for such violence, and, 
 though clinging to him forcibly, was obliged to let go. 
 Nathan at once lost himself in the crowd. 
 
 "What did I tell you?" cried Felix in the ear of the 
 stupefied Florine, to whom he offered his arm. 
 
 "Come," she said, 'Met us go, whoever you are. Have 
 you a carriage ? " 
 
 Vandenesse's only reply was to hurry Florine out and hasten 
 to rejoin his wife at a spot agreed upon under the colonnade. 
 In a few minutes the three dominoes, briskly conveyed by 
 Vandenesse's coachman, arrived at the house of the actress, 
 who took off her mask. Mme. de Vandenesse could not 
 repress a thrill of surprise at the sight of the actress, boiling 
 with rage, magnificent in her wrath and jealousy. - 
 
 "There is," said Vandenesse, "a certain writing-case, the 
 key of which has never been in your hands ; the letters must 
 be in it."
 
 132 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 "You have me there; you know something, at any rate, 
 which has been bothering me for some days," said Florine, 
 dashing into the study to fetch the writing-case. 
 
 Vandenesse saw his wife grow pale under her mask. Flor- 
 ine's room told more of Nathan's intimacy with the actress 
 than was altogether pleasant for a romantic lady-love. A 
 woman's eye is quick to see the truth in such matters, and the 
 countess read in the promiscuous household arrangements a 
 confirmation of what Vandenesse had told her. 
 
 Florine returned with the case. 
 
 " How shall we open it ? " she said, 
 
 Then she sent for a large kitchen knife, and when her maid 
 brought it, brandished it with a mocking air, exclaiming 
 
 " This is the way to cut off the pretty dears' heads ! "* 
 
 The countess shuddered. She realized now, even more 
 than her husband's words had enabled her to do the evening 
 before, the depths from which she had so narrowly escaped. 
 
 " What a fool I am ! " cried Florine. " His razor would 
 be better." 
 
 She went to fetch the razor, which had just served Nathan 
 for shaving, and cut the edges of the morocco. They fell 
 apart, and Marie's letters appeared. Florine took up one at 
 random. 
 
 " Sure enough, this is some fine lady's work ! Only see 
 how she can spell ! " 
 
 Vandenesse took the letters and handed them to his wife, 
 who carried them to a table in order to see if they were all 
 there. 
 
 " Will you give them up for this? " said Vandenesse, hold- 
 ing out to Florine the bill for forty thousand francs. 
 
 " What a donkey lie is to sign such things ! ' Bond for 
 bills/" cried Florine, reading the document. "Ah! yes, 
 you shall have your fill of countesses ! And I, who worked 
 
 * In the French, " pouleis" which means " love-letters " as well as 
 " chickens."
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 13S 
 
 myself to death, body and soul, raising money in the prov- 
 inces for him I, who slaved like a broker to save him ! 
 That's a man all over; go to the devil for him, and he'll 
 trample you under foot ! I shall have it out with him for 
 this." 
 
 Mme. de Vandenesse had fled with the letters. 
 
 " Hi, there ! pretty domino ! leave me one, if you please, 
 just to throw in his face." 
 
 " That is impossible now," said Vandenesse. 
 
 " And why, pray? " 
 
 " The other domino is your late rival." 
 
 "You don't say so ! Well, she might have said 'Thank 
 you !' " cried Florine. 
 
 " And what then do you call the forty thousand francs?" 
 said Vandenesse, with a polite bow. 
 
 It very seldom happens that a young fellow who has once 
 attempted suicide cares to taste for a second time its discom- 
 forts. When suicide does not cure a man of life altogether, 
 it cures him of a self-sought death. Thus Raoul no longer 
 thought of making away with himself even after Florine's 
 possession of Schmucke's guarantee plainly through the 
 intervention of Vandenesse had reduced him to a still worse 
 plight than that from which he had tried to escape. He 
 made an attempt to see the countess again in order to explain 
 to her the nature of the love which burned brighter than ever 
 in his breast. But the first time they met in society, the 
 countess fixed Raoul with that stony, scornful glance which 
 makes an impassable barrier between a man and a woman. 
 With all his audacity, Nathan made no further attempt during 
 the winter to approach or address the countess. 
 
 He unburdened his soul, however, to Blondet, discoursing 
 to him of Laura and Beatrice, whenever the name of Mme. 
 de Vandenesse occurred. He paraphrased that beautiful pas- 
 sage of one of the greatest poets of his day " Dream of the 
 soul, blue flower with golden heart, whose spreading roots,
 
 134 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 
 
 finer a thousandfold than fairies' silken tresses, pierce to the 
 inmost being and draw their life from all that is purest there : 
 flower sweet and bitter ! To uproot thee is to draw the 
 heart's blood, oozing in ruddy drops from thy broken stem ! 
 Ah ! cursed flower, how thou hast thriven on my soul ! " 
 
 "You're driveling, old boy," said Blondet. " I grant you 
 there was a pretty enough flower, only it has nothing to do 
 with the soul ; and instead of crooning like a blind man be- 
 fore an empty shrine, you had better be thinking how to get 
 out of this scrape, so as to put yourself straight with the 
 authorities and settle down. You are too much of the artist 
 to make a politician. You have been played on by men who 
 are your inferiors. Go and get yourself played on some other 
 stage." 
 
 " Marie can't prevent my loving her," said Nathan. " She 
 shall be my Beatrice." 
 
 " My dear fellow, Beatrice was a child of twelve, whom 
 Dante never saw again ; otherwise, would she have been Bea- 
 trice? If we are to make a divinity of a woman, we must 
 not see her to-day in a mantle, to-morrow in a low-necked 
 dress, the day after on the boulevards, cheapening toys for 
 her last baby. While there is Florine handy to play by turns 
 a comedy duchess, a tragedy middle-class wife, a negress, a 
 marchioness, a colonel, a Swiss peasant-girl, a Peruvian virgin 
 of the sun (the only virginity she knows much about), I don't 
 know why one should bother about society women." 
 
 Du Tillet, by means of a forced sale, compelled the penni- 
 less Nathan to surrender his share in the paper. The great 
 man received only five votes in the constituency which elected 
 du Tillet. 
 
 When the Comtesse de Vandenesse, after a long and de- 
 lightful time of travel in Italy, returned in the following winter 
 to Paris, Nathan had exactly carried out the forecast of Felix. 
 Following Blondet's advice, he was negotiating with the party 
 in power. His personal affairs were so embarrassed that, one
 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. 135 
 
 day in the Champs-Elysees, the Comtesse Marie saw her an- 
 cient adorer walking in the sorriest plight, with Florine on 
 his arm. In the eyes of a woman, the man to whom she is 
 indifferent is always more or less ugly ; but the man whom 
 she has ceased to love is a monster, especially if he is of the 
 type to which Nathan belonged. Mme. de Vandenesse felt a 
 pang of shame as she remembered her fancy for Raoul. Had 
 she not been cured before of any unlawful passion, the con- 
 trast which this man, already declining in popular estimation, 
 then offered to her husband, would have sufficed to give the 
 latter precedence over an angel. 
 
 At the present day this ambitious author, of ready pen but 
 halting character, has at last capitulated and installed himself 
 in a sinecure like any ordinary being. Having supported 
 every scheme of disintegration, he now lives in peace beneath 
 the shade of a ministerial broad-sheet. The cross of the 
 Legion of Honor, fruitful text of his mockery, adorns his 
 button-hole. PEACE AT ANY PRICE, the stock-in-trade of his 
 denunciation as editor of a revolutionary organ, has now be- 
 come the theme of his laudatory articles. The hereditary 
 principle, butt of his Saint-Simonian oratory, is defended by 
 him to-day in weighty arguments. This inconsistency has its 
 origin and explanation in the change of front of certain men 
 who, in the course of our latest political developments, have 
 acted as Raoul did. 
 
 JARDIES, December, 1838.
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 To George Sand. 
 
 Your name, dear George, while casting a reflected 
 radiance on my book, can gain no new glory from this 
 page. And yet it is neither self-interest nor diffidence 
 which has led me to place it there, but only the wish 
 that it should bear witness to the solid friendship be- 
 tween us, which has survived our wanderings and 
 separations, and triumphed over the busy malice of the 
 world. This feeling is hardly likely now to change. 
 The goodly company of friendly names, which will 
 remain attached to my works, forms an element of 
 pleasure in the midst of the vexation caused by their 
 increasing number. Each fresh book, in fact, gives 
 rise to fresh annoyance, were it only in the reproaches 
 aimed at my too prolific pen, as though it could rival 
 infertility the world from which I draw my models ! 
 Would it not be a fine thing, George, if the future 
 antiquarian of dead literatures were to find in this 
 company none but great names and generous hearts, 
 friends bound by pure and holy ties, the illustrious 
 figures of the century ? May I not justly pride myself 
 on this assured possession, rather than on a popularity 
 necessarily unstable ? For him who knows you well, 
 it is happiness to be able to sign himself, as I do here, 
 Your friend, 
 
 DE BALZAC. 
 PARIS, June, 1840. 
 
 (136)
 
 FIRST PART. 
 I. 
 
 LOUISE DE CHAULIEU TO RENEE DE MAUCOMBE. 
 
 PARIS, September. 
 
 SWEETHEART, I too am free of school ! And I am the first 
 too, unless you have written to Blois, at our sweet tryst of 
 letter-writing. Raise those great, sparkling black eyes of 
 yours, fixed on my opening sentence, and keep this excite- 
 ment for the letter which shall tell you of my first love. By 
 the way, why always "first?" Is there, I wonder, a second 
 love? 
 
 "Don't go running on like this," you will say, "but tell 
 me rather how you made your escape from the convent where 
 you were to take your vows." Well, dear, I don't know 
 about the Carmelites, but the miracle of my own deliverance 
 was, I can assure you, most humdrum. The cries of an 
 alarmed conscience triumphed over the dictates of a stern 
 policy there's the whole mystery. The sombre melancholy 
 which seized me after you left hastened the happy climax, my 
 aunt did not want to see me die of a decline, and my mother, 
 whose one unfailing cure for my malady was a novitiate, gave 
 way before her. 
 
 So, here I am in Paris, thanks to you too, my love ! Dear 
 Renee, could you have seen me the day I found myself parted 
 from you, well might you have gloried in the deep impression 
 you had made on so youthful a bosom. We had lived so con- 
 stantly together, sharing our dreams and letting our fancy 
 roam together, that I verily believe our souls had become 
 welded together, like those two Hungarian girls, whose death 
 
 (137)
 
 138 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 we heard about from M. Beauvisage* poor misnamed being ! 
 Never surely was man better cut out by nature for the post of 
 convent physician ! 
 
 Tell me, did you not droop and sicken with your darling? 
 
 In my gloomy depression, I could do nothing but count 
 over the ties which bind us. But it seemed as though distance 
 had loosened them ; I wearied of life, like a turtle-dove 
 widowed of her mate. Death smiled sweetly on me, and I 
 was proceeding quietly to die. To be at Blois, at the Car- 
 melites, consumed by dread of having to take my vows there, 
 a Mile, de la Valliere, but without her prelude, and without 
 my Rende ! Why should I not be sick sick unto death ? 
 
 How different it used to be ! That monotonous existence, 
 where every hour brings its duty, its prayer, its task, with 
 such desperate regularity that you can tell what a Carmelite 
 sister is doing in any place, at any hour of the night or day ; 
 that deadly dull routine, which crushes out all interest in one's 
 surroundings, had become for us two a world of life and 
 movement. Imagination had thrown open her fairy realms, 
 and in these our spirits ranged at will, each in turn serving 
 as magic steed to the other, the more alert quickening the 
 drowsy ; the world from which our bodies were shut out be- 
 came the playground of our fancy, which reveled there in 
 frolicsome adventure. The very "Li^s of the Saints," 
 dreary as it is, helped us to understand what was so carefully 
 left unsaid ! But the day when I was reft of your sweet com- 
 pany, I became a true Carmelite, such as they appeared to us, 
 a modern Danai'd, who, instead of trying to fill a bottomless 
 barrel, draws every day, from heaven knows what deep, an 
 empty pitcher, thinking to find it full. 
 
 My aunt knew nothing of this inner life. How should 
 
 she, who has made a paradise for herself within the two 
 
 acres of her convent, understand my revolt against life? A 
 
 religious life, if embraced by girls of our age, demands either 
 
 * Handsome face.
 
 LETTERS Of TWO BRIDES. 139 
 
 an extreme simplicity of soul, such as we, sweetheart, do not 
 possess, or else an ardor for self-sacrifice like that which 
 makes my aunt so noble a character. But she sacrificed her- 
 self for a brother to whom she was devoted ; to do the same 
 for an unknown person or an idea is surely more than can be 
 asked of mortals. 
 
 For the last two weeks I have been gulping down so many 
 reckless words, burying so many reflections in my bosom, and 
 accumulating such a store of things to tell, fit for your ear 
 alone, that I should certainly have been suffocated but for the 
 resource of letter-writing as a sorry substitute for our beloved 
 talks. How hungry one's heart gets ! I am beginning my 
 journal this morning, and I picture to myself that yours is 
 already started, and that, in a few days, I shall be at home in 
 your beautiful Gdmenos valley, which I know only through 
 your descriptions, just as you will live that Paris life, revealed 
 to you hitherto only in our dreams. 
 
 Well, then, sweet child, know that on a certain morning 
 a red-letter day in my life there arrived from Paris a lady 
 companion and Philippe, the last remaining of my grand- 
 mother's valets, charged to carry me off. When my aunt 
 summoned me to her room and told me the news, I could not 
 speak for joy, and only gazed at her stupidly. 
 
 "My child," she said, in her guttural voice, "I can see 
 that you leave me without regret, but this farewell is not the 
 last ; we shall see you here again. God has placed on your 
 forehead the sign of the elect. You have the pride which 
 leads to heaven or to hell, but your nature is too noble to 
 choose the downward path. I know you better than you 
 know yourself; with you, passion, I can see, will be very 
 different from what it is with most women." 
 
 She drew me gently to her and kissed my forehead. The 
 kiss made my flesh creep, for it burned with that consuming 
 fire which eats away her life, which has turned to black the 
 azure of her eyes, and softened the lines about them, has
 
 140 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 furrowed the warm ivory of her temples, and cast a sallow 
 tinge over the beautiful face. 
 
 Before replying, I kissed her hands. 
 
 " Dear aunt," I said, " I shall never forget your kindness ; 
 and if it has not made your nunnery all that it ought to be 
 for my health of body and soul, you may be sure nothing 
 short of a broken heart will bring me back again and that 
 you would not wish for me. You will not see me here again 
 till my royal lover has deserted me, and I warn you that if I 
 catch him, death alone shall tear him from me. I fear no 
 Montespan." 
 
 She smiled and said 
 
 " Go, madcap, and take your idle fancies with you. There 
 is certainly more of the bold Montespan in you than of the 
 gentle la Valliere." 
 
 I threw my arms round her. The poor lady could not 
 refrain from escorting me to the carriage, where her tender 
 gaze was divided between the armorial bearings and myself. 
 
 At Beaugency night overtook me, still sunk in a stupor of 
 the mind produced by these strange parting words. What 
 can be awaiting me in this world for which I have so 
 hungered ? 
 
 To begin with, I found no one to receive me ; my heart 
 had been schooled in vain. My mother was at the Bois de 
 Boulogne, my father at the Council ; my brother, the Due de 
 Rhetore, never comes in, I am told, till it is time to dress 
 for dinner. Miss Griffith (she is not unlike a griffin) and 
 Philippe took me to my rooms. 
 
 The suite is the one which belonged to my beloved grand- 
 mother, the Princesse de Vaurmont, to whom I owe some 
 sort of a fortune of which no one has ever said one word to 
 me. As you read this, you will understand the sadness which 
 came over me as I entered a place sacred to so many memories, 
 and found the rooms just as she had left them ! I was to sleep 
 in the bed where she died.
 
 LEXERS OF TWO BRIDES. 141 
 
 Sitting down on the edge of her sofa, I burst into tears, 
 forgetting I was not alone, and remembering only how often 
 I had stood there by her knees, the better to hear her words. 
 There I had gazed upon her face, buried in its brown laces, 
 and worn as much by age as by the pangs of approaching 
 death. The room seemed to me still warm with the heat 
 which she kept up there. How comes it that Armande- 
 Louise-Marie de Chaulieu must be like some peasant-girl, 
 who sleeps in her mother's bed the very morrow of her 
 death ? For to me it was as though the princess, who died 
 in 1817, had passed away but yesterday. 
 
 I saw many things in the room which ought to have been 
 removed. Their presence showed the carelessness with which 
 people, busy, with affairs of State, may treat their own, and 
 also the little thought which had been given since her death 
 to this grand old lady, who will always remain one of the 
 striking figures of the eighteenth century. Philippe seemed 
 to divine something of the cause of my tears. He told me 
 that the furniture of the princess had been left to me in her 
 will and that my father had allowed all the larger suites to re- 
 main dismantled, as the Revolution had left them. On hearing 
 this I rose, and Philippe opened the door of the small drawing- 
 room which leads into the reception-rooms. 
 
 In these I found all the well-remembered wreckage ; the 
 panels above the doors, which had contained valuable pic- 
 tures, bare of all but empty frames ; broken marbles, mirrors 
 carried off. In old days I was afraid to go up the state stair- 
 case and cross these vast, deserted rooms ; so I used to go to 
 the princess' rooms by a small staircase which runs under the 
 arch of the larger one and leads to the secret door of her 
 dressing-room. 
 
 My suite, consisting of a drawing-room, bedroom, and the 
 pretty morning-room in scarlet and gold, of which I have 
 told you, lies in the wing on the side of the Invalides. The 
 house is only separated from the boulevard by a wall, covered
 
 142 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 with creepers, and by a splendid avenue of trees, which mingle 
 their foliage with that of the young elms on the sidewalk of 
 the boulevard. But for the blue-and-gold dome of the Inva- 
 lides and its gray stone mass, you might be in a wood. 
 
 The style of decoration in these rooms, together with their 
 situation, indicates that they were the old show suite of the 
 duchesses, while the dukes must have had theirs in the wing 
 opposite. The two suites are decorously separated by the two 
 main blocks, as well as by the central one, which contains 
 those vast, gloomy, resounding halls shown me by Philippe, 
 all despoiled of their splendor, as in the days of my child- 
 hood. 
 
 Philippe grew quite confidential when he saw the surprise 
 depicted on my countenance. For you must know that in 
 this home of diplomacy the very servants have a reserved and 
 mysterious air. He went on to tell me that it was expected a 
 law would soon be passed restoring to the fugitives of the 
 Revolution the value of their property, and that my father is 
 waiting to restore his house till this restitution is made, the 
 king's architect having estimated the damage at three hundred 
 thousand francs. 
 
 This piece of news flung me back despairing on my draw- 
 ing-room sofa. Could it be that my father, instead of spend- 
 ing this money in arranging a marriage for me, would have 
 left me to die in the convent ? This was the first thought to 
 greet me on the threshold of my home. 
 
 Ah ! Renee, what would I have given then to rest my head 
 upon your shoulder, or to transport myself to the days when 
 my grandmother made the life of these rooms? You two in 
 all the world have been alone in loving me you away at 
 Maucombe, and she who survives only in my heart, the dear 
 old lady, whose still youthful eyes used to open from sleep at 
 my call. How well we understood each other ! 
 
 These memories suddenly changed my mood. What at 
 first had seemed profanation, now breathed of holy associa-
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 143 
 
 tion. It was sweet to inhale the faint odor of the powder she 
 loved still lingering in the room ; sweet to sleep beneath the 
 shelter of those yellow damask curtains with their white 
 pattern, which must have retained something of the spirit 
 emanating from her eyes and breath. I told Philippe to rub 
 up the old furniture and make the rooms look as if they 
 were lived in ; I explained to him myself how I wanted every- 
 thing arranged, and where to put each piece of furniture. In 
 this way I entered into possession, and showed how an air of 
 youth might be given to the dear old things. 
 
 The bedroom is white in color, a little dulled with time, 
 just as the gilding of the fanciful arabesques shows here and 
 there a patch of red ; but this effect harmonizes well with the 
 faded colors of the Savonnerie tapestry, which was presented 
 to my grandmother by Louis XV. along with his portrait. 
 The timepiece was a gift from the Marechal de Saxe, and the 
 china ornaments on the mantelpiece came from the Marechal 
 de Richelieu. My grandmother's portrait, painted at the age 
 of twenty-five, hangs in an oval frame opposite that of the 
 King. The prince, her husband, is conspicuous by his 
 absence. I like this frank negligence, untinged by hypocrisy 
 a characteristic touch which sums up her charming person- 
 ality. Once when my grandmother was seriously ill, her con- 
 fessor was urgent that the prince, who was waiting in the 
 drawing-room, should be admitted. 
 
 " He can come in with the doctor and his drugs," was the 
 reply. 
 
 The bed has a canopy and well-stuffed back, and the curtains 
 are looped up with fine wide bands. The furniture is of gilded 
 wood, upholstered in the same yellow damask with white 
 flowers which drapes the windows, and which is lined there 
 with a white silk that looks as though it were watered. The 
 panels over the doors have been painted, by what artist I can't 
 say, but they represent one a sunrise, the other a moonlight 
 scene.
 
 144 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 The fireplace is a very interesting feature in the room. It 
 is easy to see that life in the last century centred largely round 
 the hearth, where great events were enacted. The copper- 
 gilt grate is a marvel of workmanship, and the mantelpiece is 
 most delicately finished ; the andirons are beautifully chased ; 
 the bellows are a perfect gem. The tapestry of the screen 
 comes from the Gobelins and is exquisitely mounted ; charm- 
 ing fantastic figures run all over the frame, on the feet, the 
 supporting bar, and the wings ; the whole thing is wrought 
 like a fan. 
 
 Dearly should I like to know who was the giver of this 
 dainty work of art, which was such a favorite with her. How 
 often have I seen the old lady, her feet upon the bar, reclin- 
 ing in the easy-chair, with her dress half raised in front, 
 toying with the snuff-box, which lay upon the ledge between 
 her box of pastilles and her silk mits. What a coquette she 
 was ! To the day of her death she took as much pains with 
 her appearance as though the beautiful portrait had been 
 painted only yesterday, and she were waiting to receive the 
 throng of exquisites from the Court ! How the armchair 
 recalls to me the inimitable sweep of her skirts as she sank 
 back in it ! 
 
 These women of a past generation have carried off with 
 them secrets which are very typical of their age. The princess 
 had a certain turn of the head, a way of dropping her glances 
 and her remarks, a choice of words, which I look for in vain, 
 even in my mother. There was subtlety in it all, and there 
 was good-nature ; the points were made without any affecta- 
 tion. Her talk was at once lengthy and concise ; she told a 
 good story, and could put her meaning in three words. 
 Above all, she was extremely free-thinking, and this has 
 undoubtedly had its effect on my way of looking at things. 
 
 From seven years old till I was ten, I never left her side; 
 it pleased her to attract me as much as it pleased me to go. 
 This preference was the cause of more than one passage at
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 145 
 
 arms between her and my mother, and nothing intensifies feel- 
 ing like the icy breath of persecution. How charming was 
 her greeting: "Here you are, little rogue !" when curiosity 
 had taught me how to glide with stealthy snake-like move- 
 ments to her room. She felt that I loved her, and this childish 
 affection was welcome as a ray of sunshine in the winter of her 
 life. 
 
 I don't know what went on in her rooms at night, but she 
 had many visitors ; and when I came on tiptoe in the morn- 
 ing to see if she were awake, I would find the drawing-room 
 furniture disarranged, the card-tables set out, and patches of 
 snuff scattered about. 
 
 This drawing-room is furnished in the same style as the bed- 
 room. The chairs and tables are oddly shaped, with claw feet 
 and hollow mouldings. Rich garlands of flowers, beautifully 
 designed and carved, wind over the mirrors and hang down 
 in festoons. On the consoles are fine china vases. The 
 ground colors are scarlet and white. My grandmother was a 
 high-spirited, striking brunette, as might be inferred from her 
 choice of colors. I have found in the drawing-room a writing- 
 table I remember well; the figures on it used to fascinate me; 
 it is plaited in graven silver, and was a present from one of the 
 Genoese Lomellini. Each side of the table represents the oc- 
 cupations of a different season ; there are hundreds of figures in 
 each picture, and all in relief. 
 
 I remained alone for two hours, while old memories rose 
 before me, one after another, on this spot, hallowed by the 
 death of a woman most remarkable even among the witty and 
 beautiful Court ladies of Louis XV. 's day. 
 
 You know how abruptly I was parted from her, at a day's 
 notice, in 1816. 
 
 "Go and bid good-by to your grandmother," said my 
 mother. 
 
 The princess received me as usual, without any display of 
 feeling, and expressed no surprise at my departure. 
 10
 
 146 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 " You are going to the convent, dear," she said, "and will 
 see your aunt there, who is an excellent woman. I shall take 
 care, though, that they don't make a victim of you ; you shall 
 be independent, and able to marry whom you please." 
 
 Six months later she died. Her will had been given into 
 the keeping of the Prince de Talleyrand, the most devoted of 
 all her old friends. He contrived, while paying a visit to 
 Mile, de Chargebceuf, to intimate to me, through her, that 
 my grandmother forbade me to take the vows. I hope, sooner 
 or later, to meet the prince, and then I shall doubtless learn 
 more from him. 
 
 Thus, sweetheart, if I have found no one in flesh and blood 
 to meet me, I have comforted myself with the shade of the 
 dear princess, and have prepared myself for carrying out one 
 of our pledges, which was, as you know, to keep each other 
 informed of the smallest details in our homes and occupations. 
 It makes such a difference to know where and how the life of 
 one we loved is passed ! Send me a faithful picture of the 
 veriest trifles around you, omitting nothing, not even the sun- 
 set lights among the tall trees. 
 
 October loth. 
 
 It was three in the afternoon when I arrived. About half- 
 past five, Rose came and told me that my mother had returned, 
 so I went downstairs to pay my respects to her. 
 
 My mother lives in a suite on the first floor, exactly corre- 
 sponding to mine, and in the same block. I am just over her 
 head, and the same secret staircase serves for both. My 
 father's rooms are in the block opposite, but are larger by the 
 whole of the space occupied by the grand staircase on our 
 side of the building. These ancestral mansions are so spacious 
 that my father and mother continue to occupy the first-floor 
 rooms, in spite of the social duties which have once more 
 devolved on them with the return of the Bourbons, and are 
 even able to receive in them.
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 147 
 
 I found my mother, dressed for the evening, in her draw- 
 ing-room, where nothing is changed. I came slowly down 
 the stairs, speculating with every step how I should be met by 
 this mother who had shown herself so little of a mother to me, 
 and from whom, during eight years, I had heard nothing 
 beyond the two letters of which you know. Judging it un- 
 worthy to simulate an affection I could not possibly feel, I 
 put on the air of a pious imbecile, and entered the room with 
 many inward qualms, which however soon disappeared. My 
 mother's tact was equal to the occasion. She made no pre- 
 tense of emotion ; she neither held me at arm's-length nor 
 hugged me to her bosom like a beloved daughter, but greeted 
 me as though we had parted the evening before. Her manner 
 was that of the kindliest and most sincere friend, as she ad- 
 dressed me like a grown person, first kissing me on the fore- 
 head. 
 
 " My dear little one," she said, " if you were really dying 
 at the convent, it is much better to live here with your family. 
 You frustrate your father's plans and mine ; but the age of 
 blind obedience to parents is past. M. de Chaulieu's inten- 
 tion, and in this I am quite at one with him, is to lose no 
 opportunity of making your life pleasant and of letting you 
 see the world. At your age I should have thought as you 
 do, therefore I am not vexed with you ; it is impossible you 
 should understand what we expected from you. You will not 
 find any absurd severity in me ; and if you have ever thought 
 me heartless, you will soon find out your mistake. Still, 
 though I wish you to feel perfectly free, I think that, to begin 
 with, you would do well to follow the counsels of a mother, 
 who wishes to be a sister to you." 
 
 I was quite charmed by the duchess, who talked in a gentle 
 voice, straightening my convent tippet as she spoke. At the 
 age of thirty-eight she is still beautiful as an angel. She has 
 dark-blue eyes, with silken lashes, a smooth forehead, and 
 a complexion so pink and white that you might think
 
 148 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 she paints. Her bust and shoulders are marvelous, and her 
 waist is as slender . as yours. Her hand is milk-white and 
 extraordinarily beautiful ; the nails catch the light in their 
 perfect polish, the thumb is like ivory, the little finger stands 
 just a little apart from the rest. Her foot matches the hand ; 
 it is the Spanish foot of Mile, de Vandenesse. If she is like 
 this at forty, at sixty she will still be a beautiful woman. 
 
 I replied, sweetheart, like a good little girl. I was as nice 
 to her as she to me, nay, nicer. Her beauty completely van- 
 quished me ; it seemed only natural that such a woman should 
 be absorbed in her regal part. I told her this as simply as 
 though I had been talking to you. I daresay it was a surprise 
 to her to hear words of affection from her daughter's mouth, 
 and the unfeigned homage of my admiration evidently touched 
 her deeply. Her manner changed and became even more 
 engaging ; she dropped all formality as she said 
 
 " I am much pleased with you, and I hope we shall remain 
 good friends." 
 
 The words struck me as charmingly na'ive, but I did not let 
 this appear, for I saw at once that the prudent course was to 
 allow her to believe herself much deeper and cleverer than 
 her daughter. So I only stared vacantly and she was de- 
 lighted. I kissed her hands repeatedly, telling her how happy 
 it made me to be so treated and to feel at my ease with her. 
 I even confided to her my previous tremors. She smiled, put 
 her arm round my neck, and drawing me toward her, kissed 
 me on the forehead most affectionately. 
 
 "Dear child," she said, " we have people coming to dinner 
 to-day. Perhaps you will agree with me that it is better for 
 you not to make your first appearance in society till you have 
 been in the dressmaker's hands ; so, after you have seen your 
 father and brother, you can go upstairs again." 
 
 I assented most heartily. My mother's exquisite dress was 
 the first revelation to me of the world which our dreams had 
 pictured ; but I did not feel the slightest desire to rival her.
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 149 
 
 My father now entered, and the ducheas presented me to 
 him. 
 
 He became all at once most affectionate, and played the 
 father's part so well, that I could not but believe his heart to 
 be in it. Taking my two hands in his, and kissing them, with 
 more of the lover than the father in his manner, he said 
 
 " So this is my rebel daughter ! " 
 
 And he drew me toward him, with his arm passed tenderly 
 round my waist, while he kissed me on the cheeks and fore- 
 head. 
 
 "The pleasure with which we shall watch your success in 
 society will atone for the disappointment we felt at your 
 change of vocation," he said. Then, turning to my mother: 
 " Do you know that she is going to turn out very pretty, and 
 you will be proud of her some day ? Here is your brother, 
 Rhetore. Alphonse," he said to a fine young man who came 
 in, " here is your convent-bred sister who threatens to send 
 her nun's frock to the deuce." 
 
 My brother came up in a leisurely way and took my hand, 
 which he pressed. 
 
 " Come, come, you may kiss her," said my father. 
 
 And he kissed me on both cheeks. 
 
 " I am delighted to see you," he said, " and I take your side 
 against my father." 
 
 I thanked him, but could not help thinking he might have 
 come to Blois when he was at Orleans visiting our marquis 
 brother in his quarters. 
 
 Fearing the arrival of strangers, I now withdrew. I tidied 
 up my rooms, and laid out on the scarlet velvet of my lovely 
 table all the materials necessary for writing you, meditating 
 all the while on my new situation. 
 
 This, my fair sweetheart, is a true and veracious account of 
 the return of a girl of eighteen, after an absence of nine 
 years, to the bosom of one of the noblest families in the 
 kingdom. I was tired by the journey as well as by all the
 
 150 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 emotions I had been through, so I went to bed in convent 
 fashion, at eight o'clock, after supper. They have preserved 
 even a little Saxe service which the dear princess used when 
 she had a fancy for taking her meals alone. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE SAME TO THE SAME. 
 
 November 2^th. 
 
 Next morning I found my rooms put in order and dusted, 
 and even flowers put in the vases, by old Philippe. I began 
 to feel at home. Only it didn't occur to anybody that a 
 Carmelite schoolgirl has an early appetite, and Rose had no 
 end of trouble in getting breakfast for me. 
 
 " Mile, goes to bed at dinner-time," she said to me, "and 
 gets up when the duke is just returning home." 
 
 I began to write. About one o'clock my father knocked at 
 the door of the small drawing-room and asked if he might 
 come in. I opened the door ; he came in, and found me 
 writing you. 
 
 "My dear," he began, "you will have to get yourself 
 clothes, and to make these rooms comfortable. In this purse 
 you will find twelve thousand francs, which is the yearly 
 income I propose allowing you for your expenses. You will 
 make arrangements with your mother as to some governess 
 whom you may like, in case Miss Griffith doesn't please you, 
 for Mme. de Chaulieu will not have time to go out with you 
 in the mornings. A carriage and manservant shall be at your 
 disposal." 
 
 "Let me keep Philippe," I said. 
 
 "So be it," he replied. " But don't be uneasy; you have 
 money enough of your own to be no burden either to your 
 mother or me." 
 
 " May I ask how much I have ? "
 
 A FAMOUS DRESSMAKER, BY NAME VlCTORLNE, HAS COME.
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 151 
 
 "Certainly, my child," he said. "Your grandmother left 
 you five hundred thousand francs ; this was the amount of her 
 savings, for she would not alienate a foot of land from the 
 family. This sum has been placed in Government stock, and, 
 with the accumulated interest, now brings in about forty thou- 
 sand francs a year. With this I had purposed making an in- 
 dependence for your second brother, and it is here that you 
 have upset my plans. Later, however, it is possible that you 
 may fall in with them. It shall rest with yourself, for I have 
 confidence in your good sense far more than I had expected. 
 
 " I do not need to tell you how a daughter of the Chaulieus 
 ought to behave. The pride so plainly written in your features 
 is my best guarantee. Safeguards, such as common people 
 surround their daughters with, would be an insult in our 
 family. A slander reflecting on your name might cost the 
 life of the man bold enough to utter it, or the life of one of 
 your brothers, if by chance the right should not prevail. No 
 more on this subject. Good-by, little one." 
 
 He kissed me on the forehead and went out. I cannot 
 understand the relinquishment of this plan after nine years' 
 persistence in it, My father's frankness is what I like. There 
 is no ambiguity about his words. My money ought to belong 
 to his marquis son. Who, then, has had bowels of mercy? 
 My mother ? My father ? Or could it be my brother ? 
 
 I remained sitting on my grandmother's sofa, staring at the 
 purse which my father had left on the mantel, at once pleased 
 and vexed that I could not withdraw my mind from the 
 money. It is true, further speculation was useless. My doubts 
 had been cleared up and there was something fine in the way 
 my pride was spared. 
 
 Philippe has spent the morning rushing about among the 
 various stores and workpeople who are to undertake the task 
 of my metamorphosis. A famous dressmaker, by name Victor- 
 ine, has come, as well as a woman for underclothing, and a 
 shoemaker. I am as impatient as a child to know what I shall
 
 152 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 be like when I emerge from the sack which constituted the 
 conventual uniform ; but all these tradespeople take a long 
 time ; the corsetmaker requires a whole week if my figure is 
 not to be spoilt. You see, I have a figure, dear ; this becomes 
 serious. Janssen, the operatic shoemaker, solemnly assures 
 me that I have my mother's foot. The whole morning has 
 gone in these weighty occupations. Even a glovemaker has 
 come to take the measure of my hand. The underclothing 
 woman has received my orders. 
 
 At the meal which I call dinner, and the others lunch, my 
 mother told me that we were going together to the milliner's 
 to see some hats, so that my taste should be formed, and I 
 might be in a position to order my own. 
 
 This burst of independence dazzles me. I am like a blind 
 man who has just recovered his sight. Now I begin to 
 understand the vast interval which separates a Carmelite sister 
 from a girl in society. Of ourselves we could never have con- 
 ceived it. 
 
 During this lunch my father seemed absent-minded, and 
 we left him to his thoughts ; he is deep in the King's confi- 
 dence. I was entirely forgotten ; but, from what I have seen, 
 I have no doubt he will remember me when he has need of 
 me. He is a very attractive man in spite of his fifty years. 
 His figure is youthful ; he is well made, fair, and extremely 
 graceful in his movements. He has the diplomatic face, at 
 once dumb and expressive ; his nose is long and slender, and 
 he has brown eyes. 
 
 What a handsome pair ! Strange thoughts assail me as it 
 becomes plain to me that these two, so perfectly matched in 
 birth, wealth, and mental superiority, live entirely apart, and 
 have nothing in common but their name. The show of unity 
 is only for the world. 
 
 The cream of the Court and diplomatic circles were here 
 last night. Very soon I am going to a ball given by the 
 Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, and I shall be presented to the
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 153 
 
 society I am so eager to know. A dancing-master is coming 
 every morning to give me lessons, for I must be able to dance 
 in a month, or I can't go to the ball. 
 
 Before dinner, my mother came to talk about the governess 
 with me. I have decided to keep Miss Griffith, who was 
 recommended by the English ambassador. Miss Griffith is 
 the daughter of a clergyman ; her mother was of good family, 
 and she is perfectly well bred. She is thirty-six, and will 
 teach me English. The good soul is quite handsome enough 
 to have ambitions ; she is Scotch poor and proud and will 
 act as my chaperon. She is to sleep in Rose's room. Rose 
 will be under her orders. I saw at a glance that my governess 
 would be governed by me. In the six days we have been 
 together, she has made very sure that I am the only person 
 likely to take an interest in her; while, for my part, I have 
 ascertained that, for all her statuesque features, she will prove 
 accommodating. She seems to me a kindly soul, but cautious. 
 I have not been able to extract a word of what passed between 
 her and my mother. 
 
 Another trifling piece of news ! My father has this morn- 
 ing refused the appointment as Minister of State which was 
 offered him. This accounts for his preoccupied manner last 
 night. He says he would prefer an embassy to the worries of 
 public debate. Spain in especial attracts him. 
 
 This news was told me at lunch, the one moment of the day 
 when my father, mother, and brother see each other in an easy 
 way. The servants then only come when they are rung for. 
 The rest of the day my brother, as well as my father, spends 
 out of the house. My mother has her toilet to make ; between 
 two and four she is never visible ; at four o'clock she goes 
 out for an hour's drive; when she is not dining out, she re- 
 ceives from six to seven, and the evening is given to enter- 
 tainments of various kinds theatres, balls, concerts, at homes. 
 In short, her life is so full, that I don't believe she ever has a 
 quarter of an hour to herself. She must spend a considerable
 
 154 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 time dressing in the morning ; for at lunch, which takes place 
 between eleven and twelve, she is exquisite. The meaning of 
 the things that are said about her is dawning on me. She 
 begins the day with a bath barely warmed, and a cup of cold 
 coffee with cream ; then she dresses. She is never, except on 
 some great emergency, called before nine o'clock. In sum- 
 mer there are morning rides, and at two o'clock she receives 
 a young man whom I have never yet contrived to see. 
 
 Behold our family life ! We meet at lunch and dinner, 
 though often I am alone with my mother at this latter meal, 
 and I foresee that still oftener I shall take it in my own rooms 
 (following the example of my grandmother) with only Miss 
 Griffith for company, for my mother frequently dines out. I 
 have ceased to wonder at the indifference my family have 
 shown to me. In Paris, my dear, it is a miracle of virtue to 
 love the people who live with you, for you see little enough 
 of them ; as for the absent they do not exist ! 
 
 Knowing as this may sound, I have not yet set foot in the 
 streets, and am deplorably ignorant. I must wait till I am 
 less of the country cousin and have brought my dress and de- 
 portment into keeping with the society I am about to enter, 
 the whirl of which amazes me even here, where only distant 
 murmurs reach my ear. So far I have not gone beyond the 
 garden ; but the Italian opera opens in a few days, and my 
 mother has a box there. I am crazy with delight at the 
 thought of hearing Italian music and seeing French acting. 
 
 Already I begin to drop convent habits for those of society. 
 I spend the evening writing to you till the moment for going 
 to bed arrives. This has been postponed to ten o'clock, the 
 hour at which my mother goes out, if she is not at the theatre. 
 There are twelve theatres in Paris. 
 
 I am grossly ignorant and I read a lot, but quite indiscrim- 
 inately, one book leading to another. I find the names of 
 fresh books on the cover of the one I am reading ; but as I 
 have no one to direct me, I light on some which are fearfully
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 155 
 
 dull. What modern literature I have read all turns upon love, 
 the subject which used to bulk so largely in our thoughts, be- 
 cause it seemed that our fate was determined by man and for 
 man. But how inferior are these authors to two little girls, 
 known as Sweetheart and Darling otherwise Ren6e and 
 Louise. Ah ! my love, what wretched plots, what ridiculous 
 situations, and what poverty of sentiment ! Two books, how- 
 ever, have given me wonderful pleasure "Corinne" and 
 "Adolphe." Apropos of this, I asked my father one day 
 whether it would be possible for me to see Mme. de Stael. 
 My father, mother, and Alphonse all burst out laughing, and 
 Alphonse said : 
 
 " Where in the world has she sprung from ? " 
 
 To which my father replied : 
 
 "What fools we are ! She springs from the Carmelites." 
 
 "My child, Mme. de Stael is dead," said my mother 
 gently. 
 
 When I had finished "Adolphe," I asked Miss Griffith how 
 a woman could be betrayed. 
 
 "Why, of course, when she loves," was her reply. 
 
 Renee, tell me, do you think we could be betrayed by a 
 man? 
 
 Miss Griffith has at last discerned that I am not an utter 
 ignoramus, that I have somewhere a hidden vein of knowledge, 
 the knowledge we learned from each other in our random 
 arguments. She sees that it is only superficial facts of which 
 I am ignorant. The poor thing has opened her heart to me. 
 Her curt reply to my question, when I compare it with all the 
 sorrows I can imagine, makes me feel quite creepy. Once 
 more she urged me not to be dazzled by the glitter of society, 
 to be always on my guard, especially against what most 
 attracted me. This is the sum-total of her wisdom, and I 
 can get nothing more out of her. Her lectures, therefore, 
 become a trifle monotonous, and she might be compared in 
 this respect to the bird which has only one cry.
 
 156 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE SAME TO THE SAME. 
 
 December. 
 
 MY DARLING : Here I am ready to make my bow to the 
 world. By way of preparation I have been trying to commit 
 all the follies I could think of before sobering down for my 
 entry. This morning, I have seen myself, after many re- 
 hearsals, well and duly equipped stays, shoes, curls, dress, 
 ornaments all in order. Following the example of duelists 
 before a meeting, I tried my arms in the privacy of my 
 chamber. I wanted to see how I would look, and had no 
 difficulty in discovering a certain air of victory and triumph, 
 bound to carry all before it. I mustered all my forces, in 
 accordance with that splendid maxim of antiquity : " Know 
 thyself! " and boundless was my delight in thus making my 
 own acquaintance. Griffith was the sole spectator of this doll's 
 play, in which I was at once doll and child. You think you 
 know me ? You are hugely mistaken ! 
 
 Here is a portrait, then, Renee, of your sister, formerly 
 disguised as a Carmelite, now brought to life again as a frivo- 
 lous society girl. She is one of the greatest beauties in France 
 Provence, of course, excepted. I don't see that I can give 
 a more accurate summary of this interesting topic. 
 
 True, I have my weak points ; but were I a man, I should 
 adore them. They arise from what is most promising in me. 
 When you have spent a fortnight admiring the exquisite 
 curves of your mother's arms, and that mother, the Duchesse 
 de Chaulieu, it is impossible, my dear, not to deplore your 
 own angular elbows. Yet there is consolation in observing 
 the fineness of the wrist, and a certain grace of line in those 
 hollows, which will yet fill out and show plump, round, 
 and well modeled, under the satiny skin. The somewhat
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 157 
 
 crude outline of the arms is seen again in the shoulders. 
 Strictly speaking, indeed, I have no shoulders, but only two 
 bony blades, standing out in harsh relief. My figure also 
 lacks pliancy ; there is a stiffness about the side-lines. 
 
 Poof! There's the worst out. But then the contours are 
 bold and delicate, the bright, pure flame of health bites into 
 the vigorous lines, a flood of life and of blue blood pulses 
 under the transparent skin, and the fairest daughter of Eve 
 would seem a negress beside me ! I have the foot of a 
 gazelle ! My joints are finely turned, my features of a Greek 
 correctness. It is true, madame, that the flesh tints do not 
 melt into each other : but, at least, they stand out clear and 
 bright. In short, I am a very pretty green fruit, with all the 
 charm of unripeness. I see a great likeness to the face in my 
 aunt's old missal, which rises out of a violet lily. 
 
 There is no silly weakness in the blue of my insolent eyes ; 
 the white is pure mother-of-pearl, prettily marked with tiny 
 veins, and the thick, long lashes fall like a silken fringe. 
 My forehead sparkles, and the hair grows deliciously; it 
 ripples into waves of pale gold, growing browner toward the 
 centre, whence escape little rebel locks, which alone would tell 
 that my fairness is not of the insipid and hysterical type. I 
 am a tropical blonde, with plenty of blood in my veins, a 
 blonde more apt to strike than to turn the cheek. What do 
 you think the hairdresser proposed? He wanted, if you 
 please, to smooth my hair into two bands and place over my 
 forehead a pearl, kept in place by a gold chain ! He said it 
 would recall the Middle Ages. 
 
 I told him I was not aged enough to have reached the 
 middle, or to be of any age but what I am ! 
 
 The nose is slender, and the well-cut nostrils are separated 
 by a sweet little pink partition an imperious, mocking nose, 
 with a tip too sensitive ever to grow coarse or red. Sweet- 
 heart, if this won't find a husband for even a dowerless 
 maiden, I'm a donkey. The ears are daintily curled, a pearl
 
 158 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 hanging from either lobe would show yellow. The neck is 
 long, and has an undulating motion full of dignity. In the 
 shade the white ripens to a golden tinge. Perhaps the mouth 
 is a little large. But how expressive ! what a color on the 
 lips ! how prettily the teeth laugh ! 
 
 Then, dear, there is a harmony running through all. What a 
 gait ! what a voice ! We have not forgotten how our grand- 
 mother's skirts fell into place without a touch. In a word, I am 
 lovely and charming. When the mood comes, I can laugh one 
 of our good old laughs, and no one will think the less of me ; 
 the dimples, impressed by Comedy's light fingers on my fair 
 cheeks, will command respect. Or I can let my eyes fall 
 and my heart freeze under my snowy brow. I can pose as a 
 Madonna with melancholy, swan-like neck, and the painters' 
 virgins will be nowhere ; my place in heaven would be far 
 above them. A man would be forced to chant when he spoke 
 to me. 
 
 So, you see, my panoply is complete, and I can run the 
 whole gamut of coquetry from deepest bass to shrillest treble. 
 It is a huge advantage not to be all of one piece. Now, my 
 mother is neither playful nor virginal. Her only attitude is 
 an imposing one ; when she ceases to be majestic, she is fero- 
 cious. It is difficult for her to heal the wounds she makes, 
 whereas I can wound and heal together. We are absolutely 
 unlike, and therefore there could not possibly be rivalry be- 
 tween us, unless indeed we quarreled over the greater or less 
 perfection of our extremities, which are similar. I take after 
 my father, who is shrewd and subtle. I have the manner of 
 my grandmother and her charming voice, which becomes fal- 
 setto when forced, but is a sweet-toned chest voice at the 
 ordinary pitch of a quiet talk. 
 
 I feel as if I had left the convent to-day for the first time. 
 For society I do not yet exist ; I am unknown to it. What a 
 ravishing moment ! I still belong only to myself, like a flower 
 just blown, unseen yet of mortal eye.
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 159 
 
 In spite of this, my sweet, as I paced the drawing-room 
 during my self-inspection, and saw the poor cast-off school- 
 clothes, a queer feeling came over me. Regret for the past, 
 anxiety about the future, fear of society, a long farewell to 
 the pale daisies which we used to pick and strip of their petals 
 in light-hearted innocence, there was something of all that ; 
 but strange, fantastic visions also rose, which I crushed back 
 into the inner depths, whence they had sprung, and whither 
 I dared not follow them. 
 
 My Renee, I have a regular trousseau ! It is all beautifully 
 laid away and perfumed in the cedar-wood drawers with lac- 
 quered front of my charming dressing-table. There are rib- 
 bons, shoes, gloves, all in lavish abundance. My father has 
 kindly presented me with the pretty gewgaws a girl loves a 
 dressing-case, toilet service, scent-box, fan, sunshade, prayer- 
 book, gold chain, cashmere shawl. He has also promised to 
 give me riding lessons. And I can dance ! To-morrow, yes, 
 to-morrow evening, I come out ! 
 
 My dress is white lawn, and on my head I wear a garland 
 of white roses in Greek style. I shall put on my Madonna 
 face ; I mean to play the simpleton, and have all the women 
 on my side. My mother is miles away from any idea of what 
 I write to you. She believes me quite destitute of mind, and 
 would be dumfounded if she read my letter. My brother 
 honors me with a profound contempt, and is uniformly and 
 politely indifferent. 
 
 He is a handsome young fellow, but melancholy, and given 
 to moods. I have divined his secret, though neither the duke 
 nor duchess has an inkling of it. In spite of his youth and 
 his title, he is jealous of his father. He has no position in 
 the State, no post at Court, he never has to say : "I am going 
 to the Chamber." I alone in the house have sixteen hours 
 for meditation. My father is absorbed in public business and 
 his own amusements ; my mother, too, is never at leisure ; no 
 member of the household by any chance practices self-exam-
 
 160 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 ination, they are constantly in company, and have hardly 
 time to breathe. 
 
 I should immensely like to know what is the potent charm 
 wielded by society to keep people prisoner from nine every 
 evening till two or three in the morning, and force them to 
 be so lavish alike of strength and money. When I longed for 
 it, I had no idea of the separations it brought about, or its 
 overmastering spell. But, then, I forget, it is Paris which 
 does it all. 
 
 It is possible, it seems, for members of one family to live 
 side by side and know absolutely nothing of each other. A 
 half-fledged nun arrives, and in a couple of weeks has grasped 
 domestic details, of which the master diplomatist at the head 
 of the house is quite ignorant. Or perhaps he does see, and 
 shuts his eyes deliberately, as part of the father's role. There 
 is a mystery here which I must plumb. 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE SAME TO THE SAME. 
 
 December \^th. 
 
 Yesterday, at two o'clock, I went to drive in the Champs- 
 Elysees and the Bois de Boulogne. It was one of those 
 autumn days which we used to find so beautiful on the banks 
 of the Loire. So I have seen Paris at last ! The Place 
 Louis XV. is certainly very fine, but the beauty is that of 
 man's handiwork. 
 
 I was dressed to perfection, pensive, with set face (though 
 inwardly much tempted to laugh), under a lovely hat, my 
 hands folded. Would you believe it? Not a single smile 
 was thrown at me, not one poor youth was struck motionless 
 as I passed, not a soul turned to look again ; and yet the 
 carriage proceeded with a deliberation worthy of my pose.
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 161 
 
 No, I am wrong, there was one a duke, and a charming 
 man who suddenly reined in as he went by. The individual 
 who thus saved appearances for me was my father, and he pro- 
 claimed himself highly gratified by what he saw. I met my 
 mother also, who sent me a butterfly kiss from the tips of her 
 fingers. The Griffith, who fears no man, cast her glances 
 hither and thither without discrimination. In my judgment, 
 a young woman should always know exactly what her eye is 
 resting on. 
 
 I was mad with rage. One man actually inspected my 
 carriage without noticing me. This flattering homage prob- 
 ably came from a carriage-maker. I have been quite out in 
 the reckoning of my forces. Plainly, beauty, that rare gift 
 which comes from heaven, is commoner in Paris than I 
 thought. I saw hats doffed with deference to simpering fools ; 
 a purple face called forth murmurs of: "It is she ! " My 
 mother received an immense amount of admiration. There is 
 an answer to this problem, and I mean to find it. 
 
 The men, my dear, seemed to me generally very ugly. 
 The few exceptions are bad copies of us. Heaven knows 
 what evil genius has inspired their costume ; it is amazingly 
 inelegant compared with those of former generations. It has 
 no distinction, no beauty of color or romance ; it appeals 
 neither to the senses, nor the mind, nor the eye, and it must 
 be very uncomfortable. It is meagre and stunted. The hat, 
 above all, struck me ; it is a sort of truncated column, and 
 does not adapt itself in the least to the shape of the head ; 
 but I am told it is easier to bring about a revolution than to 
 invent a graceful hat. Courage in Paris recoils before the 
 thought of appearing in a round felt ; and, for lack of one 
 day's daring, men stick all their lives to this ridiculous head- 
 piece. And yet Frenchmen are said to be fickle ! 
 
 The men are hideous any way, whatever they put on their 
 heads. I have seen nothing but worn, hard faces, with 
 neither calm nor peace in the expression ; the harsh lines and 
 11
 
 162 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 furrows speak of foiled ambition and smarting vanity. A fine 
 forehead is rarely seen. 
 
 "And these are the product of Paris! " I said to Miss 
 Griffith. 
 
 "Most cultivated and pleasant men," she replied. 
 
 I was silent. The heart of a spinster of thirty-six is a well 
 of tolerance. 
 
 In the evening I went to the ball, where I kept close to my 
 mother's side. She gave me her arm with a devotion which 
 did not miss its reward. All the honors were for her ; I was 
 made the pretext for charming compliments. She was clever 
 enough to find me fools for my partners, who one and all ex- 
 patiated on the heat and the beauty of the ball, till you might 
 suppose I was freezing and blind. Not one failed to enlarge 
 on the strange, unheard-of, extraordinary, odd, remarkable 
 fact that he saw me for the first time. 
 
 My dress, which dazzled me as I paraded alone in my 
 white-and-gold drawing-room, was barely noticeable amidst 
 the gorgeous finery of most of the married women. Each 
 had her band of faithful followers, and they all watched each 
 other askance. A few were radiant in triumphant beauty, 
 and amongst these was my mother. A girl at a ball is a mere 
 dancing machine a thing of no consequence whatever. 
 
 The men, with rare exceptions, did not impress me more 
 favorably here than at the Champs-Elys6es. They have a 
 used-up look; their features are meaningless, or rather they 
 have all the same meaning. The proud, stalwart bearing 
 which we find in the portraits of our ancestors men who 
 joined moral to physical vigor has disappeared. Yet in this 
 gathering there was one man of remarkable ability, who stood 
 out from the rest by the beauty of his face. But even he did 
 not rouse in me the feeling which I should have expected. I 
 do not know his works, and he is a man of no family. What- 
 ever the genius and the merits of a plebeian or a commoner, 
 he could never stir my blood. Beside, this man was obviously
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 163 
 
 so much more taken up with himself than with anybody else, 
 that I could not but think these great brain-workers must look 
 on us as things rather than persons. When men of intellectual 
 power love, they ought to give up writing, otherwise their love 
 is not the real thing. The lady of their heart does not come 
 first in all their thoughts. I seemed to read all this in the 
 bearing of the man I speak of. I arn told he is a professor, 
 orator, and author, whose ambition makes him the slave of 
 every bigwig. 
 
 My mind was made up on the spot. It was unworthy of 
 me, I determined, to quarrel with society for not being im- 
 pressed by my merits, and I gave myself up to the simple 
 pleasure of dancing, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I heard a 
 great deal of inept gossip about people of whom I knew noth- 
 ing ; but perhaps it is my ignorance on many subjects which 
 prevents me from appreciating it, as I saw that most men and 
 women took a lively pleasure in certain remarks, whether fall- 
 ing from their own lips or those of others. Society bristles 
 with enigmas which look hard to solve. It is a perfect maze 
 of intrigue. Yet I am fairly quick of sight and hearing, and 
 as to my wits, Mile, de Maucombe does not need to be told ! 
 
 I returned home tired with a pleasant sort of tiredness, and 
 in all innocence began describing my sensations to my mother, 
 who was with me. She checked me with the warning that I 
 must never say such things to any one but her. 
 
 "My dear child," she added, "it needs as much tact to 
 know when to be silent as when to speak." 
 
 This advice brought home to me the nature of the sensa- 
 tions which ought to be concealed from every one, not except- 
 ing perhaps even a mother. At a glance I measured the vast 
 field of feminine duplicity. I can assure you, sweetheart, 
 that we, in our unabashed simplicity, would pass for two very 
 wide-awake little scandal-mongers. What lessons may be 
 conveyed in a finger on the lips, in a word, a look ! All in a 
 moment I was seized with excessive shyness. What ! may I
 
 164 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 never again speak of the natural pleasure I feel in the exercise 
 of dancing? "How then," I said to myself, "about the 
 deeper feelings ? ' ' 
 
 I went to bed sorrowful, and I still suffer from the shock 
 produced by this first collision of my frank, joyous nature with 
 the harsh laws of society. Already the highway hedges are 
 flecked with my white wool ! Farewell, beloved. 
 
 V. 
 
 RENEE DE MAUCOMBE TO LOUISE DE CHAULIEU. 
 
 October. 
 
 How deeply your letter moved me ; above all, when I com- 
 pare our widely different destinies ! How brilliant is the 
 world you are entering, how peaceful the retreat where I shall 
 end my modest career ! 
 
 In the Castle of Maucombe, which is so well known to you 
 by description that I shall say no more of it, I found my room 
 almost exactly as I left it ; only now I can enjoy the splendid 
 view it gives of the Gemenos valley, which my childish eyes 
 used to see without comprehending. Two weeks after my 
 arrival, my father and mother took me, along with my two 
 brothers, to dine with one of our neighbors, M. de 1'Estorade, 
 an old gentleman of good family, who has made himself rich, 
 after the provincial fashion, by scraping and paring. 
 
 M. de 1'Estorade was unable to save his only son from the 
 clutches of Bonaparte ; after successfully eluding the conscrip- 
 tion, he was forced to send him to the army in 1813, to join 
 the Emperor's bodyguard. After Leipsic no more was heard 
 of him. M. de Montriveau, whom the father interviewed in 
 1814, declared that he had seen him taken by the Russians. 
 Mme. de 1'Estorade died of grief whilst a vain search was 
 being made in Russia. The baron, a very pious old man, 
 practiced that fine theological virtue which we used to culti-
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 165 
 
 vate at Blois Hope ! Hope made him see his son in dreams. 
 He hoarded his income for him, and guarded carefully the 
 portion of inheritance which fell to him from the family of 
 the late Mme. de 1'Estorade, no one venturing to ridicule the 
 old man. 
 
 At last it dawned upon me that the unexpected return of 
 this son was the cause of my own. Who could have imagined, 
 whilst fancy was leading us a giddy dance, that my destined 
 husband was slowly traveling on foot through Russia, Poland, 
 and Germany? His bad luck only forsook him at Berlin, 
 where the French Minister helped his return to his native 
 country. M. de 1'Estorade, the father, who is a small landed 
 proprietor in Provence, with an income of about ten thousand 
 livres, has not sufficient European fame to interest the world 
 in the wandering Knight de 1'Estorade, whose name smacks 
 of his adventures. 
 
 The accumulated income of twelve thousand livres from 
 the property of Mme. de 1'Estorade, with the addition of the 
 father's savings, provides the poor guard of honor with some- 
 thing like two hundred and fifty thousand livres, not counting 
 house and lands quite a considerable fortune in Provence. 
 His worthy father had bought, on the very eve of the cheva- 
 lier's return, a fine but badly-managed estate, where he de- 
 signs to plant ten thousand mulberry-trees, raised in his 
 nursery with a special view to this acquisition. The baron, 
 having found his long-lost sonj has now but one thought, to 
 marry him, and marry him to a girl of good family. 
 
 My father and mother entered into their neighbor's idea 
 with an eye to my interests so soon as they discovered that 
 Renee de Maucombe would be acceptable without a dowry, 
 and that the money the said Renee ought to inherit from her 
 parents would be duly acknowledged as hers in the contract. 
 In a similar way, my younger brother, Jean de Maucombe, as 
 soon as he came of age, signed a document stating that he 
 had received from his parents an advance upon the estate
 
 166 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 equal in amount to one-third of the whole. This is the device 
 by which the nobles of Provence elude the infamous Civil 
 Code of M. de Bonaparte, a code which will drive as many 
 girls of good family into convents as it will find husbands for. 
 The French nobility, from the little I have been able to gather, 
 seem to be much divided on these matters. 
 
 The dinner, darling, was a first meeting between your sweet- 
 heart and the exile. The Comte de Maucombe's servants 
 donned their old laced liveries and hats, the coachman his 
 great top-boots ; we sat five in the antiquated carriage, and 
 arrived in state about two o'clock the dinner was for three 
 at the grange, which is the dwelling of the Baron de 1'Estorade. 
 
 My father-in-law to be has, you see, no castle, only a simple 
 country house, standing beneath one of our hills, at the en- 
 trance of that noble valley, the pride of which is undoubtedly 
 the Castle of Maucombe. The building is quite unpretentious: 
 four pebble walls covered with a yellowish wash, and roofed 
 with hollow tiles of a good red, constitute the grange. The 
 rafters bend under the weight of this brick-kiln. The win- 
 dows, inserted casually, without any attempt at symmetry, 
 have enormous shutters, painted yellow. The garden in which 
 it stands is a Provencal garden, inclosed by low walls, built 
 of big round pebbles set in layers, alternately sloping or up- 
 right, according to the artistic taste of the mason, which finds 
 here its only outlet. The mud in which they are set is falling 
 away in places. 
 
 Thanks to an iron railing at the entrance facing the road, 
 this simple farm has a certain air of being a country-seat. 
 The railing, long sought with tears, is so emaciated that it re- 
 called Sister Angelique to me. A flight of stone steps leads to 
 the door, which is protected by a pent-house roof, such as no 
 peasant on the Loire would tolerate for his coquettish white 
 stone house, with its blue roof, glittering in the sun. The 
 garden and surrounding walks are horribly dusty, and the trees 
 seem burnt up. It is easy to see that for years the baron's life
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 167 
 
 has been a mere rising up and going to bed again, day after 
 day, without a thought beyond that of piling up coppers. He 
 eats the same food as his two servants, a Provencal lad and the 
 old woman who used to wait on his wife. The rooms are 
 scantily furnished. 
 
 Nevertheless, the house of 1'Estorade had done its best ; the 
 cupboards had been ransacked, and its last man beaten up for 
 the dinner, which was served to us on old silver dishes, black- 
 ened and battered. The exile, my darling pet, is like the 
 railing, emaciated ! He is pale and silent, and bears traces 
 of suffering. At thirty-seven he might be fifty. The once 
 beautiful ebon locks of youth are streaked with white like a 
 lark's wing. His fine blue eyes are cavernous; he is a little 
 deaf, which suggests the Knight of the Sorrowful Coun- 
 tenance. 
 
 Spite of all this, I have graciously consented to become 
 Mme. de 1'Estorade and to receive a dowry of two hundred 
 and fifty thousand francs, but only on the express condition 
 of being allowed to work my will upon the grange and make 
 a park around it. I have demanded from my father, in set 
 terms, a grant of a water-course, which can be brought thither 
 from Maucombe. In a month I shall be Mme. de 1'Estorade; 
 for, dear, I have made a good impression. After the snows of 
 Siberia a man is ready enough to see merit in those black eyes, 
 which, according to you, used to ripen fruit with a look. 
 Louis de 1'Estorade seems well content to marry the "fair 
 Renee de Maucombe " such is your friend's splendid title. 
 
 Whilst you are preparing to reap the joys of that many- 
 sided existence which awaits a young lady of the Chaulieu 
 family, and to queen it in Paris, your poor little loved one, 
 Renee, that child of the desert, has fallen from the empyrean, 
 whither together we had soared, into the vulgar realities of a 
 life as homely as a daisy's. I have vowed to myself to com- 
 fort this young man, who has never known youth, but passed 
 straight from his mother's arms to the embrace of war, and
 
 168 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 from the joys of his country home to the frosts and forced 
 labor of Siberia. 
 
 Humble country pleasures will enliven the monotony of 
 my future. It shall be my ambition to enlarge the oasis 
 round my house, and to give it the lordly shade of fine trees. 
 My turf, though Provencal, shall be always green. I shall 
 carry my park up the hillside and plant on the highest point 
 some pretty kiosk, whence, perhaps, my eyes may catch the 
 shimmer of the Mediterranean. Orange and lemon trees, and 
 all choicest things that grow, shall embellish my retreat ; and 
 there will I be a mother among my children. The poetry of 
 Nature, which nothing can destroy, shall hedge us round ; 
 and standing loyally at the post of duty, we need fear no 
 danger. My religious feelings are shared by my father-in-law 
 and by the chevalier. 
 
 Ah ! darling, my life unrolls itself before my eyes like one 
 of the great highways of France, level and easy, shaded with 
 evergreen trees. This century will not see another Bonaparte ; 
 and my children, if I have any, will not be rent from me. 
 They will be mine to train and make men of the joy of my 
 life. If you also are true to your destiny, you who ought to 
 find your mate amongst the great ones of the earth, the chil- 
 dren of your Ren6e will not lack a zealous protectress. 
 
 Farewell, then, for me at least, to the romances and thrill- 
 ing adventures in which we used ourselves to play the part 
 of heroine. The whole story of my life lies before me now ; 
 its great crisis will be the teething and nutrition of the young 
 Masters de 1'Estorade, and the mischief they do to my shrubs 
 and me. To embroider their caps, to be loved and admired 
 by a sickly man at the mouth of the Gemenos valley there 
 are my pleasures. Perhaps some day the country dame may 
 go and spend a winter in Marseilles ; but danger does not 
 haunt the purlieus of a narrow provincial stage. There will 
 be nothing to fear, not even an admiration such as could only 
 make a woman proud. We shall take a great deal of interest
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 169 
 
 in the silkworms for whose benefit our mulberry-leaves .will be 
 sold ! We shall know the strange vicissitudes of life in Prov- 
 ence, and the storms that may attack even a peaceful house- 
 hold. Quarrels will be impossible, for M. de 1'Estorade has 
 formally announced that he will leave the reins in his wife's 
 hands ; and as I shall do nothing to remind him of this wise 
 resolve, it is likely he may persevere in it. 
 
 You, my dear Louise, will supply the romance of my life. 
 So you must narrate to me in full all your adventures, describe 
 your balls and parties, tell me what you wear, what flowers 
 crown your lovely golden locks, and what are the words and 
 manners of the men you meet. Your other self will be always 
 there listening, dancing, feeling her finger-tips pressed with 
 you. If only I could have some fun in Paris now and then, 
 while you played the house-mother at La Crampade ! such is 
 the name of our grange. Poor M. de 1'Estorade, who fancies 
 he is marrying one woman ! Will he find out there are two ? 
 
 I am writing nonsense now, and as henceforth I can only 
 be foolish by proxy, I had better stop. One kiss, then, on 
 each cheek my lips are still virginal, he has only dared to 
 take my hand. Oh ! our deference and propriety are quite 
 disquieting, I assure you. There, I am off again. Good-by, 
 dear. 
 
 P.S. I hsve just opened your third letter. My dear, I 
 have about one thousand livres with which to do what I wish ; 
 spend them for me on pretty things, such as we can't find 
 here nor even at Marseilles. While speeding on your own 
 business, give a thought to the recluse of La Crampade. Re- 
 member that on neither side have the heads of the family any 
 people of taste in Paris to make their purchases. I shall reply 
 to your letter later.
 
 170 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 VL 
 
 DON FELIPE HENAREZ TO DON FERNAND. 
 
 PARIS, September. 
 
 The address of this letter, my brother, will show you that 
 the head of your house is out of reach of danger. If the mas- 
 sacre of our ancestors in the Court of Lions made Spaniards 
 and Christians of us against our will, it left us a legacy of 
 Arab cunning ; and it may be that I owe my safety to the 
 blood of the Abencerrages still flowing in my veins. 
 
 Fear made Ferdinand's acting so good, that Valdez actually 
 believed in his protestations. But for me the poor admiral 
 would have been done for. Nothing, -it seems, will teach the 
 Liberals what a king is. This particular Bourbon has been 
 long known to me ; and the more his majesty assured me of 
 his protection, the stronger grew my suspicions. A true 
 Spaniard has no need to repeat a promise. A flow of words 
 is a sure sign of duplicity. 
 
 Valdez took ship on an English vessel. For myself, no 
 sooner did I see the cause of my beloved Spain wrecked in 
 Andalusia, than I wrote to the steward of my Sardinian estate 
 to make arrangements for my escape. Some hardy coral 
 fishers were dispatched to wait for me at a point on the coast ; 
 and when Ferdinand urged the French to secure my person, 
 I was already in my barony of Macumer, amidst brigands who 
 defy all law and all avengers. 
 
 The last Hispano-Moorish family of Granada has found 
 once more the shelter of an African desert, and even a Saracen 
 horse, in an estate which comes to it from Saracens. How 
 the eyes of these brigands who but yesterday had dreaded 
 my authority sparkled with savage joy and pride when they 
 found they were protecting against the King of Spain's ven-
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 171 
 
 detta the Due de Soria, their master and a Henarez the first 
 who had come to visit them since the time when the island be- 
 longed to the Moors. More than a score of rifles were ready 
 to point at Ferdinand of Bourbon, son of a race which was 
 still unknown when the Abencerrages arrived as conquerors 
 on the banks of the Loire. 
 
 My idea had been to live on the income of these huge 
 estates, which, unfortunately, we have so greatly neglected ; 
 but my stay there convinced me that this was impossible, and 
 that Queverdo's reports were only too correct. The poor 
 man had twenty-two lives at my disposal, but not a single 
 real ; prairies of twenty thousand acres, and not a house ; 
 virgin forests, and not a stick of furniture ! A million piastres 
 and a resident master for half a century would be necessary to 
 make these magnificent lands pay. I must see to this. 
 
 The conquered have time during their flight to ponder their 
 own case and that of their vanquished party. At the spectacle 
 of my noble country, a corpse for monks to prey on, my eyes 
 filled with tears ; I read in it the presage of Spain's gloomy 
 future. 
 
 At Marseilles I heard of Riego's end. Painfully did it 
 come home to me that my life also would henceforth be a 
 martyrdom, but a martyrdom protracted and unnoticed. Is 
 existence worthy the name, when a man can no longer die for 
 his country or live for a woman ? To love, to conquer, this 
 twofold form of the same thought, is the law graven on our 
 sabres, emblazoned on the vaulted roofs of our palaces, cease- 
 lessly whispered by the water, which rises and falls in our 
 marble fountains. But in vain does it nerve my heart ; the 
 sabre is broken, the palace in ashes, the living spring sucked 
 up by the barren sand. 
 
 Here, then, is my last will and testament. 
 
 Don Fernand, you will understand now why I put a check 
 upon your ardor and ordered you to remain faithful to the 
 reigning king. As your brother and friend, I implore you to
 
 172 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 obey me ; as your master, I command. You will go to the 
 King and will ask from him the grant of my dignities and 
 property, my office and titles. He will perhaps hesitate, and 
 may treat you to some regal scowls ; but you must tell him 
 that you are loved by Marie Heredia, and that Marie can 
 marry none but a Due de Soria. This will make the King 
 radiant. It is the immense fortune of the Heredia family 
 which alone has stood between him and the accomplishment 
 of my ruin. Your proposal will seem to him, therefore, to 
 deprive me of a last resource, and he will gladly hand over to 
 you my spoils. 
 
 You will then marry Marie. The secret of the mutual love 
 against which you fought was no secret to me, and I have pre- 
 pared the old count to see you take my place. Marie and I 
 were merely doing what was expected of us in our position 
 and carrying out the wishes of our fathers ; everything else is 
 in your favor. You are beautiful as a child of love, and are 
 possessed of Marie's heart. I am an ill-favored Spanish 
 grandee, for whom she feels an aversion to which she will not 
 confess. Some slight reluctance there may be on the part of 
 the noble Spanish girl on account of my misfortunes, but this 
 you will soon overcome. 
 
 Due de Soria, your predecessor would neither cost you a 
 regret nor rob you of a maravedi. My mother's diamonds, 
 which will suffice to make me independent, I will keep, be- 
 cause the gap caused by them in the family estate can be filled 
 by Marie's jewels. You can send them, therefore, by my 
 nurse, old Urraca, the only one of my servants whom I wish 
 to retain. No one can prepare my chocolate as she does. 
 
 During our brief revolution, my life of unremitting toil 
 was reduced to the barest necessaries, and these my salary was 
 sufficient to provide. You will therefore find the income of 
 the two last years in the hands of your steward. This sum is 
 mine ; but a Due de Soria cannot marry without a large 
 expenditure of money, therefore we will divide it. You will
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 173 
 
 not refuse this wedding present from your brother, the brigand. 
 Beside, I mean to have it so. 
 
 The barony of Macumer, not being Spanish territory, but 
 in Sardinia, remains to me. Thus I have still a country and a 
 name, should I wish to take up a position in the world again. 
 
 Thank heaven, this finishes our business, and the house of 
 Soria is saved ! 
 
 At the very moment when I drop into simple Baron de 
 Macumer, the French cannon announce the arrival of the 
 Due d'AngoulSme. You will understand why I break off. 
 
 October. 
 
 When I arrived here I had not ten doubloons in my pocket. 
 He would indeed be a poor sort of leader who, in the midst 
 of calamities he has not been able to avert, has found means 
 to feather his own nest. For the vanquished Moor there 
 remains a horse and the desert ; for the Christian foiled of his 
 hopes, the cloister and a few gold-pieces. 
 
 But my present resignation is mere weariness. I am not 
 yet so near the monastery as to have abandoned all thoughts 
 of life. Ozalga had given me several letters of introduction 
 to meet all emergencies, amongst these one to a bookseller, 
 who takes with our fellow-countrymen the place which Galig- 
 nani holds with the English in Paris. This man has found 
 eight pupils for me at three francs a lesson. I go to my 
 pupils every alternate day, so that I have four lessons a day 
 and earn twelve francs, which is much more than I require. 
 When Urraca comes I shall make some Spanish exile happy 
 by passing on to him my connection. 
 
 I lodge in the Rue Hillerin-Bertion with a poor widow, 
 who takes bohrders. My room faces south and looks out on 
 a little garden. It is perfectly quiet ; I have green trees to 
 look upon, and spend the sum of one piastre a day. I am 
 amazed at the amount of calm, pure pleasure which I enjoy 
 in this life, after the fashion of Dionysius at Corinth. From
 
 174 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 sunrise until ten o'clock I smoke and take my chocolate, 
 sitting at my window and contemplating two Spanish plants, 
 a broom which rises out of a clump of jessamine gold on a 
 white ground, colors which must send a thrill through any 
 scion of the Moors. At ten o'clock I start for my lessons, 
 which last till four, when I return for dinner. Afterward I 
 read and smoke till I go to bed. 
 
 I can put up for a long time with a life like this, com- 
 pounded of work and meditation, of solitude and society. 
 Be happy, therefore, Fernand ; my abdication has brought no 
 afterthoughts; I have no regrets like Charles V., no longing 
 to try the game again like Napoleon. Five days and nights 
 have passed since I wrote my will ; to my mind they might 
 have been five centuries. Honor, titles, wealth, are for me 
 as though they had never existed. 
 
 Now that the conventional barrier of respect which hedged 
 me round has fallen, I can open my heart to you, dear boy. 
 Though cased in the armor of gravity, this heart is full of 
 tenderness and devotion, which have found no object, and 
 which no woman has divined, not even she who, from her 
 cradle, has been my destined bride. In this lies the secret of 
 my political enthusiasm. Spain has taken the place of a 
 mistress and received the homage of my heart. And now 
 Spain, too, is gone ! Beggared of all, I can gaze upon the 
 ruin of what once was me and speculate over the mysteries of 
 my being. 
 
 Why did life animate this carcase, and when will it depart ? 
 Why has that race, preeminent in chivalry, breathed all its 
 primitive virtues its tropical love, its fiery poetry into this 
 its last offshoot, if the seed was never to burst its rugged 
 shell, if no stem was to spring forth, no radiant flower scatter 
 aloft its Eastern perfumes? Of what crime have I been 
 guilty before my birth that I can inspire no love? Did fate 
 from my very infancy decree that I should be stranded, a use- 
 less hulk, on some barren shore ? I find in my soul the image
 
 / SMOKE AND TAKE MY CHOCOLATE, SITTING AT MY 
 WINDOW.
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 175 
 
 of the deserts where my fathers ranged, illumined by a scorch- 
 ing sun which shrivels up all life. Proud remnant of a fallen 
 race, vain force, love run to waste, an old man in the prime 
 of youth, here better than elsewhere shall I await the last 
 grace of death. Alas ! under this murky sky no spark will 
 kindle these ashes again to flame. Thus my last words may 
 be those of Christ : " My God, why hast Thou forsaken 
 me?" Cry of agony and terror, to *he core of which no 
 mortal has ventured yet to penetrate ! 
 
 You can realize now, Fernand, what a joy it is to me to 
 live afresh in you and Marie. I shall watch you henceforth 
 with the pride of a creator satisfied in his work. Love each 
 other well and go on loving if you would not give me pain ; 
 any discord between you would hurt me more than it would 
 yourselves. 
 
 Our mother had a presentiment that events would one day 
 serve her wishes. It may be that the longing of a mother 
 constitutes a pact between herself and God. Was she not, 
 moreover, one of those mysterious beings who can hold con- 
 verse with heaven and bring back thence a vision of the 
 future ? How often have I not read in the lines of her fore- 
 head that she was coveting for Fernand the honors and the 
 wealth of Felipe ! When I said so to her, she would reply 
 with tears, laying bare the wounds of a heart, which of right 
 was the undivided property of both her sons, but which an 
 irresistible passion gave to you alone. 
 
 Her spirit, therefore, will hover joyfully above your heads 
 as you bow them at the altar. My mother, have you not a 
 caress for your Felipe now that he has yielded to your favorite 
 even the girl whom you regretfully thrust into his arms? 
 What I have done is pleasing to our womankind, to the dead, 
 and to the King ; it is the will of God. Make no difficulty 
 then, Fernand ; obey, and be silent. 
 
 P.S. Tell Urraca to be sure and call me nothing but M.
 
 176 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 Henarez. Don't say a word about me to Marie. You must 
 be the one living soul to know the secrets of the last Christian- 
 ized Moor, in whose veins runs the blood of a great family, 
 which took its rise in the desert and is now about to die out 
 in the person of a solitary exile. Farewell. 
 
 VII. 
 
 LOUISE DE CHAULIEU TO RENEE DE MAUCOMBE. 
 
 What ! To be married so soon ! But this is unheard of. 
 At the end of a month you become engaged to a man who is 
 a stranger to you, and about whom you know nothing. The 
 man may be deaf there are so many kinds of deafness ! he 
 may be sickly, tiresome, insufferable ! 
 
 Don't you see, Ren6e, what they want with you? You are 
 needful for carrying on the glorious stock of the 1'Estorades, 
 that is all. You will be buried in the provinces. Are these 
 the promises we made each other ? Were I you, I would 
 sooner set off to the Hyeres islands in a boat, on the chance 
 of being captured by an Algerian corsair and sold to the 
 Grand Turk. Then I should be a Sultana some day, and 
 wouldn't I make a stir in the harem while I was young yes, 
 and afterward too ! 
 
 You are leaving one convent to enter another. I know 
 you ; you are a coward, and you will submit to the yoke of 
 family life with a lamb-like docility. But I am here to direct 
 you ; you must come to Paris. There we shall drive the men 
 wild and hold a court like queens. Your husband, sweet 
 love, in three years from now may become a member of the 
 Chamber. I know all about members now, and I will explain 
 it to you. You will work that machine very well ; you can 
 live in Paris, and become there what my mother calls a woman 
 of fashion. Oh ! you needn't suppose I will leave you in 
 your grange !
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 177 
 
 Monday. 
 
 For a whole fortnight now, my dear, I have been living the 
 life of society : one evening at the Italiens, another at the 
 grand opera, and always a ball afterward. Ah ! society is a 
 witching world. The music of the opera enchants me ; and 
 whilst my soul is plunged in divine pleasure, I am the centre 
 of admiration and the focus of all the opera-glasses. But a 
 single glance will make the boldest youth drop his eyes. 
 
 I have seen some charming young men there ; all the same, 
 I don't care for any of them ; not one has roused in me the 
 emotion which I feel when I listen to Garcia in his splendid 
 duet with Pellegrini in "Otello." Heavens! how jealous 
 Rossini must have been to express jealousy so well ! What a 
 cry in "II mio cor si divide ! " I'm speaking Greek to you, 
 for you never heard Garcia, but then you know how jealous 
 I am ! 
 
 What a wretched dramatist Shakespeare is ! Othello is in 
 love with glory ; he wins battles, he gives orders, he struts 
 about and is all over the place while Desdemona sits at home ; 
 and Desdemona, who sees herself neglected for the silly fuss 
 of public life, is quite meek all the time. Such a sheep de- 
 serves to be slaughtered. Let the man whom I deign to love 
 beware how he thinks of anything but loving me ! 
 
 For my part, I like those long trials of the old-fashioned 
 chivalry. That lout of a young lord, who took offense be- 
 cause his sovereign lady sent him down among the lions to 
 fetch her glove, was, in my opinion, very impertinent, and a 
 fool too. Doubtless the lady had in reserve for him some 
 exquisite flower of love, which he lost, as he well deserved 
 the puppy ! 
 
 But here am I running on as though I had not a great piece 
 of news to tell you ! My father is certainly going to repre- 
 sent our master the King at Madrid. I say our master, for I 
 shall make part of the embassy. My mother wishes to remain 
 12
 
 178 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 here, and my father will take me so as to have some woman 
 about him. 
 
 My dear, this seems to you, no doubt, very simple, but 
 there are horrors behind it, all the same : in a fortnight I 
 have probed the secrets of the house. My mother would ac- 
 company my father to Madrid if he would take M. de Canalis 
 as a secretary to the embassy. But the King appoints the 
 secretaries ; the duke dare neither annoy the King, who hates 
 to be opposed, nor vex my mother ; and the wily diplomat be- 
 lieves he has cut the knot by leaving the duchess here. M. de 
 Canalis, who is the great poet of the day, is the young man 
 who cultivates my mother's society, and who no doubt studies 
 diplomacy with her from three o'clock to five. Diplomacy 
 must be an interesting subject, for he is as regular as a gambler 
 on the Stock Exchange. 
 
 The Due de Rhdtore, our elder brother, solemn, cold, and 
 whimsical, would be extinguished by his father at Madrid, 
 therefore he remains in Paris. Miss Griffith has found out, 
 also, that Alphonse is in love with a ballet-girl at the opera. 
 How is it possible to fall in love with legs and pirouettes? 
 We have noticed that my brother comes to the theatre only 
 when Tullia dances there; he applauds the steps of this 
 creature, and then goes out. Two ballet-girls in a family are, 
 I fancy, more destructive than the plague. My second brother 
 is with his regiment, and I have not yet seen him. Thus it 
 comes about that I have to act as the Antigone of his majesty's 
 ambassador. Perhaps I may get married in Spain, and per- 
 haps my father's idea is a marriage there without dowry, after 
 the pattern of yours with this broken-down guard of honor. 
 My father asked if I would go with him, and offered me the 
 use of his Spanish teacher. 
 
 "Spain, the country for castles in the air!" I cried. 
 " Perhaps you hope it may mean marriages for me ! " 
 
 For sole reply he honored .me with a meaning look. For 
 some days he has amused himself with teasing me at lunch ;
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 179 
 
 he watches me, and I dissemble. In this way I have played 
 with him cruelly as father and ambassador in petto. Hadn't 
 he taken me for a fool ? He asked what I thought of this 
 and that young man, and of some girls whom I had met in 
 several houses. I replied with quite inane remarks on the 
 color of their hair, their faces, and the difference in their 
 figures. My father seemed disappointed at my crassness, and 
 inwardly blamed himself for having asked me. 
 
 "Still, father," I added, "don't suppose I am saying what 
 I really think : mother made me afraid the other day that I 
 had spoken more frankly than I ought of my impressions." 
 
 " With your family you may speak quite freely," my mother 
 replied. 
 
 "Very well, then," I went on. "The young men I have 
 met so far strike me as too self-interested to excite interest in 
 others ; they are much more taken up with themselves than 
 with their company. They can't be accused of lack of candor 
 at any rate. They put on a certain expression to talk to us, 
 and drop it again in a moment, apparently satisfied that we 
 don't use our eyes. The man as he converses is the lover; 
 silent, he is the husband. The girls, again, are so artificial that 
 it is impossible to know what they really are, except from the 
 way they dance ; their figures and movements alone are not a 
 sham. But what has alarmed me most in this fashionable 
 society is its brutality. The little incidents which take place 
 when supper is announced give one some idea to compare 
 small things with great of what a popular rising might be. 
 Courtesy is only a thin veneer on the general selfishness. I 
 imagined society very different. Women count for little in 
 it; that may, perhaps, be a survival of Bonapartist ideas." 
 
 " Armande is coming on extraordinarily," said my mother. 
 
 " Mother, did you think I should never get beyond asking 
 to see Mme. de Stael ? " 
 
 My father smiled, and rose from the table.
 
 180 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 Saturday. 
 
 My dear, I have left one thing out. Here is the titbit I 
 have reserved for you. The love which we pictured must be 
 extremely well hidden ; I have not seen a trace of it. True, 
 I have caught in drawing-rooms now and again a quick ex- 
 change of glances, but how colorless it all is ! Love, as we 
 imagined it, a world of wonders, of glorious dreams, of charm- 
 ing realities, of sorrows that waken sympathy, and smiles that 
 make sunshine, does not exist. The bewitching words, the 
 constant interchange of happiness, the misery of absence, the 
 flood of joy at the presence of the beloved one where are 
 they ? What soil produces these radiant flowers of the soul ? 
 Which is wrong ? Who has lied to us ? Ourselves or the 
 world ? 
 
 I have already seen hundreds of men, young and middle- 
 aged ; not one has stirred the least feeling in me. No proof 
 of admiration and devotion on their part, not even a sword 
 drawn in my behalf, would have moved me. Love, dear, is 
 the product of such rare conditions that it is quite possible 
 to live a lifetime without coming across the being on whom 
 nature has bestowed the power of making one's happiness. 
 The thought is enough to make one shudder ; for if this being 
 is found too late, what then ? 
 
 For some days I have begun to tremble when I think of 
 the destiny of women, and to understand why so many wear 
 a sad face beneath the flush brought by the unnatural excite- 
 ment of social dissipation. Marriage is a mere matter of 
 chance. Look at yours. A storm of wild thoughts has 
 passed over my mind. To be loved every day the same, yet 
 with a difference, to be loved as much after ten years of 
 happiness as on the first day ! such a love demands years. 
 The lover must be allowed to languish, curiosity must be 
 piqued and satisfied, feeling aroused and responded to. 
 
 Is there, then, a law for the inner fruits of the heart, as 
 there is for the visible fruits of nature ? Can joy be made
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 181 
 
 lasting ? In what proportion should love mingle tears with 
 its pleasures ? The cold policy of the funereal, monotonous, 
 persistent routine of the convent seemed to me at these mo- 
 ments the only real life ; while the wealth, the splendor, the 
 tears, the delights, the triumph, the joy, the satisfaction, of 
 a love equal, shared, and sanctioned, appeared a mere idle 
 vision. 
 
 I see no room in this city for the gentle ways of love, for 
 precious walks in shady alleys, the full moon sparkling on the 
 water, while the suppliant pleads in vain. Rich, young, and 
 beautiful, I have only to love, and love would become my 
 sole occupation, my life ; yet in the three months during 
 which I have come and gone, eager and curious, nothing has 
 appealed to me in the bright, covetous, keen eyes around me. 
 No voice has thrilled me, no glance has made the world seem 
 brighter. 
 
 Music alone has filled my soul, music alone has at all taken 
 the place of our friendship. Sometimes, at night, I will 
 linger for an hour by my window, gazing into the garden, 
 summoning the future, with all it brings, out of the mystery 
 which shrouds it. There are days too when, having started 
 for a drive, I get out and walk in the Champs-Elysees, and 
 picture to myself that the man who is to waken my slumber- 
 ing soul is at hand, that he will follow and look at me. Then 
 I meet only mountebanks, vendors of gingerbread, jugglers, 
 passers-by hurrying to their business, or lovers who try to 
 escape notice. These I am tempted to stop, asking them, 
 " You who are happy, tell me, what is love ? " 
 
 But the impulse is repressed, and I return to my carriage, 
 swearing to die an old maid. Love is undoubtedly an incar- 
 nation, and how many conditions are needful before it can 
 take place ! We are riot certain of never quarreling with 
 ourselves, how much less so when there are two ? This is a 
 problem which God alone can solve. 
 
 I begin to think that I shall return to the convent. If I
 
 182 LEl^TERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 remain in society, I shall do things which will look like 
 follies, for I cannot possibly reconcile myself to what I see. 
 I am perpetually wounded either in my sense of delicacy, my 
 inner principles, or my secret thoughts. 
 
 Ah ! my mother is the happiest of women, adored as she is 
 by Canalis, her great little man. My love, do you know I 
 am seized sometimes with a horrible craving to know what 
 goes on between my mother and that young man ? Griffith 
 tells me she has gone through all these moods ; she has longed 
 to fly at women whose happiness was written on their faces ; 
 she has blackened their character, torn them to pieces. 
 According to her, virtue consists in burying all these savage 
 instincts in one's innermost heart. But what then of the 
 heart ? It becomes the sink of all that is worst in us. 
 
 It is very humiliating that no adorer has yet turned up for 
 me. I am a marriageable girl, but I have brothers, a family, 
 relations, who are sensitive on the point of honor. Ah ! if 
 that is what keeps men back, they are poltroons. 
 
 The part of Chimene in the "Cid" and that of the Cid 
 captivate me. What a marvelous play ! Well, good-by. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE SAME TO THE SAME. 
 
 January. 
 
 Our teacher is a poor refugee, forced to keep in hiding on 
 account of the part he played in the revolution which the 
 Due d'Angoulgme has just quelled a triumph to which we 
 owe some splendid fetes. Though a Liberal, and doubtless a 
 man of the people, he has awakened my interest : I fancy 
 that he must have been condemned to death. I make him 
 talk for the purpose of getting at his* secret ; but he is of a 
 truly Castilian taciturnity, proud as though he were Gonsalvo 
 di Cordova, and nevertheless angelic in his patience and
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 183 
 
 gentleness. His pride is not irritable like Miss Griffith's, it 
 belongs to his inner nature ; he forces us to civility because 
 his own manners are so perfect, and holds us at a distance by 
 the respect he shows us. My father declares that there is a 
 great deal of the nobleman in Sefior Henarez, whom, among 
 ourselves, he calls in fun Don Henarez. 
 
 A few days ago I took the liberty of addressing him thus. 
 He raised his eyes, which are generally bent on the ground, 
 and flashed a look from them that quite abashed me ; my dear, 
 he certainly has the most beautiful eyes imaginable. I asked 
 him if I had offended him in any way, and he said to me 
 in his grand, rolling Spanish' 
 
 "Mademoiselle, I am here only to teach you Spanish." 
 
 I blushed, and felt quite snubbed. I was on the point of 
 making some pert answer, when I remembered what our dear 
 mother in God used to say to us, and I replied instead 
 
 " It would be a kindness to tell me if you have anything to 
 complain of." 
 
 A tremor passed through him, the blood rose in his olive 
 cheeks ; he replied in a voice of some emotion 
 
 " Religion must have taught you, better than I can, to 
 respect the unhappy. Had I been a don in Spain, and lost 
 everything in the triumph of Ferdinand VII., your witticism 
 would be unkind ; but if I am only a poor teacher of lan- 
 guages, is it not a heartless satire? Neither is worthy of a 
 young lady of rank." 
 
 I took his hand, saying 
 
 " In the name of religion also, I beg you to pardon me." 
 
 He bowed, opened my " Don Quixote," and sat down. 
 
 This little incident disturbed me more than the harvest of 
 compliments, gazing, and pretty speeches on my most success- 
 ful evening. During the lesson I watched him attentively, 
 which I could do the more safely, as he never looks at me. 
 
 As the result of my observations, I made out that the tutor, 
 whom we took to be forty, is a young man, some years under
 
 184 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 thirty. My governess, to whom I had handed him over, 
 remarked on the beauty of his black hair and of his pearly 
 teeth. As to his eyes, they are velvet and fire ; but here ends 
 the catalogue of his good points. Apart from this, he is 
 plain and insignificant. Though the Spaniards have been 
 described as not a cleanly people, this man is most carefully 
 rigged up, and his hands are whiter than his face. He stoops 
 a little, and has an extremely large, oddly-shaped head. His 
 ugliness, which, however, has a dash of piquancy, is aggra- 
 vated by smallpox marks, which seam his face. His fore- 
 head is very prominent, and the shaggy eyebrows meet, 
 giving a repellent air of harshness. There is a frowning, 
 plaintive look on his face, reminding one of a sickly child, 
 which owes its life to superhuman care, as Sister Marth6 did. 
 As my father observed, his features are a shrunken reproduction 
 of those of Cardinal Ximenes. The natural dignity of our 
 tutor's manners seems to disconcert the dear duke, who 
 doesn't like him, and is never at ease with him : he can't bear 
 to come in contact with superiority of any kind. 
 
 As soon as we both know enough Spanish, we start for 
 Madrid. When H&iarez returned, two days after the reproof 
 he had given me, I remarked by way of showing my 
 gratitude 
 
 "I have no doubt that you left Spain in consequence of 
 political events. If my father is sent there, as seems to be 
 expected, we shall be in a position to help you, and might be 
 able to obtain your pardon, in case you are under sentence." 
 
 " It is impossible for any one to help me," he replied. 
 
 "But," I said, "is that because you refuse to accept any 
 help, or because the thing itself is impossible? " 
 
 "Both," he said, with a bow, and in a tone which forbade 
 continuing the subject. 
 
 My father's blood chafed in my veins. I was offended by 
 this haughty demeanor, and promptly dropped Sefior H6narez. 
 
 All the same, my dear, there is something fine in this rejec-
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 185 
 
 tion of any aid. " He would not accept even our friendship," 
 I reflected, whilst -conjugating a verb. Suddenly I stopped 
 short and told him what was in my mind, but in Spanish. 
 Henarez replied very politely that equality of sentiment 
 was necessary between friends, which did not exist in this 
 case, and therefore it was useless to consider the question. 
 
 " Do you mean equality in the amount of feeling on either 
 side, or equality in rank?" I persisted, determined to shake 
 him out of his provoking gravity. 
 
 He raised once more those awe-inspiring eyes, and mine 
 fell before them. Dear, this man is a hopeless enigma. He 
 seemed to ask whether my words meant love ; and the mixture 
 of joy, pride, and agonized doubt in his glance went to my 
 heart. It was plain that advances, which would be taken for 
 what they were worth in France, might land me in difficulties 
 with a Spaniard, and I drew back into my shell, feeling not a 
 little foolish. 
 
 The lesson over, he bowed, and his eyes were eloquent of 
 the humble prayer : " Don't trifle with a poor wretch." 
 
 This sudden contrast to his usual grave and dignified man- 
 ner made a great impression on me. It seems horrible to 
 think and to say, but I can't help believing that there are 
 treasures of affection in that man. 
 
 IX. 
 MME. DE L'ESTORADE TO MLLE. DE CHAULIEU. 
 
 December. 
 
 All is over, my dear child, and it is Mme. de 1'Estorade 
 who writes you. But between us there can be no change ; it 
 is only a girl the less. 
 
 Don't be troubled ; I did not give my consent recklessly or 
 without much thought. My life is henceforth mapped out for 
 me, and the freedom from all uncertainty as to the road to
 
 186 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 follow suits my mind and disposition. A great moral power 
 has stepped in, and once for all swept what we call chance 
 out of my life. We have the property to develop, our home 
 to beautify and adorn ; for me there is also a household to 
 direct and sweeten and a husband to reconcile to life. In 
 all probability I shall have a family to look after, children to 
 educate. 
 
 What would you have ? Every-day life cannot be cast in 
 heroic mould. No doubt there seems, at any rate at first sight, 
 no room left in this scheme of life for that longing after the 
 infinite which expands the mind and soul. But what is there 
 to prevent me from launching on that boundless sea our familiar 
 craft ? Nor must you suppose that the humble duties to which 
 I dedicate my life give no scope for passion. To restore faith 
 in happiness to an unfortunate, who has been the sport of ad- 
 verse circumstances, is a noble work, and one which alone 
 may suffice to relieve the monotony of my existence. I can 
 see no opening left for suffering, and I see a great deal of good 
 to be done. I need not hide from you that the love I have for 
 Louis de 1'Estorade is not of the kind which makes the heart 
 throb at the sound of a step, and thrills us at the lightest tones 
 of a voice, or the caress of a burning glance ; but, on the other 
 hand, there is nothing in him which offends me. 
 
 What am I to do, you will ask, with that instinct for all 
 which is great and noble, with those mental energies, which 
 have made the link between us and which we still possess? 
 I admit that this thought has troubled me. But are these 
 faculties less ours because we keep them concealed, using them 
 only in secret for the welfare of the family, as instruments to 
 produce the happiness of those confided to our care, to whom 
 we are bound to give ourselves without reserve? The time 
 during which a woman can look for admiration is short, it 
 will soon be past ; and if my life has not been a great one, it 
 will at least have been calm, tranquil, free from shocks. 
 
 Nature has favored our sex in giving us a choice between
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 187 
 
 love and motherhood. I have made mine. My children shall 
 be my gods, and this spot of earth my Eldorado. 
 
 I can say no more to-day. Thank you much for all the 
 things you have sent me. Give a glance at my needs on the 
 inclosed list. I am determined to live in an atmosphere of 
 refinement and luxury, and to take from provincial life only 
 what makes its charms. In solitude a woman can never be 
 vulgarized she remains herself. I count greatly on your 
 kindness for keeping me up to the fashion. My father-in-law 
 is so delighted that he can refuse me nothing, and turns his 
 house upside down. We are getting workpeople from Paris 
 and renovating everything. 
 
 X. 
 
 MLLE. DE CHAULIEU TO MME. DE I/ESTORADE. 
 
 January. 
 
 Oh ! Renee, you have made me miserable for days ! So 
 that bewitching body, those beautiful proud features, that 
 natural grace of manner, that soul full of priceless gifts, those 
 eyes, where the soul can slake its thirst as at a fountain of 
 love, that heart with its exquisite delicacy, that breadth of 
 mind, those rare powers fruit of nature and of our inter- 
 change of thought treasures whence should issue a unique 
 satisfaction of passion and desire, hours of poetry to out- 
 weigh years, joys to make a man serve a lifetime for one 
 gracious gesture all this is to be buried in the tedium of a 
 tame, commonplace marriage, to vanish in the emptiness of 
 an existence which you will come to loathe ! I hate your 
 children before they are born. They will be monsters ! 
 
 So you know all that lies before you ; you have nothing 
 left to hope, or fear, or suffer ? And supposing the glorious 
 morning rises which will bring you face to face with the man 
 destined to rouse you from the sleep into which you are plung- 
 ing ! Ah ! a cold shiver goes through me at the thought.
 
 188 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 Well, at least you have a friend. You, it is understood, 
 are to be the guardian angel of your valley. You will grow 
 familiar with its beauties, will live with it in all its aspects, 
 till the grandeur of nature, the slow growth of vegetation, 
 compared with the lightning rapidity of thought, become like 
 a part of yourself; and as your eye rests on the laughing 
 flowers, you will question your own heart. When you walk 
 between your husband, silent and contented, in front, and 
 your children screaming and romping behind, I can tell you 
 beforehand what you will write to me. Your misty valley, 
 your hills, bare or shaded with magnificent trees, your meadow, 
 the wonder of Provence, with its fresh water dispersed in little 
 runlets, the different effects of the atmosphere, this whole 
 world of infinity which laps you round, and which God has 
 made so various, will recall to you the infinite sameness of 
 your soul's life. But at least I shall be there, my Ren6e, and 
 in me you will find a heart which no social pettiness shall 
 ever corrupt, a heart all your own. 
 
 Monday. 
 
 My dear, my Spaniard is quite adorably melancholy ; there 
 is something calm, severe, manly, and mysterious about him 
 which interests me profoundly. His unvarying solemnity and 
 the silence which envelops him act like an irritant on the 
 mind. His mute dignity is worthy of a fallen king. Griffith 
 and I spend our time over him as though he were a riddle. 
 
 How odd it is ! A language-master captures my fancy as 
 no other man has done. Yet by this time I have passed in 
 review all the young men of family, the attaches to embassies, 
 and the ambassadors, generals, and inferior officers, the peers 
 of France, their sons and nephews, the Court, and the town. 
 
 The coldness of the man provokes me. The sandy waste 
 which he tries to place, and does place, between us is covered 
 by his deep-rooted pride ; he wraps himself in mystery. The 
 hanging back is on his side, the boldness on mine. This odd 
 situation affords me the more amusement because the whole
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 189 
 
 thing is mere trifling. What is a man, a Spaniard, and a 
 teacher of languages to me ? I make no account of any man 
 whatever, were he a king. We are worth far more, I am 
 sure, than the greatest of them. What a slave I would have 
 made of Napoleon ! If he had loved me, shouldn't he have 
 felt the whip ! 
 
 Yesterday I aimed a satirical shaft at M. Henarez which 
 must have touched him to the quick. He made no reply ; 
 the lesson was over, he took his hat, and bowed with a glance 
 at me, in which I read that he would never return. This suits 
 me capitally ; there would be something ominous in starting an 
 imitation " Nouvelle Helo'ise." I have just been reading 
 Rousseau's, and it has left me with a strong distaste for love. 
 Passion which can argue and moralize seems to me detestable. 
 Clarissa also is much too pleased with herself and her long, 
 little letter ; but Richardson's work is an admirable picture, 
 my father tells me, of Englishwomen. Rousseau's seems to 
 me a sort of philosophical sermon, cast in the form of letters. 
 
 Love, as I conceive it, is a purely personal poem. In all 
 that books tell us about it, there is nothing which is not at 
 once false and true. And so, my pretty one, as you will 
 henceforth be an authority only on conjugal love, it seems to 
 me my duty in the interest, of course, of our common life 
 to remain unmarried and have a grand passion, so that we 
 may enlarge our experience. 
 
 Tell me every detail of what happens to you, especially in 
 the first few days, with that strange animal called a husband. 
 I promise to do the same for you if ever I am loved. 
 
 Farewell, poor, dear, gobbled-up, martyred darling.
 
 190 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 XI. 
 
 MME. DE L'ESTORADE TO MLLE. DE CHAULIEU. 
 
 LA CRAMPADE. 
 
 You and your Spaniard make me shudder, my darling. I 
 write this line to beg of you to dismiss him. All that you 
 say of him corresponds with the character of those dangerous 
 adventurers who, having nothing to lose, will take any risk. 
 This man cannot be your husband, and must not be your 
 lover. I will write to you more fully about the inner history 
 of my married life when my heart is free from the anxiety 
 your last letter has caused me. 
 
 XII. 
 
 MLLE. DE CHAULIEU TO MME. DE L'ESTORADE. 
 
 February. 
 
 At nine o'clock this morning, sweetheart, my father was 
 announced in my rooms. I was up and dressed. I found 
 him solemnly seated beside the fire in the drawing-room, look- 
 ing more thoughtful than usual. He pointed to the armchair 
 opposite him. Divining his meaning, I sank into it with a 
 gravity, which so well aped his, that he could not refrain from 
 smiling, though the smile was dashed with melancholy. 
 
 " You are quite a match for your grandmother in quick- 
 wittedness," he said. 
 
 "Come, father, don't play the courtier here," I replied; 
 "you want something from me." 
 
 He rose, visibly agitated, and talked to me for half an hour. 
 This conversation, dear, really ought to be preserved. As 
 soon as he had gone, I sat down to my table and tried to re- 
 call his words. This is the first time that I have seen my father 
 his inner thoughts.
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 191 
 
 He began by flattering me, and he did not do it badly. I 
 was bound to be grateful to him for having understood and 
 appreciated me. 
 
 " Armande," he said, "I was much mistaken in you, and 
 you have agreeably surprised me. When you arrived from 
 the convent, I took you for an average young girl, ignorant 
 and not particularly intelligent, easily to be bought off with 
 trinkets and ornaments, and with little turn for reflection." 
 
 " You are complimentary to young girls, father." 
 
 "Oh ! there is no such thing as youth nowadays," he said, 
 with an air of the diplomat. " Your mind is amazingly open. 
 You take everything at its proper worth ; your clear-sighted- 
 ness is extraordinary, there is no hoodwinking you. You pass 
 for being blind, and all the time you have laid your hand on 
 causes, while other people are still puzzling over effects. In 
 short, you are a minister in petticoats, the only person here 
 capable of understanding me. It follows, then, that if I have 
 any sacrifice to ask from you, it is only to yourself I can turn 
 for help in persuading you. 
 
 "I am therefore going to explain to you, quite frankly, my 
 former plans, to which I still adhere. In order to recommend 
 them to you, I must show that they are connected with feel- 
 ings of a very high order, and I shall thus be obliged to enter 
 into political questions of the greatest importance to the 
 kingdom, which might be wearisome to any one less intelli- 
 gent than you are. When you have heard me, I hope you 
 will take time for consideration, six months if necessary. 
 You are entirely your own mistress; and if you decline to 
 make the sacrifice I ask, I shall bow to your decision and 
 trouble you no further." 
 
 This preface, my sweet dear, made me really serious, and I 
 said 
 
 "Speak, father." 
 
 Here, then, is the deliverance of the statesman : 
 
 " My child, France is in a very critical position, which is
 
 192 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 understood only by the King and by a few superior minds. 
 But the King is a head without arms ; the great nobles, who 
 are in the secret of the danger, have no authority over the 
 men whose cooperation is needful in order to bring about a 
 happy result. These men, cast up by popular election, re- 
 fuse to lend themselves as instruments. Even the able men 
 among them carry on the work of pulling down society, in- 
 stead of helping us to strengthen the edifice. 
 
 "In a word, there are only two parties the party of 
 Marius and the party of Sulla. I am for Sulla against Marius. 
 This, roughly speaking, is our position. To go more into 
 details : the Revolution is still active ; it is imbedded in the 
 law and written on the soil; it fills people's minds. The 
 danger is all the greater because the larger number of the 
 King's counselors, seeing it destitute of armed forces and of 
 money, believe it completely vanquished. The King is an 
 able man and not easily blinded ; but from day to day he is 
 won over by his brother's partisans, who want to hurry things 
 on. He has not two years to live, and thinks more of a 
 peaceful death-bed than of anything else. 
 
 " Shall I tell you, my child, which is the most destructive 
 of all the consequences entailed by the Revolution ? You 
 would never guess. In guillotining Louis XVI. the Revolu- 
 tion decapitated every head of a family. The Family has 
 cased to exist ; we have only individuals. In their desire to 
 become a nation, Frenchmen have abandoned the idea of 
 empire; in proclaiming the equal rights of all children to 
 their father's inheritance, they have killed Family spirit and 
 have created the State treasury. But all this has paved the 
 way for weakened authority, for the blind force of the masses, 
 for the decay of art and the supremacy of individual interests, 
 and has left the road open to the foreign invader. 
 
 " We stand between two policies either to found the State 
 on the basis of the Family, or to rest it on individual interest 
 in other words, between democracy and aristocracy, be-
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 193 
 
 tween free discussion and obedience, between Catholicism 
 and religious indifference. I am among the few who are 
 resolved to oppose what is called the people, and that in the 
 people's true interest. It is not now a question of feudal 
 rights, as fools are told, nor of rank ; it is a question of the 
 State and of the existence of France. The country which 
 does not rest on the foundation of paternal authority cannot 
 be stable. That is the foot of the ladder of responsibility 
 and subordination, which has for its summit the King. 
 
 " The King stands for us all. To die for the King is to die 
 for one's self, for one's family, which, like the kingdom, cannot 
 die. All animals have certain instincts; the instinct of man 
 is for family life. A country is strong which consists of 
 wealthy families, every member of whom is interested in 
 defending a common treasure ; it is weak when composed of 
 scattered individuals, to whom it matters little whether they 
 obey seven or one, a Russian or a Corsican, so long as each 
 keeps his own plot of land, blind, in their wretched egotism, 
 to the fact that the day is coming when this, too, will be torn 
 from them. 
 
 "Terrible calamities are in store for us, in case our party 
 fails. Nothing will be left but penal or fiscal laws your 
 money or your life. The most generous nation on the earth 
 will have ceased to obey the call of noble instincts. Wounds 
 past curing will have been fostered and aggravated, an all- 
 pervading jealousy being the first. Then the upper classes 
 will be submerged ; equality of desire will be taken for 
 equality of strength ; true distinction, even when proved and 
 recognized, will be threatened by the advancing tide of 
 middle-class prejudice. It was possible to choose one man 
 out of a thousand, but, amongst three millions, discrimination 
 becomes impossible, when all are moved by the same ambi- 
 tions and attired in the same livery of mediocrity. No fore- 
 sight will warn this victorious horde of that other terrible 
 horde, soon to be arrayed against them in the peasant propri- 
 13
 
 194 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 etors; in other words, twenty million acres of land, alive, 
 stirring, arguing, deaf to reason, insatiable of appetite, 
 obstructing progress, masters in their brute force 
 
 " But," said I, interrupting my father, " what can I do to 
 help the State ? I feel no vocation for playing Joan of Arc 
 in the interests of the Family or for finding a martyr's stake 
 in a convent." 
 
 "You are a little hussy," cried my father. " If I speak 
 sensibly to you, you are full of jokes ; when I jest, you talk 
 like an ambassadress." 
 
 "Love lives on contradictions," was my reply. 
 
 And he laughed till the tears stood in his eyes. 
 
 " You will reflect on what I have told you; you will do 
 justice to the large and confiding spirit in which I have 
 broached the matter, and possibly events may assist my plans. 
 I know that, so far as you are concerned, they are injurious 
 and unfair, and this is the reason why I appeal for your sanc- 
 tion of them less to your heart and your imagination than to 
 your reason. I have found more judgment and commonsense 
 in you than in any one I know " 
 
 "You flatter yourself," I said, with a smile, "for I am 
 every inch your child ! " 
 
 " In short," he went on, " one must be logical. You can't 
 have the end without the means, and it is our duty to set an 
 example to others. From all this I deduce that you ought 
 not to have money of your own till your younger brother is 
 provided for, and I want to employ the whole of your inherit- 
 ance in purchasing an estate for him to go with the title." 
 
 " But," I said, "you won't interfere with my living in my 
 own fashion and enjoying life if I resign you my fortune?" 
 
 "Provided," he replied, "that your view of life does not 
 conflict with the family honor, reputation, and, I may add, 
 glory." 
 
 "Come, come," I cried, "what has become of my 
 excellent judgment ? "
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 195 
 
 "There is not in all France," he said, with bitterness, "a 
 man who would take for wife a daughter of one of our noblest 
 families without a dowry and bestow one on her. If such a 
 husband could be found, it would be among the class of rich 
 parvenus; on this point I belong to the eleventh century." 
 
 " And I also," I said. " But why despair? Are there no 
 aged peers ? ' ' 
 
 " Louise ! " he exclaimed, " you know too much." 
 
 Then he left me, smiling and kissing my hand. 
 
 I received your letter this very morning, and it led me to con- 
 template that abyss into which you say that I may fall. A voice 
 within seemed to utter the same warning. So I took my pre- 
 cautions. Henarez, my dear, dares to look at me, and his 
 eyes are disquieting. They inspire me with what I can only 
 call an unreasoning dread. Such a man ought no more to be 
 looked at than a frog ; he is ugly and fascinating. 
 
 For two days I have been hesitating whether to tell my 
 father point-blank that I want no more Spanish lessons and 
 have Henarez sent about his business. But in spite of all my 
 brave resolutions, I feel that the horrible sensation which 
 comes over me when I see that man has become necessary to 
 me. I say to myself: "Once more, and then I will speak." 
 
 His voice, my dear, is sweetly thrilling ; his speaking is 
 just like la Fodor's singing. His manners are simple, entirely 
 free from affectation. And what teeth ! 
 
 Just now, as he was leaving, he seemed to divine the interest 
 I take in him, and made a gesture oh ! most respectfully 
 as though to take my hand and kiss it ; then checked himself, 
 apparently terrified at his own boldness and the chasm he 
 had been on the point of bridging. There was the merest 
 suggestion of all this, but I understood it and smiled, for 
 nothing is more pathetic than to see the frank impulse of an 
 inferior checking itself abashed. The love of a plebeian for 
 a girl of noble birth implies such courage ! 
 
 My smile emboldened him. The poor fellow looked blindly
 
 196 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 about for his hat; he seemed de'termined not to find it, and I 
 handed it to him with prefect gravity. His eyes were wet with 
 unshed tears. It was a mere passing moment, yet a world of 
 facts and ideas were contained in it. We understood each 
 other so well that, on a sudden, I held out my hand for him 
 to kiss. 
 
 Possibly this was equivalent to telling him that love might 
 bridge the interval between us. Well, I cannot tell what 
 moved me to do it. Griffith had her back turned as I proudly 
 extended my little white paw. I felt the fire of his lips, 
 tempered by two big tears. Oh ! my love, I lay in my arm- 
 chair, nerveless, dreamy. I was happy, and I cannot explain 
 to you how or why. What I felt only a poet could express. 
 My condescension, which fills me with shame now, seemed to 
 me then something to be proud of; he had fascinated me, 
 that is my one excuse. 
 
 Friday. 
 
 This man is really very handsome. He talks admirably, 
 and has remarkable intellectual power. My dear, he is a very 
 Bossuet in force and persuasiveness when he explains the 
 mechanism, not only of the Spanish tongue, but also of 
 human thought and of all language. His mother tongue 
 seems to be French. When I expressed surprise at this, he 
 replied that he came to France when quite a boy, following the 
 King of Spain to Valengay. 
 
 What has passed within this enigmatic being? He is no 
 longer the same man. He came, dressed quite simply, but 
 just as any gentleman would be for a morning walk. He put 
 forth all his eloquence, and flashed wit, like rays from a 
 beacon, all through the lesson. Like a man roused from 
 lethargy, he revealed to me a new world of thoughts. He 
 told me the story of some poor devil of a valet who gave up 
 his life for a single glance from a queen of Spain. 
 
 " What could he do but die ? " I exclaimed.
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 197 
 
 This delighted him, and he looked at me in a way which 
 was truly alarming. 
 
 In the evening I went to a ball at the Duchesse de Lenon- 
 court's. The Prince de Talleyrand happened to be there; 
 and I got M. de Vandenesse, a charming young man, to ask 
 him whether, among the guests at his country-place in 1809, 
 he remembered any one of the name of Henarez. Vandenesse 
 reported the Prince's reply, word for word, as follows : 
 
 " Henarez is the Moorish name of the Soria family, who 
 are, they say, descendants of the Abencerrages, converted to 
 Christianity. The old duke and his two sons were with the 
 King. The eldest, the present Due de Soria, has just had all 
 his property, titles, and dignities confiscated by King Ferdi- 
 nand, who in this way avenges a long-standing feud. The 
 duke made a huge mistake in consenting to form a constitu- 
 tional ministry with Valdez. Happily, he escaped from Cadiz 
 before the arrival of the Due d'AngoulSme, who, with the 
 best will in the world, could not have saved him from the 
 King's wrath." 
 
 This information gave me much food for reflection. I can- 
 not describe to you the suspense in which I passed the time 
 till my next lesson, which took place this morning. 
 
 During the first quarter of an hour I examined him closely, 
 debating inwardly whether he were duke or commoner, with- 
 out being able to come to any conclusion. He seemed to 
 read my fancies as they arose and to take pleasure in thwarting 
 them. At last I could endure it no longer. Putting down 
 my book suddenly, I broke off the translation I was making 
 of it aloud, and said to him in Spanish : 
 
 "You are deceiving us. You are no poor middle-class 
 Liberal. You are the Due de Soria ! " 
 
 "Mademoiselle," he replied, with a gesture of sorrow, 
 "unhappily, I am not the Due de Soria." 
 
 I felt all the despair with which he uttered the word " un- 
 happily." Ah! my dear, never should I have conceived it
 
 198 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 possible to throw so much meaning and passion into a single 
 word. His eyes had dropped, and he dared no longer look 
 at me. 
 
 " M. de Talleyrand," I said, "in whose house you spent 
 your years of exile, declares that any one bearing the name 
 of Henarez must be either the late Due de Soria or a lac- 
 key." 
 
 He looked at me with eyes like two black burning coals, at 
 once blazing and ashamed. The man might have been in the 
 torture-chamber. All he said was : 
 
 " My father was in truth a servant of the King of Spain." 
 
 Griffith could make nothing of this sort of lesson. An 
 awkward silence followed each question and answer. 
 
 "In one word," I said, " tell me, are you a noble or bour- 
 geoise?" 
 
 "You know, mademoiselle, that in Spain even beggars are 
 noble." 
 
 This reticence provoked me. Since the last lesson I had 
 given play to my imagination in a little practical joke. I had 
 drawn an ideal portrait of the man whom I should wish for 
 my lover in a letter which I designed giving him to trans- 
 late. So far, I had only put Spanish into French, not French 
 into Spanish ; I pointed this out to him, and begged Griffith 
 to bring me the last letter I had received from a friend of 
 mine. 
 
 "I shall find out," I thought, "from the effect my sketch 
 has on him, what sort of blood runs in his veins." 
 
 I took the paper from Griffith's hands, saying 
 
 " Let me see if I have copied it rightly." 
 
 For it was all in my writing. I handed him the paper, or, 
 if >cu will, the snare, and I watched him while he read as 
 fohows- 
 
 " He who is to win my heart, my dear, must be harsh and 
 unbending with men, but gentle with women. His eagle eye
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 199 
 
 must have power to quell with a single glance the least ap- 
 proach to ridicule. He will have a pitying smile for those 
 who would jeer at sacred things, above all, at that poetry of 
 the heart, without which life would be but a dreary common- 
 place. I have the greatest scorn for those who would rob us 
 of the living fountain of religious beliefs, so rich in solace. 
 His faith, therefore, should have the simplicity of a child, 
 though united to the firm conviction of an intelligent man, 
 who has examined the foundations of his creed. His fresh 
 and original way of looking at things must be entirely free 
 from affectation or desire to show off. His words will be few 
 and fit, and his mind so richly stored, that he cannot possibly 
 become a bore to himself any more than to others. 
 
 "All his thoughts must have a high and chivalrous char- 
 acter, without alloy of self-seeking ; while his actions should 
 be marked by a total absence of interested or sordid motives. 
 Any weak points he may have will arise from the very eleva- 
 tion of his views above those of the common herd, for in 
 every respect I would have him superior to his age. Ever 
 mindful of the delicate attentions due to the weak, he will be 
 gentle to all women, but not prone lightly to fall in love with 
 any ; for love will seem to him too serious to turn into a 
 game. 
 
 " Thus it might happen that he would spend his life in 
 ignorance of true love, while all the time possessing those 
 qualities most fitted to inspire it. But if ever he find the 
 ideal woman who has haunted his waking dreams, if he meet 
 with a nature capable of understanding his own, one who 
 could fill his soul and pour sunshine over his life, could shine 
 as a star through the mists of this chill and gloomy world, 
 lend fresh charm to existence, and draw music from the hith- 
 erto silent chords of his being needless to say, he would 
 recognize and welcome his good fortune. 
 
 " And she, too, would be happy. Never, by word or look, 
 would he wound the tender heart which abandoned itself to
 
 200 LETTERS Of TWO BRIDES. 
 
 him, with the blind trust of a child reposing in its mother's 
 arms. For were the vision shattered, it would be the wreck 
 of her inner life. To the mighty waters of love she would 
 confide her all ! 
 
 " The man I picture must belong, in expression, in attitude, 
 in gait, in his way of performing alike the smallest and the 
 greatest actions, to that race of the truly great who are always 
 simple and natural. He need not be good-looking, but his 
 hands must be beautiful. His upper lip will curl with a care- 
 less, ironical smile for the general public, whilst he reserves 
 for those he loves the heavenly, radiant glance in which he 
 puts his soul." 
 
 "Will mademoiselle allow me," he said in Spanish, in a 
 voice full of agitation, "to keep this writing in memory of 
 her? This is the last lesson I shall have the honor of giving 
 her, and that which I have just received in these words may 
 serve me for an abiding rule of life. I left Spain, a fugitive 
 and penniless, but I have to-day received from my family a 
 sum sufficient for my needs. You will allow me to send some 
 poor Spaniard in my place?" 
 
 In other words, he seemed to me to say : " This little game 
 must stop." He rose with an air of marvelous dignity, and 
 left me quite upset by such unheard-of delicacy in a man of 
 his class. He went downstairs and asked to speak with my 
 father. 
 
 At dinner my father said to me with a smile 
 
 " Louise, you have been learning Spanish from an ex- 
 minister and a man condemned to death." 
 
 " The Due de Soria," I said. 
 
 " Duke ! " replied my father. " No, he is not that any 
 longer ; he takes the title now of Baron de Macumer from a 
 property which still remains to him in Sardinia. He is some- 
 thing of an original, I think." 
 
 " Don't brand with that word, which with you always im-
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 201 
 
 plies some mockery and scorn, a man who is your equal, and 
 who, I believe, has a noble nature." 
 
 " Baronne de Macumer?" exclaimed my father, with a 
 laughing glance at me. 
 
 Pride kept my eyes fixed on the table. 
 
 " But," said my mother, " Henarez must have met the 
 Spanish ambassador on the steps ? " 
 
 " Yes," replied my father, " the ambassador asked me if I 
 was conspiring against the King, his master ; but he greeted 
 the ex-grandee of Spain with much deference, and placed his 
 services at his disposal." 
 
 All this, dear Mme. de 1'Estorade, happened a fortnight 
 ago, and it is a fortnight now since I have seen the man who 
 loves me, for that he loves me there is not a doubt. What is 
 he about ? If only I were a fly, or a mouse, or a sparrow ! 
 I want to see him alone, myself unseen, at his house. Only 
 think, a man exists, to whom I can say: " Go and die for 
 me ! " And he is so made that he would go, at least I think 
 so. Anyhow, there is in Paris a man who occupies my 
 thoughts, and whose glance pours sunshine into my soul. Is 
 not such a man an enemy, whom I ought to trample under 
 foot ? What ? There is a man who has become necessary to 
 me a man without whom I don't know how to live? You 
 married, and I in love ! Four little months, and those two 
 doves, whose wings erst bore them so high, have fluttered 
 down upon the flat stretches of real life ! 
 
 Sunday. 
 
 Last night, at the Italian opera, I could feel some one was 
 looking at me ; my eyes were drawn, as by a magnet, to two 
 wells of fire, gleaming like carbuncles in a dim corner of the 
 orchestra. Henarez never moved his eyes from me. The 
 wretch had discovered the one spot from which he could see 
 me and there he was. I don't know what he may be as a 
 politician, but for love he has a genius : " Behold, my fair
 
 202 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 Renee, where our business now stands," as the great Corneille 
 hath said. 
 
 XIII. 
 MME. DE L'ESTORADE TO MLLE. DE CHAULIEU. 
 
 LA CRAMPADE, February. 
 
 MY DEAR LOUISE: I was bound to wait some time before 
 writing you ; but now I know, or rather I have learned, 
 many things which, for the sake of your future happiness, I 
 must tell you. The difference between a girl and a married 
 woman is so vast that the girl can no more comprehend it 
 than the married woman can go back to girlhood again. 
 
 I chose to marry Louis de 1'Estorade rather than return to 
 the convent ; that at least is plain. So soon as I realized that 
 the convent was the only alternative to marrying Louis, I had, 
 as girls say, to "submit," and my submission once made, the 
 next thing was to examine the situation and try to make the 
 best of it. 
 
 The serious nature of what I was undertaking filled me at 
 first with terror. Marriage is a matter concerning the whole 
 of life, whilst love aims only at pleasure. On the other hand, 
 marriage will remain when pleasures have vanished, and it is 
 the source of interests far more precious than those of the 
 man and woman entering on the alliance. Might it not, 
 therefore, be that the only requisite for a happy marriage was 
 friendship a friendship which, for the sake of these advan- 
 tages, would shut its eyes to many of the imperfections of 
 humanity? Now there was no obstacle to the existence of 
 friendship between myself and Louis de 1'Estorade. Having 
 renounced all idea of finding in marriage those transports of 
 love on which our minds used so often, and with such perilous 
 rapture, to dwell, I found a gentle calm settling over me. 
 " If debarred from love, why not seek for happiness ? " I said
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 203 
 
 to myself. " Moreover, I am loved, and the love offered me 
 I shall accept. My married life will be no slavery, but rather 
 a perpetual reign. What is there to say against sucli a situa- 
 tion for a woman who wishes to remain absolute mistress of 
 herself?" 
 
 The important point of separating marriage from marital 
 rights was settled in a conversation between Louis and me, 
 in the course of which he gave proof of an excellent temper 
 and a tender heart. Darling, my desire was to prolong that 
 fair season of hope which, never culminating in satisfaction, 
 leaves to the soul its virginity. To grant nothing to duty or 
 the law, to be guided entirely by one's own impulse, retaining 
 perfect independence what could be more attractive, more 
 honorable ? 
 
 A contract of this kind, directly opposed to the legal con- 
 tract, and even to the sacrament itself, could be concluded 
 only between Louis and me. This difficulty, the first which 
 has arisen, is the only one which has delayed the completion 
 of our marriage. Although, at first, I may have made up my 
 mind to accept anything rather than return to the convent, it 
 is only in human nature, having got an inch, to ask for an 
 ell, and you and I, sweet love, are of those who would have the 
 whole. 
 
 I watched Louis out of the corner of my eye, and put it to 
 myself, " Has suffering had a softening or a hardening effect 
 on him ? " By dint of close study, I arrived at the conclusion 
 that his love amounted to a passion. Once transformed into 
 an idol, whose slightest frown would turn him white and 
 trembling, I realized that I might venture anything. I drew 
 him aside in the most natural manner on solitary walks, dur- 
 ing which I discreetly sounded his feelings. I made him 
 talk, and got him to expound to me his ideas and plans for 
 our future. My questions betrayed so many preconceived 
 notions, and went so straight for the weak points in this 
 terrible dual existence, that Louis has since confessed to me
 
 204 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 the alarm it caused him to find in me so little of the ignorant 
 maiden. 
 
 Then I listened to what he had to say in reply. He got 
 mixed up in his arguments, as people do when handicapped 
 by fear; and before long it became clear that chance had 
 given me for adversary one who was the less fitted for the con- 
 test because he was conscious of what you magniloquently call 
 my "greatness of soul." Broken by sufferings and misfortune, 
 he looked on himself as a sort of wreck, and three fears in 
 especial haunted him : 
 
 First, we are aged respectively thirty-seven and seventeen ; 
 and he could not contemplate without quaking the twenty 
 years that divide us. In the next place, he shares our views 
 on the subject of my beauty, and it is cruel for him to see how 
 the hardships of his life have robbed him of youth. Finally, 
 he felt the superiority of my womanhood over his manhood. 
 The consciousness of these three obvious drawbacks made him 
 distrustful of himself; he doubted his power to make me 
 happy, and guessed that he had been chosen as the lesser of 
 two evils pis aller. 
 
 One evening he tentatively suggested that I only married 
 him to escape the convent. 
 
 " I cannot deny it," was my grave reply. 
 
 My dear, it touched me to the heart to see the two great 
 tears which stood in his eyes. Never before had I experi- 
 enced the shock of emotion which a man can impart to us. 
 
 " Louis," I went on, as kindly as I could, " it rests entirely 
 with you whether this marriage of convenience becomes one 
 to which I can give my whole heart. The favor I am about 
 to ask from you will demand self-abnegation on your part, far 
 nobler than the servitude to which a man's love, when sincere, 
 is supposed to reduce him. The question is : Can you rise to 
 the height of friendship such as I understand it ? 
 
 "Life gives us but one friend, and I wish to be yours. 
 Friendship is the bond between a pair of kindred souls, united
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 205 
 
 in their strength, and yet independent. Let us be friends 
 and comrades to bear jointly the burden of life. Leave me 
 absolutely free. I would put no hindrance in the way of your 
 inspiring me with a love similar to your own ; but I am de- 
 termined to be yours only of my own free gift. Create in 
 me the wish to give up my freedom, and at once I lay it at 
 your feet. 
 
 " Infuse with passion, then, if you will, this friendship, and 
 let the voice of love disturb its calm. On my part I will do 
 what I can to bring my feelings into accord with yours. One 
 thing, above all, I would beg of you. Spare me the annoy- 
 ances to which the strangeness of our mutual position might 
 give rise in our relations with others. I am neither whimsical 
 nor prudish, and should be sorry to get that reputation ; but I 
 feel sure that I can trust to your honor when I ask you to keep 
 up the outward appearance of wedded life." 
 
 Never, dear, have I seen a man so happy as my proposal 
 made Louis. The blaze of joy which kindled in his eyes 
 dried up the tears. 
 
 "Do not fancy," I concluded, "that I ask this from any 
 wish to be eccentric. It is the great desire I have for your 
 respect which prompts my request. If you owe the crown of 
 your love merely to the legal and religious ceremony, what 
 gratitude could you feel to me later for a gift in which my 
 good-will counted for nothing? If during the time that I re- 
 mained indifferent to you (yielding only a passive obedience, 
 such as my mother has just been urging on me) a child were 
 born to us, do you suppose that I could feel toward it as I 
 would toward one born of our common love? A passionate 
 love may not be necessary in marriage, but, at least, you will 
 admit that there should be no repugnance. Our position will 
 not be without its dangers ; in a country life, such as ours will 
 be, ought we not to bear in mind the evanescent nature of 
 passion ? Is it not simple prudence to make provision before- 
 hand against the calamities incident to change of feeling?"
 
 206 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 He was greatly astonished to find me at once so reasonable 
 and so apt at reasoning ; but he made me a solemn promise, 
 after which I took his hand and pressed it affectionately. 
 
 We were married at the end of the week. Secure of my 
 freedom, I was able to throw myself gaily into the petty details 
 which always accompany a ceremony of the kind, and to be 
 my natural self. Perhaps I may have been taken for an " old 
 bird," as they say at Blois. A young girl, delighted with the 
 novel and hopeful situation she had contrived to make for 
 herself, may have passed for a strong-minded woman. 
 
 Dear, the difficulties which would beset my life had appeared 
 to me clearly as in a vision, and I was sincerely anxious to 
 make the happiness of the man I had married. Now, in the 
 solitude of a life like ours, marriage soon becomes intolerable 
 unless the woman is the presiding spirit. A woman in such 
 a case needs the charm of a mistress, combined with the 
 solid qualities of a wife. To introduce an element of uncer- 
 tainty into pleasure is to prolong illusion, and render lasting 
 those selfish satisfactions which all creatures hold, and justly 
 hold, so precious. Conjugal love, in my view of it, should 
 shroud a woman in expectancy, crown her sovereign, and 
 invest her with an exhaustless vital force, a redundancy of 
 life, that makes everything blossom around her. The more 
 she is mistress of herself, the more certainly will the love and 
 happiness she creates be fit to weather the storms of life. 
 
 But, above all, I have insisted on the greatest secrecy in 
 regard to our domestic arrangements. A husband who sub- 
 mits to his wife's yoke is justly held an object of ridicule. A 
 woman's influence ought to be entirely concealed. The charm 
 of all we do lies in its unobtrusiveness. If I have made it my 
 task to raise a drooping courage and restore their natural 
 brightness to gifts which I have dimly descried, it must all 
 seem to spring from Louis himself. 
 
 Such is the mission to which I dedicate myself, a mission 
 surely not ignoble, and which might well satisfy a woman's
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 207 
 
 ambition. Why, I could glory in this secret which shall fill 
 my life with interest, in this task toward which my every 
 energy shall be bent, while it remains concealed from all but 
 God and you. 
 
 I am very nearly happy now, but should I be so without a 
 friendly heart in which to pour this confession ? For how 
 make a confidant of him ? My happiness would wound him, 
 and has to be concealed. He is sensitive as a woman, like 
 all men who have suffered much. 
 
 For three months we remained to each other as we were 
 before marriage. As you may imagine, during this time I 
 made a close study of many small personal matters, which have 
 more to do with love than is generally supposed. In spite of 
 my coldness, Louis grew bolder, and his nature expanded. I 
 saw on his face a new expression, a look of youth. The 
 greater refinement which I introduced into the house was 
 reflected in his person. Insensibly I became accustomed to 
 his presence, and made another self of him. By dint of con- 
 stant watching I discovered how his mind and countenance 
 harmonize. "The animal that we call a husband," to quote 
 your words, disappeared, and one balmy evening, but I do 
 not well remember which, I discovered in his stead a lover, 
 whose words thrilled me and on whose arm I leant with 
 pleasure beyond words. In short, to be open with you, as I 
 would be with God, before whom concealment is impossible, 
 the perfect loyalty with which he had kept his oath may have 
 piqued me, and I felt a fluttering of curiosity in my heart. 
 Bitterly ashamed, I struggled with myself. Alas ! when pride 
 is the only motive for resistance, excuses for capitulation are 
 soon found. 
 
 We celebrated our union in secret, and secret it must remain 
 between us. When you are married you will approve this 
 reserve. Enough that nothing was lacking either of satis- 
 faction for the most fastidious sentiment, or of that unexpect- 
 edness which brings, in a sense, its own sanction. Every
 
 208 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 witchery of imagination, of passion, of reluctance overcome, 
 of the ideal passing into reality, played its part. 
 
 Yet, spite of all this enchantment, I once more stood out 
 for my complete independence. I can't tell you all my 
 reasons for this. To you alone shall I confide even as much 
 as this. I believe that women, whether passionately loved or 
 not, lose much in their relation with their husbands by not 
 concealing their feelings about marriage and the way they 
 look at it. 
 
 My one joy, and it is supreme, springs from the certainty of 
 having brought new life to my husband before I have borne 
 him any children. Louis has regained his youth, strength, 
 and spirits. He is not the same man. With magic touch I 
 have effaced the very memory of his sufferings. It is a com- 
 plete metamorphosis. Louis is really very attractive now. 
 Feeling sure of my affection, he throws off his reserve and dis- 
 plays unsuspected gifts. 
 
 To be the unceasing spring of happiness for a man who 
 knows it and adds gratitude to love, ah ! dear one, this is 
 a conviction which fortifies the soul, even more than the 
 most passionate love can do. The force thus developed 
 at once impetuous and enduring, simple and diversified 
 brings forth ultimately the family, that noble product of 
 womanhood, which I realize now in all its animating beauty. 
 
 The old father has ceased to be a miser. He gives blindly 
 whatever I wish for. The servants are content ; it seems as 
 though the bliss of Louis had let a flood of sunshine into 
 the household, where love has made me queen. Even the 
 old man would not be a blot upon my pretty 'home, and 
 has brought himself into line with all my improvements ; 
 to please me he has adopted the dress, and with the dress, 
 the manners of the day. 
 
 We have English horses, a coupe 1 , a barouche, and a til- 
 bury. The livery of our servants is simple but in good taste. 
 Of course we are looked on as spendthrifts. I apply all my
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 209 
 
 intellect (I am speaking quite seriously) to managing my 
 household with economy, and obtaining for it the maximum 
 of pleasure with the minimum of cost. 
 
 I have already convinced Louis of the necessity of making 
 roads, in order that he may earn the reputation of a man in- 
 terested in the welfare of his district. I insist too on his study- 
 ing a great deal. Before long I hope to see him a member of 
 the Council General of the department, through the influence 
 of my family and his mother's. I have told him plainly that 
 I am ambitious, and that I was very well pleased his father 
 should continue to look after the estate and practice economies, 
 because I wished him to devote himself exclusively to politics. 
 If we had children, I should like to see them all prosperous 
 and with good State appointments. Under penalty, therefore, 
 of forfeiting my esteem and affection, he must get himself 
 chosen deputy for the department at the coming elections; my 
 family would support his candidature, and we should then 
 have the delight of spending all our winters in Paris. Ah ! 
 my love, by the ardor with which he embraced my plans, I 
 can gauge the depth of his affection. 
 
 To conclude, here is a letter he wrote me yesterday from 
 Marseilles, where he had gone to spend a few hours : 
 
 " MY SWEET RENEE : When you gave me permission to love 
 you, I began to believe in happiness ; now, I see it unfolding 
 endlessly before me. The past is merely a dim memory, a 
 shadowy background, without which my present bliss would 
 show less radiant. When I am with you, love so transports 
 me that I am powerless to express the depth of my affection ; 
 I can but worship and admire. Only at a distance does the 
 power of speech return. You are supremely beautiful, Ren6e, 
 and your beauty is of the statuesque and regal type, on which 
 time leaves but little impression. No doubt the love of hus- 
 band and wife depends less on outward beauty than on graces 
 of character, which are yours also in perfection ; still, let me 
 14
 
 210 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 say that the certainty of having your unchanging beauty, on 
 which to feast my eyes, gives me a joy that grows with every 
 glance. There is a grace and dignity in the lines of your face, 
 expressive of the noble soul within, and breathing of purity 
 beneath the vivid coloring. The brilliance of your dark eyes, 
 the bold sweep of your forehead, declare a spirit of no common 
 elevation, sound and trustworthy in every relation, and well 
 braced to meet the storms of life, should such arise. The 
 keynote of your character is its freedom from all pettiness. 
 You do not need to be told all this ; but I will write it because 
 I would have you know that I appreciate the treasure I pos- 
 sess. Your favors to me, however slight, will always make 
 my happiness in the far distant future as now ; for I am sen- 
 sible how much dignity there is in our promise to respect each 
 other's liberty. Our own impulse shall with us alone dictate 
 the expression of feeling. We shall be free even in our 
 fetters. I shall have the more pride in wooing you again now 
 that I know the reward you place on victory. You cannot 
 speak, breathe, act, or think, without adding to the admira- 
 tion I feel for your charm both of body and mind. There is 
 in you a rare combination of the ideal, the practical, and the 
 bewitching which satisfies alike judgment, a husband's pride, 
 desire, and hope, and which extends the boundaries of love 
 beyond those of life itself. Oh ! my loved one, may the 
 genius of love remain faithful to me, and the future be full of 
 those delights by means of which you have glorified all that 
 surrounds me ! I long for the day which shall make you a 
 mother, that I may see you content with the fullness of your 
 life, may hear you, in the sweet voice I love and with the 
 words that so marvelously express your subtle and original 
 thoughts, bless the love which has refreshed my soul and 
 given new vigor to my powers, the love which is my 
 pride, and whence I have drawn, as from a magic fountain, 
 fresh life. Yes, I shall be all that you would have me. I 
 shall take a leading part in the public life of the district, and
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 211 
 
 on you shall fall the rays of a glory which will owe its exist- 
 ence to the desire of pleasing you." 
 
 So much for my pupil, dear ! Do you suppose he could 
 have written like this before ? A year hence his style 
 will have still further improved. Louis is now in his first 
 transport ; what I look forward to is the uniform and contin- 
 uous sensation of content which ought to be the fruit of a 
 happy marriage, when a man and woman, in perfect trust and 
 mutual knowledge, have solved the problem of giving variety 
 to the infinite. This is the task set before every true wife ; 
 the answer begins to dawn on me, and I shall not rest till I 
 have made it mine. 
 
 You see that he fancies himself vanity of men ! the chosen 
 of my heart, just as though he were not my husband. Never- 
 theless, I have not yet got beyond that external attraction 
 which gives us strength to put up with a good deal. Yet 
 Louis is lovable ; his temper is wonderfully even, and he per- 
 forms, as a matter of course, acts on which most men would 
 plume themselves. In short, if I do not love him, I shall 
 find no difficulty in being good to him. 
 
 So here are my black hair and my black eyes whose lashes 
 act, according to you, like Venetian blinds my commanding 
 air, and my whole person, raised to the rank of sovereign 
 power ! Ten years hence, dear, why should we not both be 
 laughing and gay in your Paris, whence I shall carry you off 
 now and again to my beautiful oasis in Provence? 
 
 Oh ! Louise, don't spoil the splendid future which awaits 
 us both ! Don't do the mad things with which you threaten 
 me. My husband is a young man, prematurely old ; why 
 don't you marry some young-hearted graybeard in the 
 Chamber of Peers? There lies your vocation but that 
 Spaniard ? oh, no !
 
 212 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 XIV. 
 THE DUG DE SORIA TO THE BARON DE MACUMER. 
 
 MADRID. 
 
 MY DEAR BROTHER: You did not make me Due de Soria 
 in order that my actions should belie the name. How could 
 I tolerate my happiness if I knew you to be a wanderer, de- 
 prived of the comforts which wealth everywhere commands ? 
 Neither Marie nor I will consent to marry till we hear that 
 you have accepted the money which Urraca will hand over to 
 you. These two millions are the fruit of your own savings 
 and Marie's. 
 
 We have both prayed, kneeling before the same altar and 
 with what earnestness, God knows ! for your happiness. 
 My dear brother, it cannot be that these prayers will remain 
 unanswered. Heaven will send you the love which you seek, 
 to be the consolation of your exile. Marie read your letter 
 with tears, and is full of admiration for you. As for me, I 
 consent, not for my own sake, but for that of the family. 
 The King justified your expectations. Oh ! that I might 
 avenge you by letting him see himself, dwarfed before the 
 scorn with which you flung him his toy, as you might toss a 
 tiger its food. 
 
 The only thing I have taken for myself, dear brother, is 
 my happiness. I have taken Marie. For this I shall always 
 be beholden to you, as the creature to the Creator. There 
 will be in my life and in Marie's one day not less glorious 
 than our wedding-day it will be the day when we hear that 
 your heart has found its mate, that a woman loves you as you 
 ought to be, and deserve to be, loved. Do not forget that if 
 you live for us, we also live for you. 
 
 You can write us with perfect confidence under cover to the 
 nuncio, sending your letters via Rome. The French ambas-
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 213 
 
 sador at Rome will, no doubt, undertake to forward them to 
 the Seignor Bemboni, at the State Secretary's office, whom 
 our legate will have advised. No other way should be safe. 
 Farewell, dear exile, dear despoiled one. Be proud at least 
 of the happiness which you have brought to us, if you cannot 
 be happy in it. God will doubtless hear our prayers, which 
 are full of your name. FERNANDO. 
 
 XV. 
 
 LOUISE DE CHAULIEU TO MME. DE L*ESTORADE. 
 
 March. 
 
 Ah ! my angel, marriage is making a philosopher of you ! 
 Your darling face must, indeed, have been jaundiced when 
 you wrote me those terrible views of human life and the 
 duty of women. Do you fancy you will convert me to matri- 
 mony by your programme of subterranean labors? 
 
 Alas ! is this then the outcome for you of our too-instructed 
 dreams! We left Bloisall innocent, armed with the pointed shafts 
 of meditation, and, lo ! the weapons of that purely ideal experi- 
 ence have turned against your own breast ! If I did not 
 know you for the purest and most angelic of created beings, I 
 declare I should say that your calculations actually smack of 
 vice. What, my dear, in the interest of your country home, 
 you submit your pleasures to a periodic thinning, as you do 
 your timber. Oh ! rather let me perish in all the violence of 
 the heart's storms than live in the arid atmosphere of your 
 cautious arithmetic ! 
 
 As girls, we were both unusually enlightened, because of the 
 large amount of study we gave to our chosen subjects ; but, 
 my child, philosophy without love, or disguised under a sham 
 love, is the most hideous of conjugal hypocrisies. I should 
 imagine that even the biggest of fools might detect now and 
 again the owl of wisdom squatting in your bower of roses
 
 214 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 a ghastly phantom sufficient to put to flight the most promising 
 of passions. You make your own fate, instead of waiting, a 
 plaything in its hands. 
 
 We are each developing in strange ways. A large dose of 
 philosophy to a grain of love is your recipe ; a large dose of 
 love to a grain of philosophy is mine. Why, Rousseau's 
 Julie, whom I thought so pedantic, is a mere beginner to you. 
 Woman's virtue, quotha ! How you have weighed up life ! 
 Alas ! I make fun of you, and, after all, perhaps you are right. 
 
 In one day you have made a holocaust of your youth and 
 become a miser before your time. Your Louis will be happy, 
 I daresay. If he loves you, of which I make no doubt, he 
 will never find out, that, for the sake of your family, you are 
 acting as a courtesan does for money ; and certainly men seem 
 to find happiness with them, judging by the fortunes they thus 
 squander. A keen-sighted husband might no doubt remain in 
 love with you, but what sort of gratitude could he feel in the 
 long run for a woman who had made of duplicity a sort of 
 necessary moral armor, as indispensable as her corsets ? 
 
 Love, dear, is in my eyes the first principle of all the 
 virtues, conformed to the divine likeness. Like all other 
 first principles, it is not a matter of arithmetic ; it is the 
 Infinite in us. I cannot but think you have been trying to 
 justify in your own eyes the frightful position of a girl, married 
 to a man for whom she feels nothing more than esteem. You 
 prate of duty, and make it your rule and measure ; but surely 
 to take necessity as the spring of action is the moral theory of 
 atheism ? To follow the impulse of love and feeling is the 
 secret law of every woman's heart. You are acting a man's 
 part, and your Louis will have to play the woman ! 
 
 Oh ! my dear, your letter has plunged me into an endless 
 train of thought. I see now that the convent can never take 
 the place of mother to a girl. I beg of you, my grand angel 
 with the black eyes, so pure and proud, so serious and so 
 pretty, do not turn away from these cries, which the first
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 215 
 
 reading of your letter has torn from me ! I have taken com- 
 fort in the thought that, while I was lamenting, love was 
 doubtless busy knocking down the scaffolding of reason. 
 
 It may be that I shall do worse than you without any reason- 
 ing or calculations. Passion is an element in life bound to 
 have a logic not less pitiless than yours. 
 
 Monday. 
 
 Yesterday night I placed myself at the window as I was 
 going to bed, to look at the sky, which was wonderfully clear. 
 The stars were like silver nails, holding up a veil of blue. In 
 the silence of the night I could hear some one breathing, and 
 by the half-light of the stars I saw my Spaniard, perched like 
 a squirrel on the branches of one of the trees lining the boule- 
 vard, and doubtless lost in admiration of my windows. 
 
 The first effect of this discovery was to make me withdraw 
 into the room, my feet and hands quite limp and nerveless ; 
 but, beneath the fear, I was conscious of a delicious under- 
 current of joy. I was overpowered but happy. Not one of 
 those clever Frenchmen, who aspire to marry me, has had 
 the brilliant idea of spending the night in an elm-tree at the 
 risk of being carried off by the watch. My Spaniard has, no 
 doubt, been there for some time. Ah ! he won't give me any 
 more lessons, he wants to receive them well, he shall have 
 one. If only he knew what I said to myself about his super- 
 ficial ugliness ! Others can philosophize beside you, Renee ! 
 It was horrid, I argued, to fall in love with a handsome man. 
 Is it not practically avowing that the senses count for three 
 parts out of four in a genuine passion which ought to be super- 
 sensual ? 
 
 Having got over my first alarm, I craned my neck behind 
 the window in order to see him again and well was I re- 
 warded ! By means of a hollow cane he blew me in through 
 the window a letter, cunningly rolled round a leaden pellet. 
 
 Good heavens ! will he suppose I left the window open on 
 purpose ?
 
 216 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 But what was to be done ? To shut it suddenly would be 
 to make one's self an accomplice. 
 
 I did better. I returned to my window as though I had seen 
 nothing and heard nothing of the letter, then I said aloud 
 
 " Come and look at the stars, Griffith." 
 
 Griffith was sleeping as only old maids can. But the Moor, 
 hearing me, slid down, and vanished with ghostly rapidity. 
 
 He must have been dying of fright, and so was I, for I did 
 not hear him go away ; apparently he remained at the foot of 
 the elm. After a good quarter of an hour, during which I 
 lost myself in contemplation of the heavens, and battled with 
 the waves of curiosity, I closed my window and sat down on 
 the bed to unfold the delicate bit of paper, with the tender 
 touch of a worker amongst the ancient manuscripts at Naples. 
 It felt redhot to my fingers. "What a horrible power this 
 man has over me ! " I said to myself. 
 
 All at once I held out the paper to the candle I would 
 burn it without reading a word. Then a thought stayed me, 
 " What can he have to say that he writes so secretly?" Well, 
 dear, I did burn it, reflecting that, though any other girl in 
 the world would have devoured the letter, it was not fitting 
 that I Armande-Louise-Marie de Chaulieu should read it. 
 
 The next day, at the Italian opera, he was at his post. But 
 I feel sure that, ex-prime minister of a constitutional govern- 
 ment though he is, he could not discover the slightest agitation 
 of mind in any movement of mine. I might have seen nothing 
 and received nothing the evening before. This was most 
 satisfactory to me, but he looked very sad. Poor man ! in 
 Spain it is so natural for love to come in at the window ! 
 During the interval, it seems, he came and walked in the pas- 
 sages. This I learned from the chief secretary of the Spanish 
 embassy, who also told the story of a noble action of his. 
 
 As Due de Soria he was to marry one of the richest heiresses 
 in Spain, the young princess, Marie Heredia, whose wealth 
 would have mitigated the bitterness of exile. But it seems
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 217 
 
 that Marie, disappointing the wishes of the fathers, who had 
 betrothed them in their earliest childhood, loved the younger 
 son of the house of Soria, to whom my Felipe gave her up, 
 allowing himself to be despoiled for his younger brother by 
 the King of Spain. 
 
 " He would perform this piece of heroism quite simply," I 
 said to the young man. 
 
 "You know him then? " was his ingenuous reply. 
 
 My mother smiled. 
 
 "What will become of him, for he is condemned to 
 death?" I asked. 
 
 "Though dead to Spain, he can live in Sardinia." 
 
 "Ah! then Spain is the country of tombs as well as 
 castles? " I said, trying to carry it off as a joke. 
 
 "There is everything in Spain, even Spaniards of the old 
 school," my mother replied. 
 
 " The Baron de Macumer obtained a passport, not without 
 difficulty, from the King of Sardinia," the young diplomatist 
 went on. " He has now become a Sardinian subject, and he 
 possesses a magnificent estate in the island with full feudal 
 rights. He has a palace at Sassari. If Ferdinand VII. were 
 to die, Macumer would probably go in for diplomacy, and the 
 Court of Turin would make him ambassador. Though young, 
 he is " 
 
 "Ah! he is young?" 
 
 " Certainly, mademoiselle though young, he is one of the 
 most distinguished men in Spain." 
 
 I scanned the house meanwhile through my opera-glass, and 
 seemed to lend an inattentive ear to the secretary; but, 
 between ourselves, I was wretched at having burnt his letter. 
 In what terms would a man like that express his love ? For 
 he does love me. To be loved, adored in secret ; to know 
 that in this house, where all the great men of Paris were 
 collected, there was one entirely devoted to me, unknown to 
 everybody ! Ah ! Rene, now I understand the life of Paris,
 
 218 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 its balls and its gayeties. It all flashed on me in the true 
 light. When we love, we must have society, were it only to 
 sacrifice it to our love. I felt a different creature and such 
 a happy one ! My vanity, pride, self-love all were flattered. 
 Heaven knows what glances I cast upon the brilliant audi- 
 ence ! 
 
 " Little rogue ! " the duchess whispered in my ear with a 
 smile. 
 
 Yes, Renee, my wily mother had deciphered the hidden 
 joy in my bearing, and I could only haul down my flag before 
 such feminine strategy. Those two words taught me more of 
 worldly wisdom than I have been able to pick up in a year 
 for we are in March now. Alas ! no more Italian opera in 
 another month. How will life be possible without that 
 heavenly music, when one's heart is full of love? 
 
 When I got home, my dear, with determination worthy of 
 a Chaulieu, I opened my window to watch a shower of rain. 
 Oh ! if men knew the magic spell that a heroic action throws 
 over us, they would indeed rise to greatness ! a poltroon 
 would turn hero ! What I had learned about my Spaniard 
 drove me into a very fever. I felt certain that he was there, 
 ready to aim another letter at me. 
 
 I was right, and this time I burnt nothing. Here, then, is 
 the first love-letter I have received, madame logician : each to 
 her kind : 
 
 " Louise, it is not for your peerless beauty I love you, nor 
 for your gifted mind, your noble feeling, the wondrous charm 
 of all you say and do, nor yet for your pride, your queenly 
 scorn of baser metals a pride blended in you with charity, for 
 what angel could be more tender ? Louise, I love you be- 
 cause, for the sake of a poor exile, you have unbent this lofty 
 majesty, because by a gesture, a glance, you have brought 
 consolation to a man so far beneath you that the utmost he 
 could hope for was your pity, the pity of a generous heart.
 
 LE7'TERS OF TWO BRIDES. 219 
 
 You are the one woman whose eyes have shone with a tenderer 
 light when bent on me. 
 
 " And because you let fall this glance a mere grain of dust, 
 yet a grace surpassing any bestowed on me when I stood at 
 the summit of a subject's ambition I long to tell you, Louise, 
 how dear you are to me, and that my love is for yourself 
 alone, without a thought beyond, a love that far more than 
 fulfills all the conditions laid down by you for an ideal pas- 
 sion. 
 
 " Know then, idol of my highest heaven, that there is in 
 the world an offshoot of the Saracen race, whose life is in your 
 hands, who will receive your orders as a slave, and deem it 
 an honor to execute them. I have given myself to you abso- 
 lutely and for the mere joy of giving, for a single glance of 
 your eye, for a touch of the hand which one day you offered 
 to your Spanish master. I am but your servitor, Louise ; I 
 claim no more. 
 
 " No, I dare not think that I could ever be loved ; but per- 
 chance my devotion may win for me toleration. Since that 
 morning when you smiled- upon me with generous girlish im- 
 pulse, divining the misery of my lonely and rejected heart, 
 you reign there alone. You are the absolute ruler of my life, 
 the queen of my thoughts, the god of my heart ; I find you in 
 the sunshine of my home, the fragrance of my flowers, the 
 balm of the air I breathe, the pulsing of my blood, the light 
 that visits me in sleep. 
 
 "One thought alone troubled this happiness your ignor- 
 ance. All unknown to you was this boundless devotion, the 
 trusty arm, the blind slave, the silent tool, the wealth for 
 henceforth all I possess is mine only as a trust which lay at 
 your disposal ; unknown to you, the heart waiting to receive 
 your confidence, and yearning to replace all that your life (I 
 know it well) has lacked the liberal ancestress, so ready to 
 meet your needs, a father to whom you could look for protec- 
 tion in every difficulty, a friend, a brother. The secret of
 
 220 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 your isolation is no secret to me ! If I am bold, it is because 
 I long that you should know how much is yours. 
 
 "Take all, Louise, and in so doing bestow on me the one 
 life possible for me in this world the life of devotion. In 
 placing the yoke on my neck, you run no risk ; I ask nothing 
 but the joy of knowing myself yours. Needless even to say 
 that you will never love me ; it cannot be otherwise. I must 
 love from afar, without hope, without reward beyond my own 
 love. 
 
 " In my anxiety to know whether you will accept me as 
 your servant, I have racked my brain to find some way in 
 which you may communicate with me without any danger of 
 compromising yourself. Injury to your self-respect there can 
 be none in sanctioning a devotion which has been yours for 
 many days without your knowledge. Let this, then, be the 
 token. At the opera this evening, if you carry in your hand 
 a bouquet consisting of one red and one white camellia em- 
 blem of a man's blood at the service of the purity he worships 
 that will be my answer. I ask no more ; thenceforth, at 
 any moment, ten years hence or to-.morrow, whatever you de- 
 mand shall be done, so far as it is possible for man to do it, 
 by your happy servant, 
 
 "FELIPE 
 
 P. S. You must admit, dear, that great lords know how to 
 love ! See the spring of the African lion ! What restrained 
 fire ! What loyalty ! What sincerity ! How high a soul in 
 low estate ! I felt quite small and dazed as I said to myself: 
 "What shall I do?" 
 
 It is the mark of a great man that he puts to flight all ordi- 
 nary calculations. He is at once sublime and touching, child- 
 like and of the race of giants. In a single letter Henarez 
 has outstripped volumes from Lovelace or Saint-Preux. Here 
 is true love, no beating about the bush. Love may be or it
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 221 
 
 may not, but where it is, it ought to reveal itself in its im- 
 mensity. 
 
 Here am I, shorn of all my little -arts ! To refuse or accept ! 
 That is the alternative boldly presented me, without the ghost 
 of an opening for a middle course. No fencing allowed ! 
 This is no longer Paris ; we are in the heart of Spain or the far 
 East. It is the voice of Abencerrage, and it is the scimitar, 
 the horse, and the head of Abencerrage which he offers, pros- 
 trate before a Catholic Eve ! Shall I accept this last descend- 
 ant of the Moors ? Read again and again his Hispano-Sara- 
 cenic letter, Renee dear, and you will see how love makes a 
 clean sweep of all the Judaic bargains of your philosophy. 
 
 Renee, your letter lies heavy on my heart ; you have vul- 
 garized life for me. What need have I for finessing? Am I 
 not mistress for all time of this lion whose roar dies out in 
 plaintive and adoring sighs ? Ah ! how he must have raged 
 in his lair of the Rue Hillerin-Bertin ! I know where he lives, 
 I have his card : F. BARON DE MACUMER. 
 
 He has made it impossible for me to reply. All I can do 
 is to fling two camellias in his face. What fiendish arts does 
 love possess pure, honest, simple-minded love ! Here is the 
 most tremendous crisis of a woman's heart resolved into an 
 easy, simple action. Oh, Asia! I have read the "Arabian 
 Nights," here is their very essence: two flowers, and the 
 question is settled. We clear the fourteen volumes of " Clarissa 
 Harlowe" with a bouquet. I writhe before this letter, like a 
 thread in the fire. To take, or not to take, my two camellias. 
 Yes or No, kill or give life ! At last a voice cries to me, 
 " Test him ! " Yes, I will test him.
 
 222 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE SAME TO THE SAME. 
 
 March. 
 
 I am dressed in white white camellias in my hair, and 
 another in my hand. My mother has red camellias ; so it 
 would not be impossible to take one from her if I wished ! 
 I have a strange longing to put off the decision to the last 
 moment, and make him pay for his red camellia by a little 
 suspense. 
 
 What a vision of beauty ! Griffith begged me to stop for a 
 little and be admired. The solemn crisis of the evening and 
 the drama of my secret reply have given me a color ; on each 
 cheek I sport a red camellia laid upon a white ! 
 
 I A.M. 
 
 Everybody admired me, but only one adored. He hung 
 his head as I entered with a white camellia, but turned pale 
 as the flower when, later, I took a red one from my mother's 
 hand. To arrive with the two flowers might possibly have 
 been accidental ; but this deliberate action was a reply. My 
 confession, therefore, is fuller than it need have been. 
 
 The opera was "Romeo and Juliet." As you don't know 
 the duet of the two lovers, you can't understand the bliss of 
 two neophytes in love, as they listen to this divine outpour- 
 ing of the heart. 
 
 On returning home I went to bed, but only to count the 
 steps which resounded on the sidewalk. My heart and head, 
 darling, are all on fire now. What is he doing ? What is he 
 thinking of? Has he a thought, a single thought, that is not 
 of me ? Is he, in very truth, the devoted slave he painted 
 himself? How to be sure ? Or, again, has it ever entered 
 his head that, if I accept him, I lay myself open to the shadow
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 223 
 
 of a reproach or am in any sense rewarding or thanking him? 
 I am harrowed by the hair-splitting casuistry of the heroines 
 in "The Great Cyrus" and " Astraea," by all the subtle argu- 
 ments of the court of love. 
 
 Has he any idea that, in affairs of love, a woman's most 
 trifling actions are but the issue of long brooding and inner 
 conflicts, of victories won only to be lost ! What are his 
 thoughts at this moment ? How can I give him my orders to 
 write every evening the particulars of the day just gone? He 
 is my slave whom I ought to keep busy. I shall deluge him 
 with work ! 
 
 Sunday Morning. 
 
 Only toward morning did I sleep a little. It is midday 
 now. I have just got Griffith to write the following letter : 
 
 ' ' To the Baron de Macumcr. 
 
 " Mademoiselle de Chaulieu begs me, Monsieur le Baron, 
 to ask you to return to her the copy of a letter written to her 
 by a friend, which is in her own handwriting, and which you 
 carried away. Receive, etc., 
 
 "S. GRIFFITH." 
 
 My dear, Griffith has gone out ; she has gone to the Rue 
 Hillerin-Bertin ; she has handed in this little love-letter for 
 my slave, who returned to me in an envelope my ideal portrait, 
 stained with tears. He has obeyed. Oh ! my sweet, it must 
 have been dear to him ! Another man would have refused to 
 send it in a letter full of flattery ; but the Saracen has fulfilled 
 his promises. He has obeyed. It moves me to tears.
 
 224 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 THE SAME TO THE SAME. 
 
 April 2d. 
 
 Yesterday the weather was splendid. I dressed myself like 
 a girl who wants to look her best in her sweetheart's eyes. 
 My father, yielding to my entreaties, has given me the pret- 
 tiest turnout in Paris two dapple-gray horses and a barouche, 
 which is a masterpiece of elegance. I was making a first trial 
 of this, and peeped out like a flower from under my sunshade 
 lined with white silk. 
 
 As I drove up the avenue of the Champs-Elyse'es, I saw my 
 Abencerrage approaching on an extraordinarily beautiful horse. 
 Almost every man now-a-days is a finished jockey, and they 
 all stopped to admire and inspect it. He bowed to me, and 
 on receiving a friendly sign of encouragement, slackened his 
 horse's pace so that I was able to say to him : 
 
 "You are not vexed with me for asking for my letter ; it 
 was no use to you?" Then in a lower voice, "You have 
 
 already transcended the ideal Your horse makes you an 
 
 object of general interest," I went on aloud. 
 
 " My steward in Sardinia sent it to me. He is very proud 
 of it ; for this horse, which is of Arabian blood, was born in 
 my stables." 
 
 This morning, my dear, Henarez was on an English sorrel, 
 also very fine, but not such as to attract attention. My light, 
 mocking words had done their work. He bowed to me, and I 
 replied with a slight inclination of the head. 
 
 The Due d'AngouleTne has bought Macumer's horse. My 
 slave understood that he was deserting the role of simplicity 
 by attracting the notice of the crowd. A man ought to be 
 remarked for what he is, not for his horse, or anything else 
 belonging to him. To have too beautiful a horse seems to me
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 225 
 
 a piece of bad taste, just as much as wearing a huge diamond 
 pin. I was delighted at being able to find fault with him. 
 Perhaps there may have been a touch of vanity in what he 
 did, very excusable in a poor exile, and I like to see this child- 
 ishness. 
 
 Oh ! my dear old preacher, do my love affairs amuse you 
 as much as your dismal philosophy gives me the creeps? Dear 
 Philip the Second in petticoats, are you comfortable in my 
 barouche? Do you see those velvet eyes, humble, yet so 
 eloquent, and glorying in their servitude, which flash on me 
 as some one goes by ? He is a hero, Renee, and he wears my 
 livery, and always a red camellia in his button-hole, while I 
 have always a white one in my hand. 
 
 How clear everything becomes in the light of love ! How 
 well I know my Paris now ! It is all transfused with meaning. 
 And love here is lovelier, grander, more bewitching than 
 elsewhere. 
 
 I am convinced now that I could never torment or flirt 
 with a fool or make any impression on him. It is only men 
 of real distinction who can enter into our feelings and feel 
 our influence. Oh ! my poor friend, forgive me. I forgot 
 our 1'Estorade. But didn't you tell me you were going to 
 make a genius of him ? I know what that means. You will 
 dry nurse him till some day he is able to understand you. 
 
 Good-by. I am a little off my head, and must stop. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 MME. DE L'ESTORADE TO LOUISE DE CHAULIEU. 
 
 April. 
 
 My angel or ought I not rather to say my imp of evil? 
 you have, without meaning it, grieved me sorely. I would 
 say wounded were we not one soul. And yet it is possible to 
 wound one's self. 
 15
 
 226 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 How plain it is that you have never realized the force of the 
 word indissoluble as applied to the contract binding man and 
 woman ! I have no wish to controvert what has been laid 
 down by philosophers or legislators they are quite capable of 
 doing this for themselves but, dear one, in making marriage 
 irrevocable and imposing on it a relentless formula, which 
 admits of no exceptions, they have rendered each union a 
 thing as distinct as one individual is from another. Each has 
 its own inner laws which differ from those of others. The 
 laws regulating married life in the country, for instance, 
 where husband and wife are never out of each other's sight, 
 cannot be the same as those regulating a household in town, 
 where frequent distractions give variety to life. Or conversely, 
 married life in Paris, where existence is one perpetual whirl, 
 must demand different treatment from the more peaceful home 
 in the provinces. 
 
 But if place alters the conditions of marriage, much more 
 does character. The wife of a man born to be a leader 
 need only resign herself to his guidance; whereas the wife of 
 a fool, conscious of superior power, is bound to take the reins 
 in her own hand if she would avert calamity. 
 
 You speak of vice ; and it is possible that, after all, reason 
 and reflection produce a result not dissimilar from what we 
 call by that name. For what does a woman mean by it but 
 perversion of feeling through calculation ? Passion is vicious 
 when it reasons, admirable only when it springs from the heart 
 and spends itself in sublime impulses that set at naught all 
 selfish considerations. Sooner or later, dear one, you too will 
 say, "Yes ! dissimulation is the necessary armor of a woman, 
 if by dissimulation be meant courage to bear in silence, pru- 
 dence to foresee the future." 
 
 Every married woman learns to her cost the existence of 
 certain social laws, which, in many respects, conflict with the 
 laws of nature. Marrying at our age, it would be possible to 
 have a dozen children. What is this but another name for a
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 227 
 
 dozen crimes, a dozen misfortunes? It would be handing 
 over to poverty and despair twelve innocent darlings; whereas 
 two children would mean the happiness of both, a double bless- 
 ing, two lives capable of developing in harmony with the cus- 
 toms and laws of our time. The natural law and the code are 
 in hostility, and we are the battle-ground. Would you give 
 the name of vice to the prudence of the wife who guards her 
 family from destruction through its own acts ? One calcula- 
 tion or a thousand, what matter, if the decision no longer 
 rests with the heart? 
 
 And of this terrible calculation you will be guilty some day, 
 my noble Baronne de Macumer, when you are the proud and 
 happy wife of the man who adores you ; or rather, being a man 
 of sense, he will spare you by making it himself. (You see, 
 dear dreamer, that I have studied the code in its bearings on 
 conjugal relations.) And when at last that day comes, you 
 will understand that we are answerable only to God and to 
 ourselves for the means we employ to keep happiness alight in 
 the heart of our homes. Far better is the calculation which 
 succeeds in this than the reckless passion which introduces 
 trouble, heartburnings, and dissension. 
 
 I have reflected painfully on the duties of a wife and mother 
 of a family. Yes, sweet one, it is only by a sublime hypoc- 
 risy that we can attain the noblest ideal of a perfect woman. 
 You tax me with insincerity because I dole out to Louis, from 
 day to day, the measure of his intimacy with me ; but is it not 
 too close an intimacy which provokes rupture? My aim is to 
 give him, in the very interest of his happiness, many occupa- 
 tions, which will all serve as distractions to his love ; and this 
 is not the reasoning of passion. If affection be inexhaustible, 
 it is not so with love : the task, therefore, of a woman truly 
 no light one is to spread it out thriftily over a lifetime. 
 
 At the risk of exciting your disgust, I must tell you that 
 I persist in the principles I have adopted, and hold myself 
 both heroic and generous in so doing. Virtue, my pet, is an
 
 228 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 abstract idea, varying in its manifestations with the surround- 
 ings. Virtue in Provence, in Constantinople, in London, 
 and in Paris bears very different fruit, but is none the less 
 virtue. Each human life is a substance compacted of widely 
 dissimilar elements, though, viewed from a certain height, the 
 general effect is the same. 
 
 If I wished to make Louis unhappy and to bring about a 
 separation, all I need do is to leave the helm in his hands. 
 I have not had your good fortune in meeting with a man of 
 the highest distinction, but I may perhaps have the satisfac- 
 tion of helping him on the road to it. Five years hence let 
 us meet in Paris and see ! I believe we shall succeed in mys- 
 tifying you. You will tell me then that I was quite mistaken, 
 and that M. de 1'Estorade is a man of great natural gifts. 
 
 As for this brave love, of which I know only what you tell 
 me, these tremors and night-watches by starlight on the bal- 
 cony, this idolatrous worship, this deification of woman I 
 knew it was not for me. You can enlarge the borders of your 
 brilliant life as you please ; mine is hemmed in to the boun- 
 daries of La Crampade. 
 
 And you reproach me for the jealous care which alone can 
 nurse this modest and fragile shoot into a wealth of lasting 
 and mysterious happiness ! I believe myself to have found 
 out how to adapt the charm of a mistress to the position of a 
 wife, and you have almost made me blush for my device. Who 
 shall say which of us is right, which wrong? Perhaps we are 
 both right and both wrong. Perhaps this is the heavy price 
 which society exacts for our furbelows, our titles, and our 
 children. 
 
 I, too, have my red camellias, but they bloom on my lips in 
 smiles for my double charge the father and the son whose 
 slave and mistress I am. But, my dear, your last letters made 
 me feel what I have lost ! You have taught me all a woman 
 sacrifices in marrying. One single glance did I take at those 
 beautiful wild plateaus where you range at your sweet will,
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 229 
 
 and I will not tell you the tears that fell as I read. But regret 
 is not remorse, though it may be first cousin to it. 
 
 You say, " Marriage has made you a philosopher ! " Alas ! 
 bitterly did I feel how far this was from the truth, as I wept 
 to think of you swept away on love's torrent. But my father 
 has made me read one of the profoundest thinkers of these 
 parts, the man on whom the mantle of Bossuet has fallen, one 
 of those hard-headed theorists whose words force conviction. 
 While you were reading "Corinne," I conned Bonald; and 
 here is the whole secret of my philosophy. He revealed to 
 me the Family in its strength and holiness. According to 
 Bonald, your father was right in his homily. 
 
 Farewell, my dear fancy, my friend, my wild other self. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 LOUISE DE CHAULIEU TO MME. DE I/ESTORADE. 
 
 Well, my Ren6e, you are a love of a woman, and I quite 
 agree now that we can only be virtuous by cheating. Will 
 that satisfy you ? Moreover, the man who loves us is our 
 property ; we can make a fool or a genius of him as we please ; 
 only, between ourselves, the former happens more commonly. 
 You will make yours a genius, and you won't tell the secret 
 there are two heroic actions, if you will ! 
 
 Ah ! if there were no future life, how nicely you would be 
 sold, for this is martyrdom into which you are plunging of 
 your own accord. You want to make him ambitious and to 
 keep him in love ! Child that you are, surely the last alone 
 is sufficient. 
 
 Tell me, to what point is calculation a virtue, or virtue 
 calculation? You won't say? Well, we won't quarrel over 
 that, since we have Bonald to refer to. We are, and intend 
 to remain, virtuous ; nevertheless at this moment I believe
 
 230 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 that you, with all your pretty little knavery, are a better 
 woman than I am. 
 
 Yes, I am shockingly deceitful. I love Felipe, and I con- 
 ceal it from him with an odious hypocrisy. I long to see him 
 leap from his tree to the top of the wall, and from the wall to 
 my balcony and if he did, how I should wither him with my 
 scorn ! You see, I am frank enough with you. 
 
 What restrains me? Where is the mysterious power which 
 prevents me from telling Felipe, dear fellow, how supremely 
 happy he has made me by the outpouring of his love so 
 pure, so absolute, so boundless, so unobtrusive, and so over- 
 flowing ? 
 
 Mme. de Mirbel is painting my portrait, and I intend to 
 give it to him, my dear. What surprises me more and more 
 every day is the animation which love puts into life. How 
 full of interest is every hour, every action, every trifle ! and 
 what amazing confusion between the past, the future, and the 
 present ! One lives in three tenses at once. Is it still so 
 after the heights of happiness are reached ? Oh ! tell me, I 
 implore you, what is happiness? Does it soothe, or does it 
 excite ? I am horribly restless ; I seem to have lost all my 
 bearings ; a force in my heart drags me to him, spite of reason 
 and spite of propriety. There is this gain, that I am better 
 able to enter into your feelings. 
 
 Felipe's happiness consists in feeling himself mine ; the 
 aloofness of his love, his strict obedience, irritate me, just as 
 his attitude of profound respect provoked me when he was only 
 my Spanish master. I am tempted to cry out to him as he 
 passes : " Fool, if you love me so much as a picture, what will 
 it be when you know the real me? " 
 
 Oh ! Renee, you burn my letters, don't you? I will burn 
 yours. If other eyes than ours were to read these thoughts 
 which pass from heart to heart, I should send Felipe to cut 
 them out, and perhaps to kill the owners, by way of additional 
 security.
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 231 
 
 Monday. 
 
 Oh ! Renee, how is it possible to fathom the heart of man ? 
 My father ought to introduce me to M. Bonald, since he is so 
 learned ; I would ask him. I envy the privilege of God, who 
 can read the undercurrents of the heart. 
 
 Does he still worship? That is the whole question. 
 
 If ever, in gesture, glance, or tone, I were to detect the 
 slightest falling off in the respect he used to show me in the 
 days when he was my instructor in Spanish, I feel that I 
 should have strength to put the whole thing from me. " Why 
 these fine words, these grand resolutions?" you will say. 
 Dear, I will tell you. 
 
 My fascinating father, who treats me with the devotion of 
 an Italian cavaliere servtnte for his lady, had my portrait 
 painted, as I told you, by Mme. de Mirbel. I contrived to 
 get a copy made, good enough to do for the duke, and sent 
 the original to Felipe. I dispatched it yesterday, and these 
 lines with it: 
 
 " Don Felipe, your single-hearted devotion is met by a 
 blind confidence. Time will show whether this is not to 
 treat a man as more than human." 
 
 It was a big reward. It looked like a promise and dread- 
 ful to say a challenge ; but which will seem to you still 
 more dreadful I quite intended that it should suggest both 
 these things, without going so far as actually to commit me. 
 If in his reply there is " Dear Louise ! " or even " Louise," 
 he is done for ! 
 
 Tuesday. 
 
 No, he is not done for. The constitutional minister is 
 perfect as a lover. Here is his letter : 
 
 "Every moment passed away from your sight has been
 
 232 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 filled by me with ideal pictures of you, my eyes closed to the 
 outside world and fixed in meditation on your image, which 
 used to obey the summons too slowly in that dim palace of 
 dreams, glorified by your presence. Henceforth my gaze will 
 rest upon this wondrous ivory this talisman, might I not say ? 
 since your blue eyes sparkle with life as I look, and paint 
 passes into flesh and blood. If I have delayed writing, it 
 is because I could not tear myself away from your presence, 
 which wrung from me all that I was bound to keep most 
 secret. 
 
 "Yes, closeted with you all last night and to-day, I have, 
 for the first time in my life, given myself up to full, complete, 
 and boundless happiness. Could you but see yourself where 
 I have placed you, between the Virgin and God, you might 
 have some idea of the agony in which the night has passed. 
 But I would not offend you by speaking of it ; for one glance 
 from your eyes, robbed of the tender sweetness which is my 
 life, would be full of torture for me, and I implore your 
 clemency therefore in advance. Queen of my life and of my 
 soul, oh ! that you could grant me but one-thousandth part of 
 the love I bear you ! 
 
 " This was the burden of my prayer ; doubt worked havoc 
 in my soul as I oscillated between belief and despair, between 
 life and death, darkness and light. A criminal whose verdict 
 hangs in the balance is not more racked with suspense than I, 
 as I own to my temerity. The smile imaged on your lips, to 
 which my eyes turned ever and again, was alone able to calm 
 the storm roused by the dread of displeasing you. From my 
 birth no one, not even my mother, has smiled on me. The 
 beautiful young girl who was designed for me rejected my 
 heart and gave hers to my brother. Again, in politics all my 
 efforts have been defeated. In the eyes of my king I have 
 read only thirst for vengeance ; from childhood he has been 
 my enemy, and the vote of the Cortes which placed me in 
 power was regarded by him as a personal insult.
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 233 
 
 "Less than this might breed despondency in the stoutest 
 heart. Beside, I have no illusion ; I know the ill-grace of my 
 person, and am well aware how difficult it is to do justice to 
 the heart within so rugged a shell. To be loved had ceased 
 to be more than a dream to me when I met you. Thus when 
 I bound myself to your service I knew that devotion alone 
 could excuse my passion. 
 
 "But, as I look upon this portrait and listen to your smile 
 that whispers of rapture, the rays of a hope which I had 
 sternly banished pierce the gloom, like the light of dawn, 
 again to be obscured by rising mists of doubt and fear of 
 your displeasure, if the morning should break to-day. No, it 
 is impossible you should love me yet I feel it, but in time, as 
 you make proof of the strength, the constancy, and depth, of 
 my affection, you may yield me some foothold in your heart. 
 If my daring offends you, tell me so without anger, and I will 
 return to my former part. But if you consent to try and 
 love me, be merciful and break it gently to one. who has 
 placed the happiness of his life in the single thought of 
 serving you." 
 
 My dear, as I read these last words, he seemed to rise before 
 me, pale as the night when the camellias told their story and 
 he knew his offering was accepted. These words, in their 
 humility, were clearly something quite different from the 
 usual flowery rhetoric of lovers, and a wave of feeling broke 
 over me ; I breathed the breath of happiness. 
 
 The weather has been atrocious ; impossible to go to the 
 Bois without exciting all sorts of suspicions. Even my mother, 
 who often goes out, regardless of rain, remains at home, and 
 alone. 
 
 Wednesday Evening, 
 
 I have just seen him at the opera, my dear ; he is another 
 man. He came to our box, introduced by the Sardinian am- 
 bassador.
 
 234 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 Having read in my eyes that this audacity was taken in 
 good part, he seemed awkwardly conscious of his limbs, and 
 addressed the Marquise d'Espard as " Mademoiselle." A 
 light far brighter than the glare of the chandeliers flashed 
 from his eyes. At last he went out with the air of a man who 
 didn't know what he might do next. 
 
 "The Baron de Macumer is in love!" exclaimed Mme. 
 de Maufrigneuse. 
 
 "Strange, isn't it, for a fallen minister?" replied my 
 mother. 
 
 I had sufficient presence of mind myself to regard with 
 curiosity Mmes. de Maufrigneuse and d'Espard and my mother, 
 as though they were talking a foreign language and I wanted 
 to know what it was all about, but inwardly my soul sank in 
 the waves of an intoxicating joy. There is only one word to 
 express what I felt, and that is : rapture. Such love as Felipe's 
 surely makes him worthy of mine. I am the very breath of 
 his life, my hands hold the thread that guides his thoughts. 
 To be quite frank, I have a mad longing to see him clear 
 every obstacle and stand before me, asking boldly for my 
 hand. Then I should know whether this storm of love would 
 sink to placid calm at a glance from me. 
 
 Ah I my dear, I stopped here, and I am still all in a 
 tremble. As I wrote, I heard a slight noise outside, and rose 
 to see what it was. From my window I could see him com- 
 ing along the ridge of the wall at the risk of his life. I went 
 to the bedroom window and made him a sign, it was enough ; 
 he leapt from the wall ten feet and then ran along the 
 road, so far as I could see him, in order to show me that he 
 was not hurt. That he should think of my fear at the moment 
 when he must have been made giddy by his fall moved me so 
 much that I am still crying; I don't know why. Poor un- 
 gainly man ! what was he coming for ? what had he to say 
 to me? 
 
 I dare not write any more of my thoughts, and shall go to
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 235 
 
 bed joyful, thinking of all that we would say if we were to- 
 gether. Farewell, fair silent one. I have not time to scold 
 you for not writing, but it is more than a month since I have 
 heard from you ! Does this mean that you are at last happy ! 
 Have you lost the "complete independence" which you were 
 so proud of, and which to-night has so nearly played me 
 false ? 
 
 XX. 
 
 RENEE DE L'ESTORADE TO LOUISE DE CHAULIEU. 
 
 May. 
 
 If love be the life of the world, why do austere philosophers 
 count it for nothing in marriage ? Why should Society take 
 for its first law that the woman must be sacrificed to the 
 Family, introducing thus a note of discord into the very heart 
 of marriage? And this discord was foreseen, since it was to 
 meet the dangers arising from it that men were armed with 
 new-found powers against us. But for these, we should have 
 been able to bring their whole theory to nothing, whether by 
 the force of love or of a secret, persistent aversion. 
 
 I see in marriage, as it at present exists, two opposing forces 
 which it was the task of the lawgiver to reconcile. "When 
 will they be reconciled?" I said to myself, as I read your 
 letter. Oh ! my dear, one such letter alone is enough to 
 overthrow the whole fabric constructed by the sage of Aveyron, 
 under whose shelter I had so cheerfully ensconced myself ! 
 The laws were made by old men any woman can see that 
 and they have been prudent enough to decree that conjugal 
 love, apart from passion, is not degrading, and that a woman 
 in yielding herself may dispense with the sanction of love, 
 provided the man can legally call her his. In their exclusive 
 concern for the Family they have imitated Nature, whose one 
 care is to propagate the species.
 
 236 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 Formerly I was a person, now I am a chattel. Not a few 
 tears have I gulped down, alone and far from every one. How 
 gladly would I have exchanged them for a consoling smile ! 
 Why are our destinies so unequal ? Your soul expands in the 
 atmosphere of a lawful passion. For you, virtue will coincide 
 with pleasure. If you encounter pain, it will be of your own 
 free choice. Your duty, if you marry Felipe, will be one 
 with the sweetest, freest indulgence of feeling. Our future is 
 big with the answer to my question, and I look for it with 
 restless eagerness. 
 
 You love and are adored. Oh ! my dear, let this noble 
 romance, the old subject of our dreams, take full possession 
 of your soul. Womanly beauty, refined and spiritualized in 
 you, was created by God, for His own purposes, to charm and 
 to delight. Yes, my sweet, guard well the secret of your 
 heart, and submit Felipe to those ingenious devices of ours 
 for testing a lover's metal. Above all, make trial of your own 
 love, for this is even more important. It is so easy to be mis- 
 led by the deceptive glamour of novelty and passion, and by 
 the vision of happiness. 
 
 Alone of the two friends, you remain in your maiden inde- 
 pendence ; and I beseech you, dearest, do not risk the irrevo- 
 cable step of marriage without some guarantee. It happens 
 sometimes, when two are talking together, apart from the 
 world, their souls stripped of social disguise, that a gesture, a 
 word, a look lights up, as by a flash, some dark abyss. You 
 have courage and strength to tread boldly in paths where 
 others would be lost. 
 
 You have no conception with what anxiety I watch you. 
 Across all this space I see you ; my heart beats with yours. 
 Be sure, therefore, to write and tell me everything. Your 
 letters create an inner life of passion within my homely, 
 peaceful household, which reminds me of a level highway on 
 a gray day. The only event here, my sweet, is that I am 
 playing cross-purposes with myself. But I don't want to tell
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 237 
 
 you about it just now ; it must wait for another day. With 
 dogged obstinacy, I pass from despair to hope, now yielding, 
 now holding back. It may be that I ask from life more than 
 we have a right to claim. In youth we are so ready to believe 
 that the ideal and the real will harmonize ! 
 
 I have been pondering alone, seated beneath a rock in my 
 park, and the fruit of my pondering is that love in marriage 
 is a happy accident on which it is impossible to base a uni- 
 versal law. My Aveyron philosopher is right in looking on 
 the Family as the only possible unit in society, and in placing 
 woman in subjection to the Family, as she has been in all ages. 
 The solution of this great for us almost awful question lies 
 in our first child. For this reason, I would gladly be a 
 mother, were it only to supply food for the consuming energy 
 of my soul. 
 
 Louis' temper remains as perfect as ever; his love is of the 
 active, my tenderness of the passive, type. He is happy, 
 plucking the flowers which bloom for him, without troubling 
 about the labor of the earth which has produced them. Blessed 
 self-absorption ! At whatever cost to myself, I fall in with 
 his illusions, as a mother, in my idea of her, should be ready 
 to spend herself to satisfy a fancy of her child. The intensity 
 of his joy blinds him, and even throws its reflection upon me. 
 The smile or look of satisfaction which the knowledge of his 
 content brings to my face is enough to satisfy him. And so, 
 "my child " is the pet name which I give him when we are 
 alone. 
 
 And I wait for the fruit of all these sacrifices which remain 
 a secret between God, myself, and you. On motherhood I 
 have staked enormously : my credit account is now too large, 
 I fear I shall never receive full payment. To it I look for 
 employment of my energy, expansion of my heart, and the 
 compensation of a world of joys. Pray heaven I be not de- 
 ceived ! It is a question of all my future and, horrible 
 thought, of my virtue.
 
 238 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 XXL 
 
 LOUISE DE CHAULIEU TO RENEE DE L*ESTORADE. 
 
 June. 
 
 DEAR WEDDED SWEETHEART: Your letter has arrived at 
 the very moment to hearten me for a bold step which I have 
 been meditating night and day. I feel within me a strange 
 craving for the unknown, or, if you will, the forbidden, which 
 makes me uneasy and reveals a conflict in progress in my soul 
 between the laws of society and of nature. I cannot tell 
 whether nature in me is the stronger of the two, but I surprise 
 myself in the act of mediating between the hostile powers. 
 
 In plain words, what I wanted was to speak with Felipe, 
 alone, at night, under the lime-trees at the bottom of our 
 garden. There is no denying that this desire beseems the 
 girl who has earned the epithet of an " up-to-date young 
 lady," bestowed on me by the duchess in jest, and which my 
 father has approved. 
 
 Yet to me there seems a method in this madness. I should 
 recompense Felipe for the long nights he has passed under my 
 window, at the same time that I should test him, by seeing 
 what he thinks of my escapade and how he comports himself 
 at a critical moment. Let him cast a halo round my folly 
 behold in him my husband ; let him show one iota less of the 
 tremulous respect with which he bows to me in the Champs- 
 Elyses farewell, Don Felipe. 
 
 As for society, I run less risk in meeting my lover thus than 
 when I smile to him in the drawing-rooms of Mme. de Mau- 
 frigneuse and the old Marquise de Beauseant, where spies now 
 surround us on every side; and heaven only knows how people 
 stare at the girl, suspected of a weakness for a grotesque, like 
 Macumer. 
 
 I cannot tell you to what a state of agitation I am reduced
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 239 
 
 by dreaming of this idea, and the time I have given to plan- 
 ning its execution. I wanted you badly. What happy hours 
 we should have chattered away, lost in the mazes of uncer- 
 tainty, enjoying in anticipation all the delights and horrors 
 of a first meeting in the silence of night, under the noble 
 lime-trees of the Chaulieu mansion, with the moonlight danc- 
 ing through the leaves ! As I sat alone, every nerve tingling, 
 I cried, "Oh! Renee, where are you?" Then your letter 
 came, like a match to gunpowder, and my last scruples went 
 by the board. 
 
 Through the window I tossed to my bewildered adorer an 
 exact tracing of the key of the little gate at the end of the' 
 garden, together with this note 
 
 "Your madness must really be put a stop to. If you broke 
 your neck you would ruin the reputation of the woman you 
 profess to love. Are you worthy of a new proof of regard, 
 and do you deserve that I should talk with you under the 
 limes at the foot of the garden at the hour when the moon 
 throws them into shadow?" 
 
 Yesterday, at one o'clock, when Griffith was going to bed, 
 I said to her 
 
 " Take your shawl, dear, and come out with me. I want 
 to go to the bottom of the garden without any one of the 
 household knowing." 
 
 Without a word, she followed me. Oh ! my Ren6e, what 
 an awful moment when, after a little pause full of delicious 
 thrills of agony, I saw him gliding along like a shadow. 
 When he had reached the garden safely, I said to Griffith 
 
 " Don't be astonished, but the Baron de Macumer is here, 
 and, indeed, it is on that account I brought you with me." 
 
 No reply from Griffith. 
 
 "What would you have with me?" said Felipe, in a tone 
 of such agitation that it was easy to see he was driven beside
 
 240 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 himself by the noise, slight as it was, of our dresses in the 
 silence of the night and of our steps upon the gravel. 
 
 " I want to say to you what I could not write," I replied. 
 
 Griffith withdrew a few steps. It was one of those mild 
 nights when the air is heavy with the scent of flowers. My 
 head swam with the intoxicating delight of finding myself 
 all but alone with him in the friendly shade of the lime-trees, 
 beyond which lay the garden, shining all the more brightly 
 because the white facade of the house reflected the moonlight. 
 The contrast seemed, as it were, an emblem of our clandestine 
 love leading up to the glaring publicity of a wedding. Neither 
 of us could do more at first than drink in silently the ecstasy 
 of a moment, as new and marvelous for him as for me. At 
 last I found tongue to say, pointing to the elm-tree 
 
 "Although I am not afraid of scandal, you shall not climb 
 that tree again. We have long enough played schoolboy and 
 schoolgirl, let us rise now to the height of our destiny. Had 
 the fall killed you, I should have died disgraced " 
 
 I looked at him. Every scrap of color had left his face. 
 
 "And if you had been found there, suspicion would have 
 attached either to my mother or myself." 
 
 "Forgive me," he murmured. 
 
 " If you walk along the boulevard, I shall hear your step ; 
 and when I want to see you, I will open my window. But 
 I would not run such a risk unless some emergency arose. 
 Why have you forced me by your rash act to commit another, 
 and one which may lower me in your eyes?" 
 
 The tears which I saw in his eyes were to me the most 
 eloquent of answers. 
 
 "What I have done to-night," I went on with a smile, 
 " must seem to you the height of madness." 
 
 After we had walked up and down in silence more than 
 once, he recovered composure enough to say 
 
 "You must think me a fool; and, indeed, the delirium of 
 my joy has robbed me of both nerve and wits. But of this
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 241 
 
 at least be assured, whatever you do is sacred in my eyes from 
 the very fact that it seemed right to you. I honor you as I 
 honor my God beside. And then, Miss Griffith is here." 
 
 " She is here for the sake of others, not for us," I put in 
 hastily. 
 
 My dear, he understood me at once. 
 
 " I know very well," he said, with the humblest glance at 
 me, " that whether she is there or not makes no difference. 
 Unseen of men, we are still in the presence of God, and our 
 own esteem is not less important to us than that of the world." 
 
 " Thank you, Felipe," I said, holding out my hand to him 
 with a gesture which you ought to see. "A woman, and I 
 am nothing if not a woman, is on the road to loving the man 
 who understands her. Oh! only on the road," I went on, 
 with a finger on my lips. " Don't let your hopes carry you 
 beyond what I say. My heart will belong only to the man 
 who can read it and know its every turn. Our views, without 
 being absolutely identical, must be the same in their breadth 
 and elevation. I have no wish to exaggerate my own merits ; 
 doubtless what seem virtues in my eyes have their corre- 
 sponding defects. All I can say is, I should be heartbroken 
 without them." 
 
 " Having first accepted me as your servant, you now permit 
 me to love you," he said, trembling and looking in my face 
 at each word. "My first prayer has been more than an- 
 swered." 
 
 "But," I hastened to reply, "your position seems to me 
 a better one than mine. I should not object to change places, 
 and this change it lies with you to bring about." 
 
 "In my turn, I thank you," he replied. "I know the 
 duties of a faithful lover. It is mine to prove that I .am 
 worthy of you ; the trials shall be as long as you choose to 
 make them. If I belie your hopes, you have only God ! 
 that I should say it to reject me." 
 
 "I know that you love me," I replied. " So far," with a 
 16
 
 242 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 cruel emphasis on the words, " you stand first in my regard. 
 Otherwise you would not be here." 
 
 Then we began again to walk up and down as we talked, and I 
 must say that so soon as my Spaniard had recovered himself 
 he put forth the genuine eloquence of the heart. It was not 
 passion it breathed, but a marvelous tenderness of feeling, 
 which he beautifully compared to the divine love. His 
 thrilling voice, which lent an added charm to thoughts, in 
 themselves so exquisite, reminded me of the nightingale's 
 note. He spoke low, using only the middle tones of a fine 
 instrument, and words flowed upon words with the rush of a 
 torrent. It was the overflow of the heart. 
 
 " No more," I said, " or I shall not be able to tear myself 
 away." 
 
 And with a gesture I dismissed him. 
 
 "You have committed yourself now, mademoiselle," said 
 Griffith. 
 
 "In England that might be so, but not in France," I 
 replied with nonchalance. " I intend to make a love match, 
 and am feeling my way that is all." 
 
 You see, dear, as love did not come to me, I had to do as 
 Mahomet did with the mountain. 
 
 Friday. 
 
 Once more I have seen my slave. He has become very 
 timid, and puts on an air of pious devotion, which I like, for it 
 seems to say that he feels my power and fascination in every 
 fibre. But nothing in his look or manner can rouse in these 
 society sibyls any suspicion of the boundless love which I see. 
 Don't suppose though, dear, that I am carried away, mastered, 
 tamed ; on the contrary, the taming, mastering, and carrying 
 away are on my side. In short, I am quite capable of reason. 
 Oh ! to feel again the terror of that fascination in which I 
 was held by the schoolmaster, the plebeian, the man I kept at 
 a distance !
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 243 
 
 The fact is that love is of two kinds one which commands, 
 and one which obeys. The two are quite distinct, and the 
 passion to which the one gives rise is not the passion of the 
 other. To get her full of life, perhaps, a woman ought to 
 have experience of both. Can the two passions ever coexist ? 
 Can the man in whom we inspire love inspire it in us ? Will 
 the day ever come when Felipe is my master ? Shall I tremble 
 then, as he does now ? These are questions which make me 
 shudder. 
 
 He is very blind ! In his place I should have thought Mile. 
 de Chaulieu, meeting me under the limes, a cold, calculating 
 coquette, with starched manners. No, that is not love, it is 
 playing with fire. I am still fond of Felipe, but I am calm 
 and at my ease with him now. No more obstacles ! What a 
 terrible thought ! It is all ebb-tide within, and I fear to 
 question my heart. His mistake was in concealing the ardor 
 of his love ; he ought to have forced my self-control. 
 
 In a word, I was naughty, and I have not got the reward 
 such naughtiness brings. No, dear one, however sweet the 
 memory of that half-hour beneath the trees, it is nothing like 
 the excitement of the old time with its: " Shall I go? Shall 
 I not go? Shall I write to him ? Shall I not write? " 
 
 Is it thus with all our pleasures ? Is suspense better than 
 enjoyment ? Hope than fruition ? Is it the rich who in very 
 truth are the poor? Have we not both perhaps exaggerated 
 feeling by giving to imagination too free a rein ? There are 
 times when this thought freezes me. Shall I tell you why? 
 Because I am meditating another visit to the bottom of the 
 garden without Griffith. Where should I get to then? 
 How far could I go in this direction ? Imagination knows 
 no limit, but it is not so with pleasure. Tell me, dear be- 
 corseted philosopher, how can one reconcile the two goals of 
 a woman's existence? One thing is certain, things are most 
 unsatisfactory as they are.
 
 244 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 XXII. 
 LOUISE TO FELIPE. 
 
 I am not pleased with you. If you did not cry over 
 Racine's "Berenice," and feel it to be the most terrible of 
 tragedies, there is no kinship in our souls ; we shall never get 
 on together, and had better break off at once. Let us meet 
 no more. Forget me; for if I do not have a satisfactory 
 reply, I shall forget you. You will become M. le Baron de 
 Macumer for me, or rather you will cease to be at all. 
 
 Yesterday at Mme. d'Espard's you had a self-satisfied air 
 which disgusted me. No doubt, apparently, about your con- 
 quest I In sober earnest, your self-possession alarms me. 
 Not a trace in you of the humble slave of your first letter. 
 Far from betraying the absent-mindedness of a lover, you 
 polished epigrams ! This is not the attitude of a true believer, 
 always prostrate before his divinity. 
 
 If you do not feel me to be the very breath of your life, a 
 being nobler than other women, and to be judged by other 
 standards, then I must be less than a woman in your sight. 
 You have roused in me a spirit of mistrust, Felipe, and its 
 angry mutterings have drowned the accents of tenderness. 
 When I look back upon what has passed between us, I feel in 
 truth that I have a right to be suspicious. For know, Prime 
 Minister of all the Spains, that I have reflected much on the 
 defenseless condition of our sex. My innocence has held a 
 torch, and my fingers are not burnt. 
 
 Let me repeat to you, then, what my youthful experience 
 taught me. 
 
 In all other matters, duplicity, faithlessness, and broken 
 pledges are brought to book and punished ; but not so with 
 love, which is at once the victim, the accuser, the counsel, 
 judge, and executioner. The crudest treachery, the most
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 245 
 
 heartless crimes, are those which remain for ever concealed, 
 with two hearts alone for witness. How indeed should the 
 victim proclaim them without injury to herself? Love, there- 
 fore, has its own code, its own penal system, with which the 
 world has no concern. 
 
 Now, for my part, I have resolved never to pardon a serious 
 misdemeanor, and in love, pray, what is not serious ? Yester- 
 day you had all the air of a man successful in his suit. You 
 would be wrong to doubt it ; and yet, if this assurance robbed 
 you of the charming simplicity which sprang from uncertainty, 
 I should blame you severely. I would have you neither bash- 
 ful nor self-complacent ; I would not have you in terror of 
 losing my affection that would be an insult but neither 
 would I have you wear your love lightly as a thing of course. 
 Never should your heart be freer than mine. If you know 
 nothing of the torture that a single stab of doubt brings to the 
 soul, tremble lest I give you a lesson ! 
 
 In a single glance I confided my heart to you, and you read 
 the meaning. The purest feelings that ever took root in a 
 young girl's breast are yours. The thought and meditation 
 of which I have told you served indeed only to enrich the 
 mind ; but if ever the wounded heart turns to the brain for 
 counsel, be sure the young girl would show some kinship with 
 the demon of knowledge and of daring. 
 
 I swear to you, Felipe, if you love me, as I believe you do, 
 and if I have reason to suspect the least falling off in the fear, 
 obedience, and respect which you have hitherto professed, if 
 the pure flame of passion which first kindled the fire of my 
 heart should seem to me any day to burn less vividly, you 
 need fear no reproaches. I would not weary you with letters 
 bearing any trace of weakness, pride, or anger, nor even with 
 one of warning like this. But if I spoke no words, Felipe, 
 my face would tell you that death ^.as near. And yet I should 
 not die till I had branded you with infamy, and sown eternal 
 sorrow in your heart ; you would see the girl you loved dis-
 
 246 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 honored and lost in this world, and know her doomed to 
 everlasting suffering in the next. 
 
 Do not therefore, I implore you, give me cause to envy the 
 old, happy Louise, the object of your pure worship, whose 
 heart expanded in the sunshine of happiness, since, in the 
 words of Dante, she possessed : " Senza brama, sicura ric- 
 chezza ! " I have searched the "Inferno" through to find 
 the most terrible punishment, some torture of the mind to 
 which I might link the vengeance of God. 
 
 Yesterday, as I watched you, doubt went through me like a 
 sharp, cold dagger's point. Do you know what that means ? 
 I mistrusted you, and the pang was so terrible, I could not 
 endure it longer. If my service be too hard, leave it, I would 
 not keep you. Do I need any proof of your cleverness? 
 Keep for me the flowers of your wit. Show to others no fine 
 surface to call forth flattery, compliments, or praise. Come 
 to me, laden with hatred or scorn, the butt of calumny, come 
 to me with the news that women flout you and ignore you, and 
 not one loves you ; then, ah ! then you will know the treasures 
 of Louise's heart and love. 
 
 We are only rich when our wealth is buried so deep that all 
 the world might trample it under foot, unknowing. If you 
 were handsome, I don't suppose I should have looked at you 
 twice, or discovered one of the thousand reasons out of which 
 my love sprang. True, we know no more of these reasons 
 than we know why it is the sun makes the flowers to bloom, 
 and ripens the fruit. Yet I could tell you of one reason very 
 dear to me. 
 
 The character, expression, and individuality that ennoble 
 your face are a sealed book to all but me. Mine is the power 
 which transforms you into the most lovable of men, and that 
 is why I would keep your mental gifts also for myself. To 
 others they should be as meaningless as your eyes, the charm 
 of your mouth and features. Let it be mine alone to kindle 
 the beacon of your intelligence, as I bring the love-light into
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 247 
 
 your eyes. I would have you the Spanish grandee of old days, 
 cold, ungracious, haughty, a monument to be gazed at from 
 afar, like the ruins of some barbaric power, which no one ven- 
 tures to explore. Now, you have nothing better to do than to 
 open up pleasant promenades for the public, and show yourself 
 off a Parisian affability ! 
 
 Is my ideal portrait, then, forgotten? Your excessive 
 cheerfulness was redolent of your love. Had it not been for 
 a restraining glance from me, you would have proclaimed to 
 the most sharp-sighted, keen-witted, and unsparing of Paris 
 salons, that your inspiration was drawn from Armande-Louise- 
 Marie de Chaulieu. 
 
 I believe in your greatness too much to think for a moment 
 that your love is ruled by policy ; but if you did not show a 
 childlike simplicity when with me, I could only pity you. 
 Despite this first fault, you are still deeply admired by 
 
 LOUISE DE CHAULIEU. 
 
 XXIII. \ 
 
 FELIPE TO LOUISE. 
 
 When God beholds our faults, He sees also our repentance. 
 Yes, my beloved mistress, you are right. I felt that I had 
 displeased you, but knew not how. Now that you have ex- 
 plained the cause of your trouble, I find in it fresh motive to 
 adore you. Like the God of Israel, you are a jealous deity, 
 and I rejoice to see it. For what is holier and more precious 
 than jealousy ? My fair guardian angel, jealousy is an ever- 
 wakeful sentinel ; it is to love what pain is to the body, the 
 faithful herald of evil. Be jealous of your servant, Louise, I 
 beg of you ; the harder you strike, the more contrite will he 
 be and kiss the rod, in all submiS^on, which proves that he is 
 not indifferent to you. 
 
 But, alas ! dear, if the pains it cost me to vanquish my
 
 248 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 timidity and master feelings you thought so feeble were in- 
 visible to you, will heaven, think you, reward them? I 
 assure you, it needed no slight effort to show myself to you as 
 I was in the days before I loved. At Madrid I was considered 
 a good talker, and I wanted you to see for yourself the few 
 gifts I may possess. If this were vanity, it has been well 
 punished. 
 
 Your last glance utterly unnerved me. Never had I so 
 quailed, even when the army of France was at the gates of 
 Cadiz and I read peril for my life in the dissembling words of 
 my royal master. Vainly I tried to discover the cause of 
 your displeasure, and the lack of sympathy between us which 
 this fact disclosed was terrible to me. For in truth I have no 
 wish but to act by your will, think your thoughts, see with 
 your eyes, respond to your joy and suffering, as my body 
 responds to heat and cold. The crime and the anguish lay 
 for me in the breach of unison in that common life of feeling 
 which you have made so fair. 
 
 "I have vexed her!" I exclaimed over and over again, 
 like one distraught. My noble, my beautiful Louise, if any- 
 thing could increase the fervor of my devotion or confirm my 
 belief in your delicate moral intuitions, it would be the new 
 light which your words have thrown upon my own feelings. 
 Much in them, of which my mind was formerly but dimly 
 conscious, you have now made clear. If this be designed as 
 chastisement, what can be the sweetness of your dearly antic- 
 ipated rewards? 
 
 Louise, for me it was happiness enough to be accepted as 
 your servant. You have given me the life of which I despaired. 
 No longer do I draw a useless breath, I have something to 
 spend myself for ; my force has an outlet, if only in suffering 
 for you. Once more I say, as I have said before, that you 
 will never find me other than I was when first I offered myself 
 as your lowly bondman. Yes, were you dishonored and lost, 
 to use your own words, my heart would only cling the more
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 249 
 
 closely to you for your self-sought misery. It would be my 
 care to stanch your wounds, and my prayers should im- 
 portune God with the story of your innocence and your 
 wrongs. 
 
 Did I not tell you that the feelings of my heart for you are 
 not a lover's only, that I will be to you father, mother, sister, 
 brother ay, a whole family anything or nothing, as you 
 may decree ? And is it not your own wish which has confined 
 within the compass of a lover's feeling so many varying forms 
 of devotion ? Pardon me, then, if at times the father and 
 brother disappear behind the lover, since you know they are 
 none the less there, though screened from view. Would that 
 you could read the feelings of my heart when you appear be- 
 fore me, radiant in your beauty, the centre of admiring eyes, 
 reclining calmly in your carriage in the Champs-Elysees, or 
 seated in your box at the opera ! Then would you know how 
 absolutely free from selfish taint is the pride with which I hear 
 the praises of your loveliness and grace, praises which warm 
 my heart even to the strangers who utter them ! When by 
 chance you have raised me to elysium by a friendly greeting, 
 my pride is mingled with humility, and I depart as though 
 God's blessing rested on me. Nor does the joy vanish with- 
 out leaving a long track of light behind. It breaks on me 
 through the clouds of my cigarette smoke. More than ever 
 do I feel how every drop of this surging blood throbs for 
 you. 
 
 Can you be ignorant how you are loved ? After seeing you, 
 I return to my study, and the glitter of its Saracenic orna- 
 ments sinks to nothing before the brightness of your portrait, 
 when I open the spring that keeps it locked up from every eye 
 and lose myself in endless musings or link my happiness to 
 verse. From the heights of heaven I look down upon the 
 course of a life such as my hopes dare to picture it ! Have 
 you never, in the silence of the night, or through the roar of 
 the town, heard the whisper of a voice in your sweet, dainty
 
 250 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 ear ? Does no one of the thousand prayers that I speed to 
 you reach home? 
 
 By dint of silent contemplation of your pictured face, I 
 have succeeded in deciphering the expression of every feature 
 and tracing its connection with some grace of the spirit, and 
 then I pen a sonnet to you in Spanish on the harmony of the 
 twofold beauty in which nature has clothed you. These son- 
 nets you will never see, for my poetry is too unworthy of its 
 theme, I dare not send it to you. Not a moment passes with- 
 out thoughts of you, for my whole being is bound up in you, 
 and if you ceased to be its animating principle, every part 
 would ache. 
 
 Now, Louise, can you realize the torture to me of knowing 
 that I had displeased you, while entirely ignorant of the cause ? 
 The ideal double life which seemed so fair was cut short. My 
 heart turned to ice within me as, hopeless of any other ex- 
 planation, I concluded that you had ceased to love me. With 
 heavy heart, and yet not wholly without comfort, I was falling 
 back upon my old post as servant ; then your letter came and 
 turned all to joy. Oh ! might I but listen for ever to such 
 chiding ! 
 
 Once a child, picking himself up from a tumble, turned to 
 his mother with the words "Forgive me." Hiding his own 
 hurt, he sought pardon for the pain he had caused her. 
 Louise, I was that child, and such as I was then, I am now. 
 Here is the key to my character, which your slave in all 
 humility places in your hands. 
 
 But do not fear, there will be no more stumbling. Keep 
 taut the chain which binds me to you, so that a touch may 
 communicate your slightest wish to him who will ever remain 
 your slave, FLIPE.
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 251 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 LOUISE DE CHAULIEU TO RENEE DE I/ESTORADE. 
 
 October, 1825. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND : How is it possible that you, who 
 brought yourself in two months to marry a broken-down in- 
 valid in order to mother him, should know anything of that 
 terrible shifting drama, enacted in the recesses of the heart, 
 which we call love a drama where death lies in a glance or 
 a light reply? 
 
 I had reserved for Felipe one last supreme test which was 
 to be decisive. I wanted to know whether his love was the 
 love of a Royalist for his King, who can do no wrong. Why 
 should the loyalty of a Catholic be less supreme ? 
 
 He walked with me a whole night under the limes at the 
 bottom of the garden, and not a shadow of suspicion crossed 
 his soul. Next day he loved me better, but the feeling was 
 as reverent, as humble, as respectful as ever ; he had not pre- 
 sumed an iota. Oh ! he is a very Spaniard, a very Abencer- 
 rage. He scaled my wall to come and kiss the hand which 
 in the darkness I reached down to him from my balcony. 
 He might have broken his neck ; how many of our young 
 men would do the like ? 
 
 But all this is nothing ; Christians suffer the horrible pangs 
 of martyrdom in the hope of heaven. The day before yester- 
 day I took aside the royal ambassador-to-be at the Court of 
 Spain, my much respected father, and said to him with a 
 smile 
 
 " Sir, some of your friends will have it that you are marry- 
 ing your dear Armande to the nephew of an ambassador who 
 has been very anxious for this connection, and has long begged 
 for it. Also, that the marriage-contract arranges for his 
 nephew to succeed on his death to his enormous fortune and
 
 252 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 his title, and bestows on the young couple in the meantime 
 an income of a hundred thousand livres, on the bride a dowry 
 of eight hundred thousand francs. Your daughter weeps, but 
 bows to the unquestioned authority of her honored parent. 
 Some people are unkind enough to say that, behind her tears, 
 she conceals a worldly and ambitious soul. 
 
 "Now, we are going to the gentleman's box at the opera 
 to-night, and M. le Baron de Macumer will visit us there." 
 
 " Macumer needs a touch of the spur then," said my father, 
 smiling at me, as though I were a female ambassador. 
 
 "You mistake Clarissa Harlowe for Figaro ! " I cried, with 
 a glance of scorn and mockery. " When you see me with my 
 right hand ungloved, you will give the lie to this impertinent 
 gossip, and will mark your displeasure at it." 
 
 " I may make my mind easy about your future. You have 
 no more got a girl's headpiece than Jeanne d'Arc had a 
 woman's heart. You will be happy, you will love nobody, 
 and will allow yourself to be loved." 
 
 This was too much. I burst into laughter. 
 
 "What is it, little flirt?" he said. 
 
 "I tremble for my country's interests " 
 
 And seeing him look quite blank, I added 
 
 "At Madrid!" 
 
 "You have no idea how this little nun has learned, in a 
 year's time, to make fun of her father," he said to the duchess. 
 
 " Armande makes light of everything," my mother replied, 
 looking me in the face. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " I asked. 
 
 " Why, you are not even afraid of rheumatism on these 
 damp nights," she said, with another meaning glance at me. 
 
 " Oh ! " I answered, " the mornings are so hot ! " 
 
 The duchess looked down. 
 
 "It's high time she were married," said my father, "and 
 it had better be before I go." 
 
 "If you wish it," I replied demurely.
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 253 
 
 Two hours later, my mother and I, the Duchesse de Mau- 
 frigneuse and Mme. d'Espard, were all four blooming like 
 roses in the front of the box. I had seated myself sideways, 
 giving only a shoulder to the house, so that I could see every- 
 thing, myself unseen, in that spacious box which fills one of 
 the two angles at the back of the hall, between the columns. 
 
 Macumer came, stood up, and put his opera-glasses before 
 his eyes so that he might be able to look at me comfortably. 
 
 In the first interval entered the young man whom I call 
 "king of the profligates." The Comte Henri de Marsay, 
 who has great beauty of an effeminate kind, entered the box 
 with an epigram in his eyes, a smile upon his lips, and an air 
 of satisfaction over his whole countenance. He first greeted 
 my mother, Mme. d'Espard, and the Duchesse de Maufrig- 
 neuse, the Comte d'Esgrignon, and M. de Canalis; then 
 turning to me, he said 
 
 " I do not know whether I shall be the first to congratulate 
 you on an event which will make you the object of envy to 
 many." 
 
 "Ah ! a marriage ! " I cried. "Is it left for me, a girl 
 fresh from the convent, to tell you that predicted marriages 
 never come off." 
 
 M. de Marsay bent down, whispering to Macumer, and I 
 was convinced, from the movement of his lips, that what he 
 said was this 
 
 "Baron, you are perhaps in love with that little coquette, 
 who has used you for her own ends ; but as the question is 
 one not of love, but of marriage, it is as well for you to know 
 what is going on." 
 
 Macumer treated this officious scandalmonger to one of 
 those glances of his which seemed to me so eloquent of noble 
 scorn, and replied to the effect that he was " not in love with 
 any little coquette." His whole bearing so delighted me, 
 that directly I caught sight of my father, the glove was off. 
 
 Felipe had not a shadow of fear or doubt. How well did
 
 254 LETTERS OF 'TWO BRIDES. 
 
 he bear out my expectations ! His faith is only in me, society 
 cannot hurt him with its lies. Not a muscle of the Arab's 
 face stirred, not a drop of the blue blood flushed his olive 
 cheek. 
 
 The two young counts went out, and I said, laughing, to 
 Macumer 
 
 " M. de Marsay has been treating you to an epigram on 
 me." 
 
 "He did more," he replied. "It was an epithalamium." 
 
 "You speak Greek to me," I said, rewarding him with a 
 smile and a certain look which always embarrasses him. 
 
 My father meantime was talking to Mme. de Maufrigneuse. 
 
 "I should think so ! " he exclaimed. " The gossip which 
 gets about is scandalous. No sooner has a girl come out than 
 every one is keen to marry her, and the ridiculous stories that 
 are invented ! I shall never force Armande to marry against 
 her will. I am going to take a turn in the promenade, other- 
 wise people will be saying that I allowed the rumor to spread 
 in order to suggest the marriage to the ambassador; and 
 Caesar's daughter ought to be above suspicion, even more than 
 his wife if that were possible." 
 
 The Duchesse de Maufrigneuse and Mme. d'Espard shot 
 glances first at my mother, then at the baron, brimming over 
 with sly intelligence and repressed curiosity. With their 
 serpent's cunning they had at last got an inkling of something 
 going on. Of all mysteries in life, love is the least mysterious ! 
 It exhales from women, I believe, like a perfume, and she* 
 who can conceal it is a very monster ! Our eyes prattle even 
 more than bur tongues. 
 
 Having enjoyed the delightful sensation of finding Felipe 
 rise to the occasion, as I had wished, it was only in nature I 
 should hunger for more. So I made the signal agreed on for 
 telling him that he might come to my window by the danger- 
 ous road you know of. A few hours later I found him, up- 
 right as a statue, glued to the wall, his hand resting on the
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 255 
 
 balcony of my window, studying the reflections of the light in 
 my room. 
 
 "My dear Felipe," I said, "you have acquitted yourself 
 well to-night ; you behaved exactly as I should have done had 
 I been told that you were on the point of marrying." 
 
 " I thought," he replied, " that you would hardly have told 
 others before me." 
 
 "And what right have you to this privilege?" 
 
 " The right of one who is your devoted slave." 
 
 "In very truth?" 
 
 "I am, and shall ever remain so." 
 
 "But suppose this marriage were inevitable; suppose that I 
 had agreed " 
 
 Two flashing glances lit up the moonlight one directed to 
 me, the other to the precipice which the wall made for us. 
 He seemed to calculate whether a fall together would mean 
 death ; but the thought merely passed like lightning over his 
 face and sparkled in his eyes. A power, stronger than pas- 
 sion, checked the impulse. 
 
 "An Arab cannot take back his word," he said in a husky 
 voice. " I am your slave to do with as you will; my life is 
 not mine to destroy." 
 
 The hand on the balcony seemed as though its hold were 
 relaxing. I placed mine on it as I said 
 
 "Felipe, my beloved, from this moment I am your wife in 
 thought and will. Go in the morning to ask my father for 
 my hand. He wishes to retain my fortune ; but if you promise 
 to acknowledge receipt of it in the contract, his consent will 
 no doubt be given. I am no longer Armande de Chaulieu. 
 Leave me at once ; no breath of scandal must touch Louise de 
 Macumer." 
 
 He listened with blanched face and trembling limbs, then, 
 like a flash, had cleared the ten feet to the ground in safety. 
 It was a moment of agony, but he waved his hand to me and 
 disappeared.
 
 256 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 " I am loved then," I said to myself, " as never woman was 
 before." And I fell asleep in the calm content of a child, 
 my destiny for ever fixed. 
 
 About two o'clock next day my father summoned me to his 
 private room, where I found the duchess and Macumer. 
 There was an interchange of civilities. I replied quite simply 
 that if my father and M. Henarez were of one mind, I had no 
 reason to oppose their wishes. Thereupon my mother invited 
 the baron to dinner; and, after dinner, we all four went for a 
 drive in the Bois de Boulogne, where I had the pleasure of 
 smiling ironically to M. de Marsay as he passed on horseback 
 and caught sight of de Macumer sitting opposite us beside my 
 father. 
 
 My bewitching Felipe has had his cards reprinted as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 HENAREZ 
 (Baron de Macumer, formerly Due de Soria). 
 
 Every morning he brings me with his own hands a splendid 
 bouquet, in which I never fail to find a letter, containing a 
 Spanish sonnet in my honor, which he has composed during 
 the night. 
 
 Not to make this letter inordinately large, I send you as 
 specimens only the first and last of these sonnets, which I 
 have translated for your benefit, word for word, and line for 
 line: 
 
 FIRST , SONNET. 
 
 Many a time I've stood, clad in thin silken vest, 
 
 Drawn sword in hand, with steady pulse, 
 
 Waiting the charge of a raging bull, 
 
 And the thrust of his horn, sharper-pointed than Phoebe's crescent. 
 
 I've scaled, on my lips the lilt of an Andalnsian dance, 
 The steep redoubt under a rain of fire; 
 I've staked my life upon a hazard of the dice, 
 Careless, as though it were a gold doubloon.
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES, 257 
 
 My hand would seek the ball out of the cannon's mouth, 
 But now meseems 1 grow more timid than a crouching hare, 
 Or a child spying some ghost in the curtain's folds. 
 
 For when your sweet eye rests on me, 
 
 An icy sweat covers my brow, my knees give way, 
 
 I tremble, shrink, my courage gone. 
 
 SECOND SONNET. 
 
 Last night I fain would sleep to dream of thee, 
 But jealous sleep fled my eyelids, 
 I sought the balcony and looked toward heaven, 
 Always my glance flies upward when I think of thee. 
 
 Strange sight ! whose meaning love alone can tell, 
 The sky had lost its sapphire hue, 
 The stars, dulled diamonds in their golden mount, 
 Twinkled no more nor shed their warmth. 
 
 The moon, washed of her silver radiance lily-white, 
 
 Hung mourning over the gloomy plain, for thou hast robbed 
 
 The heavens of all that made them bright. 
 
 The snowy sparkle of the moon is on thy lovely brow, 
 Heaven's azure centres in thine eyes, 
 Thy lashes fall like starry rays. 
 
 What more gracious way of saying to a young girl that 
 she fills your life? Tell me what you think of this love, 
 which expends itself in lavishing the treasures alike of the 
 heart and of the soul. Only within the last ten days have I 
 grasped the meaning of that Spanish gallantry, so famous in 
 old days. 
 
 Ah me ! dear, what is going on now at La Crampade ? 
 
 How often do I take a stroll there, inspecting the growth of 
 
 our crops ! Have you no news to give of our mulberry trees, 
 
 our last winter's plantations? Does everything prosper as 
 
 17
 
 258 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 you wish? And while the buds are opening on our shrubs 
 I will not venture to speak of the bedding-out plants have 
 they also blossomed in the bosom of the wife ? Does Louis 
 continue his policy of madrigals? Do you enter into each 
 other's thoughts? I wonder whether your little runlet of 
 wedded peace is better than the raging torrent of my love ! 
 Has my sweet lady professor taken offense? I cannot believe 
 it ; and if it were so, I should send Felipe off at once, post- 
 haste, to fling himself at her knees and bring back to me my 
 pardon on her head. Sweet love, my life here is a splendid 
 success, and I want to know how it fares with life in Provence. 
 We have just increased our family by the addition of a Spaniard 
 with the complexion of a Havana cigar, and your congratu- 
 lations still tarry. 
 
 Seriously, my sweet Renee, I am anxious. I am afraid lest 
 you should be eating your heart out in silence, for fear of 
 casting a gloom over my sunshine. Write to me at once, 
 naughty child ! and tell me your life in its every minutest 
 detail; tell me whether you still hold back, whether your 
 " independence" still stands erect, or has fallen on its knees, 
 or is sitting down comfortably, which would indeed be serious. 
 Can you suppose that the incidents of your married life are 
 without interest for me ? I muse at times over all that you 
 have said to me. Often when, at the opera, I seem absorbed 
 in watching the pirouetting dancers, I am saying to myself, 
 "It is half-past nine, perhaps she is in bed. What is she 
 about ? Is she happy ? Is she alone with her independence ? 
 or has her independence gone the way of other dead and cast- 
 off independences ? " 
 
 A thousand loves.
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 259 
 
 XXV. 
 
 RENEE DE I/ESTORADE TO LOUISE DE CHAULIEU. 
 
 Saucy girl ! Why should I write ? What can I say ? Whilst 
 your life is varied by social festivities, as well as by the anguish, 
 the quarrels, and the flowers of love all of which you describe 
 so graphically, that I might be watching some first-rate acting 
 at the theatre mine is as monotonous and regular as though 
 it were passed in a convent. 
 
 We always go to bed at nine and get up with daybreak. 
 Our meals are served with a maddening punctuality. Nothing 
 ever happens. I have accustomed myself without much diffi- 
 culty to this mapping out of the day, which perhaps is, after 
 all, in the nature of things. Where would the life of the uni- 
 verse be but for that subjection to fixed laws which, according 
 to the astronomers, so Louis tells me, rule the spheres ! It is 
 not order of which we weary. 
 
 Then I have laid upon myself certain rules of dress, and 
 these occupy my time in the mornings. I hgid it part of my 
 duty as a wife to look as charming as possible. I feel a cer- 
 tain satisfaction in it, and it causes lively pleasure to the good 
 old man and to Louis. After lunch, we walk. When the 
 newspapers arrive, I disappear to look after my household 
 affairs or to read for I read a great deal or to write you. 
 I come back to the others an hour before dinner ; and after 
 dinner we play cards, or receive visits, or pay them. Thus 
 my days pass between a contented old man, who has done 
 with passions, and the man who owes his happiness to me. 
 Louis' happiness is so radiant that it has at last warmed my 
 heart. 
 
 For women, happiness, no doubt, cannot consist in the mere 
 satisfaction of desire. Sometimes, in the evening, when I am 
 not required to take a hand in the game, and can sink back
 
 280 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 in my armchair, imagination bears me on its strong wings 
 into the very heart of your life. Then, its riches, its change- 
 ful tints, its surging passions become my own, and I ask my- 
 self to what end such a stormy preface can lead. May it not 
 swallow up the book itself? For you, my darling, the illusions 
 of love are possible ; for me, only the facts of homely life re- 
 main. Yes, your love seems to me a dream ! 
 
 Therefore I find it hard to understand why you are deter- 
 mined to throw so much romance over it. Your ideal man 
 must have more soul than fire, more nobility and self-command 
 than passion. You persist in trying to clothe in living form 
 the dream of a girl on the threshold of life ; you demand 
 sacrifices for the pleasure of rewarding them ; you submit 
 your Felipe to tests in order to ascertain whether desire, hope, 
 and curiosity are enduring in their nature. But, child, be- 
 hind all your fantastic stage scenery rises the altar, where 
 everlasting bonds are forged. The very morrow of your 
 marriage the graceful structure raised by your subtle strategy 
 may fall before that terrible reality which makes of a girl a 
 woman, of a gallant a husband. Remember that there is no 
 exemption for lovers. For them, as for ordinary folk like 
 Louis and me, there lurks beneath the wedding rejoicings the 
 great "Perhaps" of Rabelais. 
 
 I do not blame you, though, of course, it was rash, for talk- 
 ing with Felipe in the garden, or for spending a night with 
 him, you on your balcony, he on his wall ; but you make a 
 plaything of life, and I am afraid that life may some day turn 
 the tables. I dare not give you the counsel which my own 
 experience would suggest ; but let me repeat once more from 
 the seclusion of my valley that the viaticum of married life 
 lies in these words resignation and self-sacrifice. For, spite 
 of all your tests, your coyness, and your vigilance, I can see 
 that marriage will mean to you what it has been to me. The 
 greater the passion, the steeper the precipice we have hewn 
 for our fall that is the only difference.
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 261 
 
 Oh ! what I would give to see the Baron de Macumer and 
 talk with him for an hour or two ! Your happiness lies so 
 near my heart. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 LOUISE DE MACUMER TO RENEE DE I/ESTORADE. 
 
 March, 1825. 
 
 As Felipe has carried out, with a true Saracenic generosity, 
 the wishes of my father and mother in acknowledging the for- 
 tune he has not received from me, the duchess has become 
 even more friendly to me than before. She calls me little sly- 
 boots, little woman of the world, and says I know how to use 
 my tongue. 
 
 "But, dear mamma," I said to her the evening before the 
 contract was signed, " you attribute to cunning and smartness 
 on my part what is really the outcome of the truest, simplest, 
 most unselfish, most devoted love that ever was ! I assure you 
 that I am not at all the ' woman of the world ' you do me the 
 honor of believing me to be." 
 
 " Come, come, Armande," she said, putting her arm on 
 my neck and drawing me to her, in order to kiss my forehead, 
 "you did not want to go back to the convent, you did not want 
 to die an old maid, and, like a fine, noble-hearted Chaulieu, 
 as you are, you recognized the necessity of building up your 
 father's family." (The duke was listening. If you knew, 
 Renee, what flattery lies for him in these words.) " I have 
 watched you during a whole winter, poking your little nose 
 into all that goes on, forming very sensible opinions about 
 men and the present state of society in France. And you 
 have picked out the one Spaniard capable of giving you the 
 splendid position of a woman who reigns supreme in her own 
 house. My dear little girl, you treated him exactly as Tullia 
 treats your brother."
 
 262 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 " What lessons they give in my sister's convent ! " exclaimed 
 my father. 
 
 A glance at my father cut him short at once ; then, turning 
 to the duchess, I said 
 
 " Madame, I love my future husband, Felipe de Soria, with 
 all the strength of my soul. Although this love sprang up 
 without my knowledge, and though I fought it stoutly when 
 it first made itself felt, I swear to you that I never gave way 
 to it till I had recognized in the Baron de Macumer a character 
 worthy of mine, a heart of which the delicacy, the generosity, 
 the devotion, and the temper are suited to my own." 
 
 " But, my dear," she began, interrupting me, "he is as 
 ugly as " 
 
 "As anything you like," I retorted quickly, "but I love 
 his ugliness." 
 
 "If you love him, Armande," said my father, "and have 
 the strength to master your love, you must not risk your hap- 
 piness. Now, happiness in marriage depends largely on the 
 first days " 
 
 "Days only?" interrupted my mother. Then, with a 
 glance at my father, she continued : " You had better leave us, 
 my dear, to have our talk together." 
 
 "You are to be married, dear child," the duchess then be- 
 gan in a low voice, " in three days. It becomes my duty, 
 therefore, without silly whimpering, which would be unfitting 
 our rank in life, to give you the serious advice which every 
 mother owes to her daughter. You are marrying a man whom 
 you love, and there is no reason why I should pity you or 
 myself. I have only known you for a year ; and if this period 
 has been long enough for me to learn to love you, it is hardly 
 sufficient to justify floods of tears at the idea of losing you. 
 Your mental gifts are even more remarkable than those of your 
 person ; you have gratified maternal pride, and have shown 
 yourself a sweet and loving daughter. I, in my turn, can 
 promise you that you will always find a stanch friend in your
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 263 
 
 mother. You smile ? Alas ! it too often happens that a 
 mother who has lived on excellent terms with her daughter, 
 so long as the daughter is a mere girl, comes to cross-purposes 
 with her when they are both women together. 
 
 " It is your happiness which I want, so listen to my words. 
 The love which you now feel is that of a young girl, and is 
 natural to us all, for it is woman's destiny to cling to a man. 
 Unhappily, pretty one, there is but one man in the world for 
 a woman ! And sometimes this man, whom fate has marked 
 out for us, is not the one whom we, mistaking a passing fancy 
 for love, choose as husband. Strange as what I say may ap- 
 pear to you, it is worth noting. If we cannot love the man 
 we have chosen, the fault is not exclusively ours, it lies with 
 both, or sometimes with circumstances over which we have 
 no control. Yet there is no reason why the man chosen for 
 us by our family, the man to whom our fancy has gone out, 
 should not be the man whom we can love. The barrier which 
 may arise later between husband and wife is often due to lack 
 of perseverance on both sides. The task of transforming a 
 husband into a lover is not less delicate than that other task 
 of making a husband of the lover, in which you have just 
 proved yourself marvelously successful. 
 
 " I repeat it, your happiness is my object. Never allow 
 yourself, then, to forget that the first three months of your 
 married life may work your misery if you do not submit to 
 the yoke with the same forbearance, tenderness, and intelli- 
 gence that you have shown during the days of courtship. 
 For, my little rogue, you know very well that you have in- 
 dulged in all the innocent pleasures of a clandestine love 
 affair. If the culmination of your love begins with disap- 
 pointment, dislike, nay, even with pain, well, come and tell 
 me about it. Don't hope for too much from marriage at first; 
 it will perhaps give you more discomfort than joy. The hap- 
 piness of married life requires at least as patient cherishing as 
 the early shoots of love.
 
 264 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 "To conclude, if by chance you should lose the lover in 
 the husband, you may find in his place the father of your chil- 
 dren. In this, my dear child, lies the whole secret of social life. 
 Sacrifice everything to the man whose name you bear, the man 
 whose honor and reputation cannot suffer in the least degree 
 without involving you in frightful consequences. Such sacrifice 
 is thus not only an absolute duty for women of our rank, it is 
 also their wisest policy. This, indeed, is the distinctive mark 
 of great moral principles, that they hold good and are 
 expedient from whatever aspect they are viewed. But I need 
 say no more to you on this point. 
 
 " I fancy you are of a jealous disposition, and, my dear, if 
 you knew how jealous I am ! But you must not be stupid 
 over it. To publish your jealousy to the world is like playing 
 at politics with your cards upon the table, and those who let 
 their own game be seen learn nothing of their opponents'. 
 Whatever happens, we must know how to endure and suffer in 
 silence." 
 
 She added that she intended having some plain talk about 
 me with Macumer the evening before the wedding. 
 
 Raising my mother's beautiful arm, I kissed her hand and 
 dropped on it a tear, which the tone of real feeling in her 
 voice had brought to my eyes. In the advice she had given 
 me, I read high principle worthy of herself and of me, true 
 wisdom, and a tenderness of heart unspoilt by the narrow 
 code of society. Above all, I saw that she understood my 
 character. These few simple words summed up the lessons 
 which life and experience had brought her, perhaps at a heavy 
 price. She was moved, and said, as she looked at me 
 
 " Dear little girl, you've got a nasty crossing before you. 
 And most women, in their ignorance or their disenchant- 
 ment, are as wise as the Earl of Westmoreland ! " 
 
 We both laughed ; but I must explain the joke. The 
 evening before, a Russian princess had told us an anecdote of 
 this gentleman. He had suffered frightfully from sea-sickness
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 265 
 
 in crossing the Channel, and turned tail when he got near 
 Italy, because he heard some one speak of "crossing" the 
 Alps. " Thank you ; I've had quite enough crossings 
 already," he said. 
 
 You will understand, Renee, that your gloomy philosophy 
 and my mother's lecture were calculated to revive the fears 
 which used to disturb us at Blois. The nearer marriage 
 approached, the more did I need to summon all my strength, 
 my resolution, and my affection to face this terrible passage 
 from maidenhood to womanhood. All our conversations 
 came back to my mind, I re-read your letters and discerned 
 in them a vague undertone of sadness. 
 
 This anxiety had one advantage at least ; it helped me to 
 the regulation expression for a bride pale and shrinking- 
 as commonly depicted. The consequence was that on the day 
 of signing the contract everybody said I looked quite charm- 
 ing and interesting. This morning, at the Mairie, it was an 
 informal business, and only the witnesses were present. 
 
 I am writing this tail to my letter while they are putting 
 out my dress for dinner. We shall be married at midnight at 
 the church of Sainte-Valere, after a brilliant reception. I 
 confess that my fears give me a martyr-like and modest air 
 to which I have no right, but which will be admired why, 
 I cannot conceive. I am delighted to see that poor Felipe is 
 every whit as timorous as I am ; society grates on him, he is 
 like a bat in a glass store. 
 
 "Thank heaven, the day won't last for ever!" he 
 whispered to me in all innocence. In his bashfulness and 
 timidity he would have liked to have no one there. 
 
 The Sardinian ambassador, when he came to sign the con- 
 tract, took me aside in order to present me with a pearl neck- 
 lace linked together by six splendid diamonds a gift from 
 my sister-in-law, the Duchesse de Soria. Along with the 
 necklace was a sapphire bracelet, on the under side of which 
 were engraved the words: "THOUGH UNKNOWN, BELOVED."
 
 266 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 Two charming letters came with these presents, which, how- 
 ever, I would not accept without consulting Felipe. 
 
 " For," I said, " I should not like to see you wearing orna- 
 ments that came from any one but me." 
 
 He kissed my hand, quite moved, and replied 
 " Wear them for the sake of the inscription, and also that 
 the love thus offered is sincere." 
 
 Saturday Evening. 
 
 Here, then, my Rene, are the last words of your girl 
 friend. After the midnight mass, we set off for an estate 
 which Felipe, with kind thought for me, has bought in 
 Nivernais, on the way to Provence. Already my name is 
 Louise de Macumer, but I leave Paris in a few hours as Louise 
 de Chaulieu. However I am called, there will never be for 
 you but one Louise. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 THE SAME TO THE SAME. 
 
 October, 1825. 
 
 I have not written to you, dear, since our marriage, nearly 
 eight months ago. And not a line from you ! Madame, you 
 are inexcusable. 
 
 To begin with, we set off in a post-chaise for the Castle of 
 Chantepleurs, the property which Macumer has bought in 
 Nivernais. It stands on the banks of the Loire, sixty leagues 
 from Paris. Our servants, with the exception of my maid, 
 were there before us, and we arrived, after a very rapid journey, 
 the next evening. I slept all the way from Paris to beyond 
 Montargis. My lord and master put his arm round me and 
 pillowed my head on his shoulder, upon an arrangement of 
 handkerchiefs. This was the one liberty he took ; and the 
 almost motherly tenderness which got the better of his drowsi- 
 ness touched me strangely. I fell asleep then under the fire 
 of his eyes, and awoke to find them still blazing ; the passion- 
 ate gaze remained unchanged, but what thoughts had come
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 267 
 
 and gone meanwhile ! Twice he had kissed me on the fore- 
 head. 
 
 At Briare we had breakfast in the carriage. Then followed 
 a talk like our old talks at Blois, while the same Loire we used 
 to admire called forth our praises, and at half-past seven we 
 entered the noble long avenue of lime-trees, acacias, syca- 
 mores, and larches which leads to Chantepleurs. At eight we 
 dined ; at ten we were in our bedroom, a charming Gothic 
 room, made comfortable with every modern luxury. Felipe, 
 who is thought so ugly, seemed to me quite beautiful in his 
 graceful kindness and the exquisite delicacy of his affection. 
 Of passion, not a trace. All through the journey he might 
 have been an old friend of fifteen years' standing. Later, he 
 has described to me, with all the vivid touches of his first letter, 
 the furious storms that raged within and were not allowed to 
 ruffle the outer surface. 
 
 " So far, I have found nothing very terrible in marriage," 
 I said, as I walked to the window and looked out on the 
 glorious moon which lit up a charming park, breathing of 
 heavy scents. 
 
 He drew near, put his arm again round me, and said 
 
 " Why fear it ? Have I ever yet proved false to my promise 
 in gesture or look ? Why should I be false in the future ? " 
 
 Yet never were words or glances more full of mastery ; his 
 voice thrilled every fibre of my heart and roused a sleeping 
 force ; his eyes were like the sun in power. 
 
 "Oh ! " I exclaimed, " what a world of Moorish perfidy in 
 this attitude of perpetual prostration ! " 
 
 He understood, my dear. 
 
 So, my fair sweet one, if I have let months slip by without 
 writing, you can now divine the cause. I have to recall the 
 girl's strange past in order to explain the woman to myself. 
 Renee, I understand you now. Not to her dearest friend, not 
 to her mother, not, perhaps, even to herself, can a happy 
 bride speak of her happiness. Tin's memory ought to remain
 
 2G8 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 absolutely our own, an added rapture a thing beyond words, 
 too sacred for disclosure ! 
 
 Is it possible that the name of duty has been given to the 
 delicious frenzy of the heart, to the overwhelming rush of 
 passion? And for what purpose? What malevolent power 
 conceived the idea of crushing a woman's sensitive delicacy 
 and all the thousand wiles of her modesty under the fetters of 
 constraint? What sense of duty can force from her these 
 flowers of the heart, the roses of life, the passionate poetry of 
 her nature, apart from love? To claim feeling as a right! 
 Why, it blooms of itself under the sun of love, and shrivels to 
 death under the cold blast of distaste and aversion ! Let love 
 guard his own rights ! 
 
 Oh ! my noble Renee ! I understand you now. I bow to 
 your greatness, amazed at the depth and clearness of your 
 insight. Yes, the woman who has not used the marriage 
 ceremony, as I have done, merely to legalize and publish the 
 secret election of her heart, has nothing left but to fly to 
 motherhood. When earth fails, the soul makes for heaven ! 
 
 One hard truth emerges from all that you have said. Only 
 men who are really great know how to love, and now I under- 
 stand the reason of this. Man obeys two forces one sensual, 
 one spiritual. Weak- or inferior men mistake the first for the 
 last, whilst great souls know how to clothe the merely natural 
 instinct in all the graces of the spirit. The very strength of 
 this spiritual passion imposes severe self-restraint and inspires 
 them with reverence for women. Clearly, feeling is sensitive 
 in proportion to the calibre of the mental powers generally, 
 and this is why the man of genius alone has something of a 
 woman's delicacy. He understands and divines woman, and 
 the wings of passion on which he raises her are restrained by 
 the timidity of the sensitive spirit. But when the mind, the 
 heart, and the senses all have their share in the rapture which 
 transports us ah ! then there is no falling to earth, rather it 
 is to heaven we soar, alas ! for only too brief a visit.
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 269 
 
 Such, dear soul, is the philosophy of the first three months 
 of my married life. Felipe is angelic. Without figure of 
 speech, he is another self, and I can think aloud with him. 
 His greatness of soul passes my comprehension. Possession 
 only attaches him more closely to me, and he discovers in his 
 happiness new motives for loving me. For him, I am the 
 nobler part of himself. I can foresee that years of wedded life, 
 far from impairing his affection, will only make it more 
 assured, develop fresh possibilities of enjoyment, and bind us 
 in more perfect sympathy. What a delirium of joy ! 
 
 It is part of my nature that pleasure has an exhilarating 
 effect on me; it leaves sunshine behind, and becomes a part 
 of my inner being. The interval which parts one ecstasy 
 from another is like the short night which marks off our long 
 summer days. The sun which flushed the mountain tops with 
 warmth in setting finds them hardly cold when it rises. What 
 happy chance has given me such a destiny? My mother had 
 roused a host of fears in me ; her forecast, which, though free 
 from the alloy of vulgar pettiness, seemed to me redolent of 
 jealousy, has been falsified by the event. Your fears and hers, 
 my own all have vanished in thin air ! 
 
 We remained at Chantepleurs seven months and a half, for 
 all the world like a couple of runaway lovers fleeing the pa- 
 rental wrath, while the roses of pleasure crowned our love and 
 embellished our dual solitude. One morning, when I was 
 even happier than usual, I began to muse over my lot, and 
 suddenly Ren6e and her prosaic marriage flashed into my 
 mind. It seemed to me that now I could grasp the inner 
 meaning of your life. Oh ! my sweet, why do we speak a 
 different tongue? Your marriage of convenience and my love 
 match are two worlds, as widely separated as the finite from 
 infinity. You still walk the earth, whilst I range the heavens ! 
 Your sphere is human, mine divine ! Love crowned me 
 queen, you reign by reason and duty. So lofty are the regions 
 where I soar, that a fall would shiver me to atoms.
 
 270 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 But no more of this. I shrink from painting to you the 
 rainbow brightness, the profusion, the exuberant joy of love's 
 springtime, as we know it. 
 
 For ten days we have been in Paris, staying in a charming 
 house in the Rue du Bac, prepared for us by the architect to 
 whom Felipe intrusted the decoration of Chantepleurs. I 
 have been listening, in all the full content of an assured and 
 sanctioned love, to that divine music of Rossini's, which used 
 to soothe me when, as a restless girl, I hungered vaguely after 
 experience. They say I am more beautiful, and I have a 
 childish pleasure in hearing myself called " Madame." 
 
 Friday Morning. 
 
 Renee, my fair saint, the happiness of my own life pulls me 
 for ever back to you. I feel that I can be more to you than 
 ever before, you are so dear to me ! I have studied your 
 wedded life closely in the light of my own opening chapters; 
 and you seem to me to come out of the scrutiny so great, so 
 noble, so splendid in your goodness, that I here declare my- 
 self your inferior and humble admirer, as well as your friend. 
 When I think what marriage has been to me, it seems to me 
 that I should have died, had it turned out otherwise. And 
 you live ! Tell me what your heart feeds on ! Never again 
 shall I make fun of you. Mockery, my sweet, is the child of 
 ignorance; we jest at what we know nothing of. "Recruits 
 will laugh where the veteran soldier looks grave," was a re- 
 mark made to me by the Cornte de Chaulieu, that poor cavalry 
 officer whose campaigning so far has consisted in marches from 
 Paris to Fontainebleau and back again. 
 
 I surmise, too, my dear love, that you have not told me all ! 
 There are wounds which you have hidden. You suffer ! I am 
 convinced of it. In trying to make out at this distance and 
 from the scraps you tell me the reasons of your conduct, I 
 have weaved together all sorts of romantic theories about you. 
 " She has made a mere experiment in marriage," I thought
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 271 
 
 one evening, " and what is happiness for me has proved only 
 suffering to her. Her sacrifice is barren of reward, and she 
 would not make it greater than need be. The unctuous 
 axioms of social morality are only used to cloak her disap- 
 pointment." Ah! Renee, the best of happiness is that it 
 needs no dogma and no fine words to pave the way ; it speaks 
 for itself, while theory has been piled upon theory to justify 
 the system of women's vassalage and thralldom. If self-denial 
 be so noble, so sublime, what, pray, of my joy, sheltered by 
 the gold-and-white canopy of the church, and witnessed by 
 the hand and seal of the most sour-faced of mayors ? Is it a 
 thing out of nature? 
 
 For the honor of the law, for her own sake, but most of all 
 to make my happiness complete, I long to see my Renee 
 happy. Oh ! tell me that you see a dawn of love for this 
 Louis who adores you ! Tell me that the solemn, symbolic 
 torch of Hymen has not alone served to lighten your darkness, 
 but that love, the glorious sun of our hearts, pours his rays on 
 you. I come back always, you see, to this midday blaze, 
 which will be my destruction, I fear. 
 
 Dear Renee, do you remember how, in your outbursts of 
 girlish devotion, you would say to me, as we sat under the 
 vine-covered arbor of the convent garden, "I love you so, 
 Louise, that if God appeared to me in a vision, I would pray 
 Him that all the sorrows of life might be mine, and all the 
 joy yours. I burn to suffer for you?" Now, darling, the 
 day has come when I take up your prayer, imploring heaven 
 to grant you a share in my happiness. 
 
 I must tell you my idea. I have a shrewd notion that you 
 are hatching ambitious plans under the name of Louis de 
 1'Estorade. Very good; get him elected deputy at the ap- 
 proaching election, for he will be very nearly forty then ; and 
 as the Chamber does not meet till six months later, he will 
 have just attained the age necessary to qualify for a seat. You 
 will come to Paris there, isn't that enough ? My father, and
 
 272 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES, 
 
 the friends I shall have made by that time, will learn to know 
 and admire you ; and if your father-in-law will agree to found 
 a family, we will get the title of comte for Louis. That is 
 something at least ! And we shall be together. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 RENEE DE L'ESTORADE TO LOUISE DE MACUMER. 
 
 December, 1825. 
 
 My thrice happy Louise, your letter made me dizzy. For 
 a few moments I held it in my listless hands, while a tear or 
 two sparkled on it in the setting sun. I was alone beneath 
 the small barren rock where I have had a seat placed ; far off, 
 like a lance of steel, the Mediterranean shone. The seat is 
 shaded by aromatic shrubs, and I have had a very large jessa- 
 mine, some honeysuckle, and Spanish broom transplanted 
 there, so that some day the rock will be entirely covered with 
 climbing plants. The wild vine has already taken root there. 
 But winter draws near, and all this greenery is faded like a 
 piece of old tapestry. In this spot I am never molested ; it 
 is understood that here I wish to be alone. It is named 
 Louise's seat a proof, is it not, that even in solitude I am 
 not alone here ? 
 
 If I tell you all these details, to you so paltry, and try to 
 describe the vision of green with which my prophetic gaze 
 clothes this bare rock on whose top some freak of nature has 
 set up a magnificent parasol pine it is because in all this I 
 have found an emblem to which I cling. 
 
 It was while your blessed lot was filling me with joy and 
 must I confess it ? with bitter envy too, that I felt the first 
 movement of my child within, and this mystery of physical 
 life reacted upon the inner recesses of my soul. This inde- 
 finable sensation, which partakes of the nature at once of a
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 273 
 
 warning, a delight, a pain, a promise, and a fulfillment ; this 
 joy, which is mine alone, unshared by mortal, this wonder of 
 wonders, has whispered to me that one day this rock shall be 
 a carpet of flowers, resounding to the merry laughter of chil- 
 dren, that I shall at last be blessed among women, and from 
 my womb shall spring forth fountains of life. Now I know 
 what I have lived for ! Thus the first certainty of bearing 
 within me another life brought healing to my wounds. A 
 mighty joy that beggars description has crowned for me those 
 long days of sacrifice, in which Louis had already found his 
 
 joy- 
 Self-sacrifice ! I said to myself, how far does it excel pas- 
 sion ! What pleasure has roots so deep as one which is not 
 personal but creative ? Is not the spirit of devotion a power 
 mightier than any of its results ? Is it not that mysterious, 
 tireless divinity, who hides beneath innumerable spheres in an 
 unexplored centre, through which all worlds in turn must pass ? 
 Sacrifice, solitary and secret, rich in pleasures only tasted in 
 silence, at which none can guess, and no profane eye has ever 
 seen ; sacrifice devotion jealous God and tyrant, God of 
 strength and victory, exhaustless spring which, partaking of 
 the very essence of all that exists, can by no expenditure be 
 drained below its own level; sacrifice, there is the keynote 
 of my life. 
 
 For you, Louise, love is but the reflex of Felipe's passion ; 
 the life which I shed upon my little ones will come back to 
 me in ever-growing fullness. The plenty of your golden 
 harvest will pass ; mine, though late, will be but the more 
 enduring, for each hour will see it renewed. Love may be 
 the fairest gem which society has filched from nature ; but 
 what is motherhood save nature in her most gladsome mood ? 
 A smile has dried my tears. Love makes my Louis happy, 
 but marriage has made me a mother, and who shall say I am 
 not happy too ? 
 
 Selfishness is dead within me. 
 18
 
 274 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 With slow steps, then, I returned to my white grange, with 
 its green blinds, to write you these thoughts. 
 
 So it is, darling, that the most marvelous, and yet the sim- 
 plest, process of nature has been going on in me for five 
 months ; and yet in your ear let me whisper it so far it 
 agitates neither my heart nor my understanding. I see all 
 around me happy ; the grandfather-to-be has become a child 
 again, trespassing on the grandchild's place ; the father wears 
 a grave and anxious look ; they are all most attentive to me, 
 all talk of the happiness of being a mother. Alas ! I alone 
 remain cold, and I dare not tell you how dead I am to all 
 emotion, though I fib a little in order not to dampen the gen- 
 eral satisfaction. But with you I may be frank ; and I confess 
 that, at my present stage, motherhood is a mere affair of the 
 imagination. 
 
 Louis was to the full as much surprised as I was by my 
 pregnancy. Does not this show how little, unless by his im- 
 patient wishes, the father counts for in this matter? Chance, 
 my dear, is the sovereign deity of maternity. My doctor, 
 while maintaining that this accident works in harmony with 
 nature, does not deny that children who are the fruit of pas- 
 sionate love are bound to be richly endowed both physically 
 and mentally, and that often the happiness which shone like 
 a radiant star over their conception seems to watch over them 
 through life. It may be then, Louise, that motherhood re- 
 serves joys for you which I can never know. It may be that 
 the feeling of a mother for the child of a man whom she 
 adores, as you adore Felipe, is different from that with which 
 she regards the offspring of reason, duty, or desperation ! 
 
 Thoughts such as these, which I bury in my inmost heart, 
 add to the preoccupation only natural to a woman soon to be 
 a mother. And yet, as no family can exist without children, 
 I long to speed the moment from which the joys of Family, 
 where alone I am to find my life, shall date their beginning. 
 At present I live a life all expectation and mystery, except
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 275 
 
 for a sickening physical discomfort, which no doubt serves 
 to prepare a woman for suffering of a different kind. I watch 
 my symptoms ', and in spite of the attentions and thoughtful 
 care with which Louis' anxiety surrounds me, I am conscious 
 of a vague uneasiness, mingled with nausea, the distaste for 
 food, and abnormal longings common to my condition. If 
 I am to speak candidly, I must confess, at the risk of disgust- 
 ing you with the whole business, to an incomprehensible 
 craving for rotten fruit. My husband goes to Marseilles to 
 fetch the finest oranges the world produces from Malta, Por- 
 tugal, Corsica and these I don't touch. Then I hurry there 
 myself, sometimes on foot, and in a little back street, running 
 down to the harbor, close to the Town Hall, I find wretched, 
 half-putrid oranges, two for a sou, which I devour eagerly. 
 The bluish, greenish shades on the moldy parts sparkle like 
 diamonds in my eyes, they are flowers to me ; I forget the 
 putrid odor, and find them delicious, with a piquant flavor, 
 and stimulating as wine. My dear, they are the first love of 
 my life ! Your passion for Felipe is nothing to this ! Some- 
 times I even slip out secretly and fly to Marseilles, full of 
 passionate longings, which grow more intense as I draw near 
 the street. I tremble lest the woman should be sold out of 
 rotten oranges; I pounce on them and devour them as I 
 stand. It seems to me an ambrosial food, and yet I have 
 seen Louis turn aside unable to bear the smell. Then came 
 to my mind the ghastly words of Obermann in his gloomy 
 elegy, which I wish I had never read: "Roots slake their 
 thirst in foulest streams." Since I took to this diet, the sick- 
 ness has ceased, and I feel much stronger. This depravity of 
 taste must have a meaning, for it seems to be part of a natural 
 process and to be common to most women, sometimes going 
 to most extravagant lengths. 
 
 When my situation is more marked, I shall not go beyond 
 the grounds, for I should not like to be seen under these cir- 
 cumstances. I have the greatest curiosity to know at what
 
 276 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 precise moment the sense of motherhood begins. It cannot 
 possibly be in the midst of frightful suffering, the very thought 
 of which makes me shudder. 
 
 Farewell, favorite of fortune ! Farewell, my friend, in 
 whom I live again, and through whom I am able to picture to 
 myself this brave love, this jealousy all on fire at a look, these 
 whisperings in the ear, these joys which create for women, as 
 it were, a new atmosphere, a new daylight, fresh life ! Ah ! 
 pet, I too understand love. Don't weary of telling me every- 
 thing. Keep faithful to our bond. I promise, in my turn, 
 to spare you nothing. 
 
 Nay to conclude in all seriousness I will not conceal 
 from you that, on reading your letter a second time, I was 
 seized with a dread which I could not shake off. This superb 
 love seems like a challenge to Providence. Will not the 
 sovereign master of this earth, Calamity, take umbrage if no 
 place be left for him at your feast ? What mighty edifice of 
 fortune has he not overthrown ? Oh ! Louise, forget not, in 
 all this happiness, your prayers to God. Do good, be kind 
 and merciful ; let your moderation, if it may be, avert disaster. 
 Religion has meant much more to me since I left the convent 
 and since my marriage; but your Paris news contains no 
 mention of it. In your glorification of Felipe, it seems to 
 me you reverse the saying, and invoke God less than His 
 saint. 
 
 But, after all, this panic is only excess of affection. You 
 go to church together, I do not doubt, and do good in secret. 
 The close of this letter will seem to you very provincial, I 
 expect, but think of the too eager friendship which prompts 
 these fears a friendship of the type of La Fontaine's, which 
 takes alarm at dreams, at half-formed, misty ideas. You de- 
 serve to be happy, since, through it all, you still think of me, 
 no less than I think of you, in my monotonous life, which, 
 though it lacks color, is yet not empty, and, if uneventful, 
 is not unfruitful. And so, God bless you 1
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 277 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 M. DE L'ESTORADE TO THE BARONNE DE MACUMER. 
 
 December, 1825. 
 
 MADAME : It is the desire of my wife that you should not 
 learn first from the formal announcement, a billet de fair e part, 
 of an event which has filled us with much happiness. Ren6e 
 has just given birth to a fine boy, whose baptism we are post- 
 poning till your return to Chantepleurs. Ren6e and I both 
 earnestly hope that you may push on as far as La Crampade, 
 and will consent to act as godmother to our firstborn. In 
 this hope, I have had him placed on the register under the 
 name of Armand-Louis de 1'Estorade. 
 
 Our dear Renee suffered much, but bore it with angelic 
 patience. You, who know her, will easily understand that the 
 assurance of bringing happiness to us all supported her through 
 this trying apprenticeship to motherhood. 
 
 Without indulging in the more or less ludicrous exaggera- 
 tions to which the novel sensation of being a father is apt to 
 give rise, I may tell you that little Armand is a beautiful in- 
 fant, and you will have no difficulty in believing it when I 
 add that he has Renee's features and eyes. So far, at least, 
 this gives proof of intelligence ! 
 
 The physician and accoucheur assure us that Renee is now 
 quite out of danger ; and as she is proving an admirable nurse 
 nature has endowed her so generously ! my father and I 
 are able to give free rein to our joy. Madame, may I be 
 allowed to express the hope that this happiness, so vivid and 
 intense, which has brought fresh life into our house, and has 
 changed the face of existence for my dear wife, may ere long 
 be yours? 
 
 Renee has had a suite of rooms prepared, and I only wish I 
 could make them worthy of our guests. But the cordial
 
 278 LETTERS OF 7 WO BRIDES. 
 
 friendliness of the reception which awaits you may perhaps 
 atone for any lack of splendor. 
 
 I have heard from Renee, madame, of your kind thought in 
 regard to us, and I take this opportunity of thanking you for 
 it, the more gladly because nothing could now be more ap- 
 propriate. The birth of a grandson has reconciled my father 
 to sacrifices which bear hardly on an old man. He has just 
 bought two estates, and La Crampade is now a property with 
 an annual rental of thirty thousand francs. My father intends 
 asking the King's permission to form an entailed estate of it ; 
 and if you are good enough to get for him instead of me the 
 title of which you spoke in your last letter, you will have 
 already done much for your godson. 
 
 For my part, I shall carry out your suggestion solely with 
 the object of bringing you and Ren6e together during the ses- 
 sions of the Chamber. I am working hard with the view of 
 becoming what is called a specialist. But nothing could give 
 me greater encouragement in my labors than the thought that 
 you will take an interest in my little Armand. Come, then, 
 we beg of you, and with your beauty and your grace, your 
 playful fancy and your noble soul, enact the part of good fairy 
 to my son and heir. You will thus, madame, add undying 
 gratitude to the respectful affection of 
 
 Your very humble, obedient servant, 
 
 Louis DE L'ESTORADE. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 LOUISE DE MACUMER TO RENEE DE L'ESTORADE. 
 
 January, 1826. 
 
 Macumer has just wakened me, darling, with your husband's 
 letter. First and foremost Yes. We shall be going to 
 Chantepleurs about the end of April. To me it will be a 
 piling up of pleasure to travel, to see you, and to be the god-
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 279 
 
 mother of your first child. I must, please, have Macurner for 
 godfather. To take part in a ceremony of the church with 
 another as my partner would be hateful to me. Ah ! if you 
 could see the look he gave me as I said this, you would know 
 what store this angel of lovers sets on his wife ! 
 
 " I am the more bent on our visiting La Crampade together, 
 Felipe," I went on, " because I might have a child there. I 
 too, you know, would be a mother, though, most surely, I 
 should be terribly torn between a child and you. To begin 
 with, if I saw any creature were it even my own son tak- 
 ing my place in your heart, I couldn't answer for the conse- 
 quences. Medea may have been right after all. The Greeks 
 had some good notions ! " 
 
 And he laughed. 
 
 So, my sweetheart, you have the fruit without the flowers ; 
 I the flowers without the fruit. The contract in our lives still 
 holds good. Between the two of us we have surely enough 
 philosophy to find the moral of it some day. Bah ! only ten 
 months married ! there's not much time lost. Too soon, you 
 will admit, to give up hope. 
 
 We are leading a gay, yet far from empty life, as is the way 
 with happy people. The days are never long enough for us. 
 Society, seeing me in the trappings of a married woman, pro- 
 nounces the Baronne de Macumer much prettier than Louise de 
 Chaulieu ; a happy love is a most becoming cosmetic. When 
 Felipe and I drive along the Champs-Elysees in the bright 
 sunshine of a crisp January day, beneath the trees, frosted 
 with clusters of white stars, and face all Paris on the spot 
 where last year we met with a gulf between us, the contrast 
 calls up a thousand fancies. Suppose, after all, your last let- 
 ter should be right in its forecast, and we are too presump- 
 tuous ! 
 
 If I am ignorant of a mother's joys, you shall tell me 
 about them ; I will learn by sympathy. But my imagination 
 can picture nothing to equal the rapture of love. You will
 
 280 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 laugh at my extravagance ; but, I assure you, that a dozen 
 times in as many months the longing has seized me to die at 
 thirty, while life was still untarnished, amidst the roses of 
 love, in the embrace of passion. To bid farewell to the feast 
 at its brightest, before disappointment has come, having lived 
 in this sunshine and celestial air, and well-nigh spent myself 
 in love, not a leaf dropped from my crown, not an illusion 
 perished in my heart, what a dream is there ! Think what it 
 would be to bear about a young heart in an aged body, to see 
 only cold, dumb faces around me, where even strangers used 
 to smile ; to be a worthy matron ! Can hell have a worse 
 torture? 
 
 On this very subject, in fact, Felipe and I have had our 
 first quarrel. I contended that he ought to have sufficient 
 moral strength to kill me in my sleep when I have reached 
 thirty, so that I might pass from one dream to another. The 
 wretch declined. I threatened to leave him alone in the 
 world, and, poor child, he turned white as a sheet. My 
 dear, this distinguished statesman is neither more nor less than a 
 baby in my hands. It is incredible what youth and simplic- 
 ity he contrived to hide away. Now that I allow myself to 
 think aloud with him, as I do with you, and have no secrets 
 from him, we are always amazing each other. 
 
 Dear Renee, Felipe and Louise, the pair of lovers, want to 
 send a present to the young mother. We would like to get 
 something that would give you pleasure, and we don't share 
 the vulgar taste for "surprises;" so tell me quite frankly, 
 please, what you would like. It ought to be something which 
 would recall us to you in a pleasant way, something which 
 you will use every day, and which won't wear out with use. 
 The meal which with us is most cheerful and friendly is lunch, 
 and therefore the idea occurred to me of a special luncheon 
 service, ornamented with figures of babies. If you approve 
 of this, let me know at once ; for it will have to be ordered 
 immediately if we are to bring it. Parisian artists are gentle-
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 281 
 
 men of far too much importance to be hurried, they are like 
 the sluggard king. This will be my offering to Lucina. 
 
 Farewell, dear wet-nurse. May all a mother's delights be 
 yours ! I await with impatience your first letter, which will 
 tell me all about it, I hope. Some of the details in your 
 husband's letter went to my heart. Poor Ren6e, a mother 
 has a heavy price to pay. I will tell my godson how dearly 
 he must love you. 
 
 A thousand kisses, mon ange. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 RENEE DE L'ESTORADE TO LOUISE DE MACUMER. 
 
 It is nearly five months now since baby was born, and not 
 once, dear heart, have I found a single moment for writing 
 you. When you are a mother yourself, you will be more ready 
 to excuse me than you are now ; for you have punished me a 
 little bit in making your own letters so few and far between. 
 Do write, my darling ! Tell me of your pleasures ; lay on the 
 ultramarine as brightly as you please. It will not hurt me, 
 for I am happy now happier than you can imagine. 
 
 I went in state to the parish church to hear the mass for 
 recovery from childbirth, as is the custom in the old families 
 of Provence. I was supported on either side by the two grand- 
 fathers Louis' father and my own. Never had I knelt before 
 God with such a flood of gratitude in my heart. I have so 
 much to tell you, so many feelings to describe, that I don't 
 know where to begin ; but from amidst these confused mem- 
 ories, one rises distinctly, radiantly that of my prayer in the 
 church. 
 
 When I found myself transformed into a joyful mother, on 
 the very spot where, as a girl, I had trembled for my future, 
 it seemed to my fancy the Virgin on the altar bowed her head 
 and pointed to the infant Christ, who smiled at me ! My
 
 282 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 heart full of pure and heavenly love, I held out little Armand 
 for the priest to bless and bathe, in anticipation of the regular 
 baptism to come later. But you will see us together then, 
 Armand and me. 
 
 My child see how readily the word comes, and indeed 
 there is none sweeter to a mother's heart and mind or on her 
 lips well, then, dear child, during the last two months I used 
 to drag myself wearily and heavily about the gardens, not 
 realizing yet how precious was the burden, spite of all the 
 discomforts it brought ! I was haunted by forebodings so 
 gloomy and ghastly, that they got the better even of curiosity ; 
 in vain did I reason with myself that no natural function 
 could be so very terrible, in vain did I picture the delights of 
 motherhood. My heart made no response even to the thought 
 of the little one, who announced himself by lively kicking. 
 That is a sensation, dear, which may be welcome when it is 
 familiar ; but as a novelty, it is more strange than pleasing. I 
 speak for myself at least ; you know I would never affect any- 
 thing I did not really feel, and I look on my child as a gift 
 straight from heaven. For one who saw in it rather the image 
 of the man she loved, it might be different. 
 
 But enough of such sad thoughts, gone, I trust, forever. 
 
 When the crisis came, I summoned all my powers of resist- 
 ance, and braced myself so well for suffering, that I bore the 
 horrible agony so they tell me quite marvelously. For 
 about an hour I sank into a sort of stupor, of the nature of a 
 dream. I seemed to myself then two beings an outer cover- 
 ing racked and tortured by red-hot pincers, and a soul at 
 peace. In this strange state the pain formed itself into a sort 
 of halo hovering over me. A gigantic rose seemed to spring 
 out of my head and grow ever larger and larger, till it enfolded 
 me in its blood-red petals. The same color dyed the air 
 around, and everything I saw was blood-red. At last the 
 climax came, when soul and body seemed no longer able 
 to hold together; the spasms of pain gripped me like death
 
 LETTERS OP TWO BRIDES. 283 
 
 itself. I screamed aloud, and found fresh strength against 
 this further torture. Suddenly this concert of hideous cries 
 was overborne by a joyful sound the shrill wail of the new- 
 born infant. No words can describe that moment. It was as 
 though the universe took part in my cries, when all at once 
 the chorus of pain fell hushed before the child's feeble note. 
 
 They laid me back again in the large bed, and it felt like 
 paradise to me, even in my extreme exhaustion. Three or 
 four happy faces pointed through tears to the child. My 
 dear, I was horrified. 
 
 " It's just like a little monkey ! " I cried. "Are you really 
 and truly certain it is a child ? " 
 
 I fell back on my side, miserably disappointed at my first 
 experience of motherly feeling. 
 
 "Don't worry, dear," said my mother, who had installed 
 herself as nurse. " Why, you've got the finest baby in the 
 world. You mustn't excite yourself; but give your whole 
 mind now to turning yourself as much as possible into an 
 animal, a milch cow, pasturing in the meadow." 
 
 I fell asleep then, fully resolved to let nature have her 
 way. 
 
 Ah ! my sweet, how heavenly it was to waken up from all 
 the pain and haziness of the first days, when everything was 
 still dim, uncomfortable, confused. A ray of light pierced 
 the darkness ; my heart and soul, my inner self a self I had 
 never known before rent the envelope of gloomy suffering, 
 as a flower bursts its calyx at the first warm kiss of the sun, 
 at the moment when the little wretch fastened on my breast 
 and sucked. Not even the sensation of the child's first cry 
 was so exquisite as this. This is the dawn of motherhood, this 
 is the Fiat lux ! 
 
 Here is happiness, joy ineffable, though it comes not with- 
 out pangs. Oh ! my sweet jealous soul, how you will relish a 
 delight which exists only for ourselves, the child, and God ! 
 For this tiny creature all knowledge is summed up in its
 
 284 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 mother's breast. This is the one bright spot in its world, 
 toward which its puny strength goes forth. Its thoughts 
 cluster round this spring of life, which it leaves only to sleep, 
 and whither it returns on waking. Its lips have a sweetness 
 beyond words, and their pressure is at once a pain and a 
 delight, a delight which by very excess becomes pain, or a 
 pain which culminates in delight. The sensation which rises 
 from it, and which penetrates to the very core of my life, 
 baffles all description. It seems a sort of centre whence a 
 myriad joy-bearing rays gladden the heart and soul. To 
 bear a child is nothing ; to nourish it is birth renewed every 
 hour. 
 
 Oh ! Louise, there is no caress of lover with half the power 
 of those little pink hands, as they stray about, seeking whereby 
 to lay hold on life. And the infant glances, now turned upon 
 the breast, now raised to meet our own ! What dreams come 
 to us as we watch the clinging nursling! All our powers, 
 whether of mind or body, are at its service ; for it we breathe 
 and think, in it our longings are more than satisfied ! The 
 sweet sensation of warmth at the heart, which the sound of 
 his first cry brought to me like the first ray of sunshine on 
 the earth came again as I felt the milk flow into his mouth, 
 again as his eyes met mine, and at this moment I have felt it 
 once more as his first smile gave token of a mind working 
 within for he has laughed, my dear ! A laugh, a glance, a 
 bite, a cry four miracles of gladness which go straight to the 
 heart and strike chords that respond to no other touch. A 
 child is tied to our heartstrings, as the spheres are linked to 
 their creator; we cannot think of God except as a mother's 
 heart writ large. There is nothing visible, nothing perceptible 
 in conception, nor even in pregnancy; it is only in the act of 
 nursing that a woman realizes her motherhood in visible and 
 tangible fashion ; it is a joy of every moment. The milk be- 
 comes flesh before our eyes ; it blossoms into the tips of those 
 delicate flower-like fingers ; it expands in tender, transparent
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 285 
 
 nails ; it spins the silky tresses ; it kicks in the little feet. 
 Oh ! those baby feet, how plainly they talk to us ! In them 
 the child finds its first language. 
 
 Yes, Louise, to feed, to suckle ! is a miracle of transforma- 
 tion going on before one's bewildered eyes. Those cries, 
 they go to your heart and not your ears ; those smiling eyes 
 and lips, those plunging feet, they speak in words which could 
 not be plainer if God traced them before you in letters of 
 fire ! What else is there in the world to care about ? The 
 father? Why, you could kill him if he dreamed of waking 
 the baby ! Just as the child is the world to us, so do we 
 stand alone in the world for the child. The sweet conscious- 
 ness of a common life is ample recompense for all the trouble 
 and suffering for suffering there is. Heaven save you, 
 Louise, from ever knowing the maddening agony of a broken 
 breast which gapes afresh with every pressure of the rosy lips, 
 and is so hard to heal the heaviest tax perhaps imposed on 
 beauty. For know, Louise, and beware ! it visits only a fair 
 and delicate skin. 
 
 My little ape has in five months developed into the prettiest 
 darling that ever mother bathed in tears of joy, washed, 
 brushed, combed, and made smart ; for God knows what un- 
 wearied care we lavish upon these tender blossoms ! So my 
 monkey has ceased to exist, and behold in his stead a " baby," 
 as my English nurse calls him, a regular pink-and-white baby. 
 He cries very little too now, for he is conscious of the love 
 bestowed on him ; indeed, I hardly ever leave him, and I 
 strive to wrap him around in the atmosphere of my love. 
 
 Dear, I have a feeling now for Louis which is not love, but 
 which ought to be the crown of a woman's love where it 
 exists. Nay, I am not sure whether this tender fondness, this 
 unselfish gratitude, is not superior to love. From all that you 
 have told me of it, dear pet, I gather that love has something 
 terribly earthly about it, whilst a strain of holy piety purifies 
 the affection a happy mother feels for the author of her far-
 
 286 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 reaching and enduring joys. A mother's happiness is like a 
 beacon, lighting up the future but reflected also on the past in 
 the guise of fond memories. 
 
 The old 1'Estorade and his son have, moreover, redoubled 
 their devotion to me ; I am like a new person to them. Every 
 time they see me and speak to me, it is with a fresh holiday 
 joy, which touches me deeply. The grandfather has, I verily 
 believe, turned child again ; he looks at me admiringly, and 
 the first time I came down to lunch he was moved to tears to 
 see me eating and suckling his grandson. The moisture in 
 these dry old eyes, generally expressive only of avarice, was a 
 wonderful comfort to me. I felt that the good soul entered 
 into my joy. 
 
 As for Louis, he would shout aloud to the trees and stones 
 of the highway that he has a son ; and he spends whole hours 
 watching your sleeping godson. He does not know, he says, 
 when he will grow used to it. These extravagant expressions 
 of delight show me how great must have been their fears and 
 apprehensions beforehand. Louis has confided in me that he 
 had believed himself condemned to be childless. Poor fellcJw ! 
 he has all at once developed very much, and he works even 
 harder than he did. The father in him has quickened his 
 ambition. 
 
 For myself, dear soul, I grow happier and happier every 
 moment. Each hour creates a fresh tie between the mother 
 and her infant. The very nature of my feelings proves to me 
 that they are normal, permanent, and indestructible ; whereas 
 I shrewdly suspect love, for instance, of being intermittent. 
 Certainly it is not the same at all moments, the flowers which 
 it weaves into the web of life are not all of equal brightness; 
 love, in short, can and must decline. But a mother's love 
 has no ebb-tide to fear ; rather it grows with the growth of the 
 child's needs, and strengthens with its strength. Is it not at 
 once a passion, a natural craving, a feeling, a duty, a neces- 
 sity, a joy ? Yes, darling, here is woman's true sphere. Here
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 287 
 
 the passion for self-sacrifice can expend itself, and no jealousy 
 intrudes. 
 
 Here, too, is perhaps the single point on which society and 
 nature are at one. Society, in this matter, enforces the dic- 
 tates of nature, strengthening the maternal instinct by adding 
 to it family spirit and the desire of perpetuating a name, a 
 race, an estate. How tenderly must not a woman cherish the 
 child who has been the first to open up to her these joys, the 
 first to call forth the energies of her nature and to instruct her 
 in the grand art of motherhood ! The right of the eldest, 
 which in the earliest times formed a part of the natural order 
 and was lost in the origins of society, ought never, in my 
 opinion, to have been questioned. Ah ! how much a. mother 
 learns from her child ! The constant protection of a helpless 
 being forces us to so strict an alliance with virtue that a 
 woman never shows to full advantage except as a mother. 
 Then alone can her character expand in the fulfillment of all 
 life's duties and the enjoyment of all its pleasures. A woman 
 who is not a mother is maimed and incomplete. Hasten, 
 then, my sweetest, to fulfill your mission. Your present hap- 
 piness will then be multiplied by the wealth of my delights. 
 
 I had to tear myself from you because your godson was cry- 
 ing. I can hear his cry from the bottom of the garden. But 
 I would not let this go without a word of farewell. I have 
 just been reading over what I have said, and am horrified to 
 see how vulgar are the feelings expressed ! What I feel, 
 every mother, alas ! since the beginning must have felt, I 
 suppose, in the same way, and put into the same words. You 
 will laugh at me, as we do at the na'ive father who dilates on 
 the beauty and cleverness of his (of course) quite exceptional 
 offspring. But the refrain of my letter, darling, is this, and I 
 repeat it : I am as happy now as I used to be miserable. 
 This grange and is it not going to be an estate, a family
 
 288 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 property? has become my land of promise. The desert is 
 past and over. A thousand loves, darling pet. Write to me, 
 for now I can read without a tear the tale of your happy love. 
 Farewell. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 MME. DE MACUMER TO MME. DE L'ESTORADE. 
 
 March, 1826. 
 
 Do you know, dear, that it is more than three months since 
 I have written you or heard from you ? I am the more 
 guilty of the two, for I did not reply to your last, but you 
 don't stand on punctilio surely? 
 
 Macumer and I have taken your silence for consent as 
 regards the baby-wreathed luncheon service, and the little 
 cherubs are starting this morning for Marseilles. It took six 
 months to carry out the design. And so, when Felipe asked 
 me to come and see the service before it was packed, I sud- 
 denly waked up to the fact that we had not interchanged a 
 word since the letter of yours which gave me an insight into 
 a mother's heart. 
 
 My sweet, it is this terrible Paris there's my excuse. 
 What, pray, is yours ? Oh ! what a whirlpool is society ! 
 Didn't I tell you once that in Paris one must be as the Par- 
 isians ?. Society there drives out all sentiment ; it lays an 
 embargo on your time ; and unless you are very careful, soon 
 eats away your heart altogether. What an amazing master- 
 piece is the character of Celimene in Moliere's " Le Misan- 
 thrope ! " She is the society woman, not only of Louis 
 XIV.'s time, but of our own, and of all epochs. 
 
 Where should I be but for my breastplate the love I bear 
 Felipe? This very morning I told him, as the outcome of 
 these reflections, that he was my salvation. If my evenings 
 are a continuous round of parties, balls, concerts, and theatres,
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 289 
 
 at night my heart expands again, and is healed of the wounds 
 received in the world by the delights of the passionate love 
 which await my return. 
 
 I dine at home only when we have friends, so-called, with 
 us, and spend the afternoon there only on my day, for I have 
 a day now Wednesday for receiving. I have entered the 
 lists with Mmes. d'Espard and de Maufrigneuse, and with the 
 old Duchesse de Lenoncourt, and my house has the reputation 
 of being a very lively one. I allowed myself to become the 
 fashion, because I saw how much pleasure my success gave 
 Felipe. My mornings are his ; from four in the afternoon till 
 two in the morning I belong to Paris. Macumer makes an 
 admirable host, witty and dignified, perfect in courtesy, and 
 with an air of real distinction. No woman could help loving 
 such a husband even if she had chosen him without consulting 
 her heart. 
 
 My father and mother have left for Madrid. Louis XVIII. 
 being out of the way, the duchess had no difficulty in obtain- 
 ing from our good-natured Charles X. the appointment of 
 her fascinating poet ; so he is carried off in the capacity of 
 attach^. 
 
 My brother, the Due de Rhetore, deigns to recognize me 
 as a person of mark. As for my younger brother, the Comte 
 de Chaulieu, this dandy warrior owes me everlasting gratitude. 
 Before my father left, he spent my fortune in acquiring for the 
 count an estate of forty thousand francs a year, entailed on the 
 title, and his marriage with Mile, de Mortsauf, an heiress 
 from Touraine, is definitely arranged. The King, in order to 
 preserve the name and titles of the de Lenoncourt and de 
 Givry families from extinction, is to confer these, together 
 with the armorial bearings, by patent on my brother. Cer- 
 tainly it would never have done to allow these two fine names 
 and their splendid motto: Fad em semper monstramus, to 
 perish. Mile, de Mortsauf, who is granddaughter and sole 
 heiress of the Due de Lenoncourt- Givry, will, it is said, in- 
 19
 
 290 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 herit altogether more than one hundred thousand livres a year. 
 The only stipulation my father has made is that the de 
 Chaulieu arms should appear in the centre of the de Lenon- 
 court escutcheon. Thus my brother will be Due de Lenon- 
 court. The young de Mortsauf, to whom everything would 
 otherwise go, is in the last stage of consumption ; his death 
 is looked for every day. The marriage will take place next 
 winter when the family are out of mourning. I am told that 
 I shall have a charming sister-in-law in Mile, de Mortsauf. 
 
 So you see that my father's reasoning is justified. The 
 outcome of it all has won me many compliments, and my 
 marriage is explained to everybody's satisfaction. To com- 
 plete our success, the Prince de Talleyrand, out of affection 
 for my grandmother, is showing himself a warm friend to 
 Macumer. Society, which began by criticising me, has now 
 passed to cordial admiration. 
 
 In short, I now reign a queen where, barely two years ago, 
 I was an insignificant item. Macumer finds himself the object 
 of universal envy, as the husband of " the most charming 
 woman in Paris." At least a score of women, as you know, 
 are always in that proud position. Men murmur sweet things 
 in my ear, or content themselves with greedy glances. This 
 chorus of longing and admiration is so soothing to one's 
 vanity, that I confess I begin to understand the unconscion- 
 able price women are ready to pay for such frail and pre- 
 carious privileges. A triumph of this kind is like strong wine 
 to vanity, self-love, and all the self-regarding feelings. To 
 pose perpetually as a divinity is a draught so potent in its in- 
 toxicating effects that I am no longer surprised to see women 
 grow selfish, callous, and frivolous in the heart of this adora- 
 tion. The fumes of society mount to the head. You lavish 
 the wealth of your soul and spirit, the treasures of your time, 
 the noblest efforts of your will, upon a crowd of people who 
 repay you in smiles and jealousy. The false coin of their 
 pretty speeches, compliments, and flattery is the only return
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 291 
 
 they give for the solid gold of your courage and sacrifices, 
 and all the thought that must go to keep up without flagging 
 the standard of beauty, dress, sparkling talk, and general 
 affability. You are perfectly aware how much it costs, and 
 that the whole thing is a fraud, but you cannot keep out of 
 the vortex. 
 
 Ah ! my sweet dear, how one craves for a real friend ! 
 How precious to me are the love and devotion of Felipe, and 
 how my heart goes out to you ! Joyfully indeed are we pre- 
 paring for our move to Chantepleurs, where we can rest from 
 the comedy of the Rue du Bac and of the Paris drawing-rooms. 
 Having just read your letter again, I feel that I cannot better 
 describe this demoniac paradise than by saying that no woman 
 of fashion in Paris can possibly be a good mother. 
 
 Good-by, then, for a short time, dear one. We shall stay at 
 Chantepleurs only a week at most, and shall be with you about 
 May loth. So we are actually to meet again after more than 
 two years ! What changes since then ! Here we are, both 
 matrons, both in our promised land I of love, you of 
 motherhood. 
 
 If I have not written, my sweetest, it is not because I have 
 forgotten you. And what of the monkey godson ? Is he still 
 pretty and a credit to me? He must be more than nine 
 months old now. I should dearly like to be present when he 
 makes his first steps upon this earth ; but Macumer tells me 
 that even precocious infants hardly walk at ten months. 
 
 We shall have some good gossiping talks there, and "cut 
 pinafores," as the Blois folks say. I shall see, too, whether 
 childbearing "spoils the pattern," as they say. 
 
 P. S. If you deign to reply from your maternal heights, 
 address to Chantepleurs. I am just off.
 
 292 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 MME. DE L'ESTORADE TO MME. DE MACUMER. 
 
 MY CHILD : If ever you become a mother, you will find 
 out that it is impossible to write letters during the first two 
 months of your nursing. Mary, my English nurse, and I are 
 both quite tired out. It is true I had not told you that I was 
 determined to do everything myself. Before the event I had 
 with my own fingers sewn the baby clothes and embroidered 
 and edged with lace the little caps. I am a slave, my pet, a 
 slave day and night. 
 
 To begin with, Master Armand-Louis takes his meals when 
 it pleases him, and that is always ; then he has often to be 
 changed, washed, and dressed. His mother is so fond of 
 watching him asleep, of singing songs to him, of walking him 
 about in her arms on a fine day, that she has little time left 
 to attend to herself. In short, what society has been to you, 
 my child our child has been to me ! 
 
 I cannot tell you how full and rich my life has become, and 
 I long for your coming that you may see for yourself. The 
 only thing is, I am afraid he will soon be teething, and that 
 you will find a peevish, crying baby. So far he has not cried 
 much, for I am always at hand. Babies only cry when their 
 wants are not understood, and I am constantly on the look- 
 out for his. Oh ! my sweet, my heart has opened up so wide, 
 while you allow yours to shrink and shrivel at the bidding of 
 society ! I look for your coming with all a hermit's longing. 
 I want so much to know what you think of 1'Estorade, just as 
 you no doubt are curious for my opinion of Macumer. 
 
 Write to me from your last resting-place. The gentlemen 
 want to go and meet our distinguished guests. Come, Queen 
 of Paris, come to our humble grange, where love at least will 
 greet you !
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES, 293 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 MME. DE MACUMER TO THE VICOMTESSE DE L/ESTORADE. 
 
 April, 1826. 
 
 The name on this address will tell you, dear, that my peti- 
 tion has been granted. Your father-in-law is now Comte de 
 1'Estorade. I would not leave Paris till I had obtained the 
 gratification of your wishes, and I am writing in the presence 
 of the keeper of the seals, who has come to tell me that the 
 patent is signed. 
 
 Good-by for a short time ! 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 THE SAME TO THE SAME. 
 
 MARSEILLES, July. 
 
 I am ashamed to think how my sudden flight from La 
 Crampade will have taken you by surprise. But since I am 
 above all honest, and since I love you not one bit the less, I 
 shall tell you the truth in four words : I am horribly jealous ! 
 
 Felipe's eyes were too often on you. You used to have 
 little talks together at the foot of your rock, which were a 
 torture to me ; and I was fast becoming irritable and unlike 
 myself. Your truly Spanish beauty could not fail to recall to 
 him his native land, and along with it Marie Heredia, and I 
 can be jealous of the past too. Your magnificent black hair, 
 your lovely dark eyes, your brow, where the peaceful joy of 
 motherhood stands out radiant against the shadows which tell 
 of past suffering, the freshness of your southern skin, far fairer 
 than that of a blonde like me, the splendid lines of your figure, 
 the breasts, on which my godson hangs, peeping through the
 
 294 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 lace like some luscious fruit all this stabbed me in the eyes 
 and in the heart. In vain did I stick blue cornflowers in my 
 curls, in vain set off with cherry-colored ribbons the tameness 
 of my pale locks, everything looked washed out when Renee 
 appeared a Renee so unlike the one I expected to find in 
 your oasis. 
 
 Then Felipe made too much of the child, whom I found 
 myself beginning to hate. Yes, I confess it, that exuberance 
 of life which fills your house, making it gay with shouts and 
 laughter I wanted it for myself. I read a regret in Macu- 
 mer's eyes, and, unknown to him, I cried over it two whole 
 nights. I was miserable in your house. You are too beauti- 
 ful as a woman, too triumphant as a mother, for me to endure 
 your company. 
 
 Ah ! you complained of your lot. Hypocrite ! What would 
 you have ? L'Estorade is most presentable ; he talks well ; he 
 has fine eyes ; and his black hair, dashed with white, is very 
 becoming ; his southern manners, too, have something attrac- 
 tive about them. As far as I can make out, he will, sooner or 
 later, be elected deputy for the Bouches-du-Rhone ; in the 
 Chamber he is sure to come to the front, for you can always 
 count on me to promote your interests. The sufferings of his 
 exile have given him that calm and dignified air which goes 
 half-way, in my opinion, to make a statesman. For the whole 
 art of politics, dear, seems to me to consist in looking grave. 
 At this rate, Macumer, as I told him, ought certainly to have 
 a high position in the State. 
 
 And so, having completely satisfied myself of your happi- 
 ness, I fly off contented to my dear Chantepleurs, where Felipe 
 must really achieve his aspirations. I have made up my mind 
 not to receive you there without a fine baby at my breast to 
 match yours. 
 
 Oh ! I know very well I deserve all the epithets you can 
 hurl at me. I am a fool, a wretch, an idiot. Alas ! that is 
 just what jealousy means. I am not vexed with you, but I
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 295 
 
 was miserable, and you will forgive me for escaping from my 
 misery. Two days more, and I should have made an exhibi- 
 tion of myself; yes, there would have been an outbreak of 
 "bad form." 
 
 But in spite of the rage gnawing at my heart, I am glad to 
 have come, glad to have seen you in the pride of your beauti- 
 Tul motherhood, my friend still, as I remain yours in all the 
 absorption of my love. Why, even here at Marseilles, only 
 a step from your door, I begin to feel proud of you and of the 
 splendid mother that you will make. 
 
 How well you judged your vocation ! You seem to me 
 born for the part of mother rather than of lover, exactly as 
 the reverse is true of me. There are women capable of 
 neither, hard-favored or silly women. A good mother and 
 a passionately loving wife have this in common, that they 
 both need intelligence and discretion ever at hand, and an 
 unfailing command of every womanly art and grace. Oh ! 
 I watched you well ; need I add, sly puss, that I admired you 
 too? Your children will be happy, but not spoilt, with your 
 tenderness lapping them around and the clear light of your 
 reason playing softly on them. 
 
 Tell Louis the truth about my going away, but find some 
 decent excuse for your father-in-law, who seems to act as 
 steward for the establishment ; and be careful to do the same 
 for your family a true Provencal version of the Harlowe 
 family. Felipe does not yet know why I left, and he will 
 never know. If he asks, I shall contrive to find some color- 
 able pretext, probably that you were jealous of me ! Forgive 
 me this little conventional fib. 
 
 Good-by. I write in haste, as I want you to get this at 
 lunch-time ; and the postillion, who has undertaken to con- 
 vey it to you, is here refreshing himself while he waits. 
 
 Many kisses to my dear little godson. Be sure you come 
 to Chantepleurs in October. I shall be alone there all the 
 time that Macumer is away in Sardinia, where he is designing
 
 296 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 great improvements in his estate. At least that is his plan for 
 the moment, and his pet vanity consists in having a plan. 
 Then he feels that he has a will of his own, and this makes 
 him very uneasy when he unfolds it to me. Good-by ! 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 THE VICOMTESSE DE L'ESTORADE TO THE BARONNE DE 
 MACUMER. 
 
 DEAR: No words can express the astonishment of all our 
 party when, at luncheon, we were told that you had both 
 gone, and, above all, when the postillion who took you to 
 Marseilles handed me your mad letter. Why, naughty child, 
 it was your happiness, and nothing else, that made the theme 
 of those talks below the rock, on the " Louise." seat, and you 
 had not the faintest justification for objecting to them. 
 Ingrata ! My sentence on you is that you return here at my 
 first summons. In that horrid letter, scribbled on the inn 
 paper, you did not tell me what would be your next stopping 
 place ; so I must address this to Chantepleurs. 
 
 Listen to me, dear sister of my heart. Know, first, that 
 my mind is set on your happiness. Your husband, dear 
 Louise, commands respect, not only by his natural gravity 
 and dignified expression, but also because he somehow im- 
 presses one with the depth of his mind and thoughts. Add 
 to this the splendid power revealed in his piquant plainness 
 and in the fire of his velvet eyes ; and you will understand 
 that it was some little time before I could meet him on those 
 easy terms which are almost necessary for intimate conver- 
 sation. Further, this man has been prime minister, and he 
 idolizes you ; whence it follows that he must be a profound 
 dissembler. To fish up secrets, therefore, from the rocky 
 caverns of this diplomatic soul is a work demanding a skillful 
 hand no less than a ready brain. Nevertheless, I succeeded
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 297 
 
 at last, without rousing my victim's suspicions, in discovering 
 many things of which you, my pet, have no conception. 
 
 You know that, between us two, my part is rather that of 
 reason, yours of imagination : I personify sober duty, you 
 reckless love. It has pleased fate to continue in our lives this 
 contrast in character which was imperceptible to all except 
 ourselves. I am a simple country viscountess, very ambitious, 
 and making it her task to lead her family on the road to pros- 
 perity. On the other hand, Macumer, late Due de Soria, has 
 a name in the world, and you, a duchess by right, reign in 
 Paris, where reigning is no easy matter even for kings. You 
 have a considerable fortune, which will be doubled if Macumer 
 carries out his projects for developing his great estates in 
 Sardinia, the resources of which are matter of common talk at 
 Marseilles. Deny, if you can, that if either has a right to be 
 jealous, it is not you. But, thank God, we have both hearts 
 generous enough to place our friendship beyond reach of such 
 vulgar pettiness. 
 
 I know you, dear ; I know that, ere now, you are ashamed 
 of having fled. But don't suppose that your flight will save 
 you from a single word of the discourse which I had prepared 
 for your benefit to-day beneath the rock. Read carefully then, 
 I beg of you, what I say, for it concerns you even more 
 closely than Macumer, though he also enters largely into my 
 sermon. 
 
 Firstly, my dear, you do not love him. Before two years 
 are over, you will be sick of adoration. You will never look 
 on Felipe as a husband ; to you he will always be the lover 
 whom you can play with, for that is how all women treat their 
 lovers. You do not look up to him, or reverence, or worship 
 'nim as a woman should the god of her idolatry. You see, I 
 have made a study of love, my sweet, and more than once 
 have I taken soundings in the depths of my own heart. Now, 
 as the result of a careful diagnosis of your case, I can say with 
 confidence, this is not love.
 
 298 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 Yes, dear Queen of Paris, you cannot escape the destiny of all 
 queens. The day will come when you will long to be treated 
 as a light-o'-love, to be mastered and swept off your feet by a 
 strong man, one who will not prostrate himself in adoration 
 before you, but will seize your arm roughly in a fit of jealousy. 
 Macumer loves you too fondly ever to be able either to resist 
 you or find fault with you. A single glance from you, a 
 single coaxing word, would melt his sternest resolution. 
 Sooner or later, you will learn to scorn this excessive de- 
 votion. He spoilt you, alas ! just as I used to spoil you at 
 the convent, for you are a most bewitching woman, and there 
 is no escaping your siren-like charms. 
 
 Worse than all, you are candid, and it often happens that 
 our happiness depends on certain social hypocrisies to which 
 you will never stoop. For instance, society will not tolerate a 
 frank display of the wife's power over her husband. The 
 convention is that a man must no more show himself the lover 
 of his wife, however passionately he adores her, than a married 
 woman may play the part of a mistress. This rule you both 
 disregard. 
 
 In the first place, my child, from what you have yourself 
 told me, it is clear that the one unpardonable sin in society 
 is to be happy. If happiness exists, no one must know of it. 
 But this is a small point. What seems to me important is 
 that the perfect equality which reigns between lovers ought 
 never to appear in the case of husband and wife, under pain 
 of undermining the whole fabric of society and entailing 
 terrible disasters. If it is painful to see a man whom nature 
 has made a nonenity, how much worse is the spectacle of a 
 man of parts brought to that position ? Before very long you 
 will have reduced Macumer to the mere shadow of a man. 
 He will cease to have a will and character of his own, and 
 become mere clay in your hands. You will have so com- 
 pletely moulded him to your likeness that your household will 
 consist of only one person instead of two, and that one neces-
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 299 
 
 sarily imperfect. You will regret it bitterly ; but when at 
 last you deign to open your eyes, the evil will be past cure. 
 Do what we will, women do not, and never will, possess the 
 qualities which are characteristic of men, and these qualities 
 are absolutely indispensable to family life. Already Macumer, 
 blinded though he is, has a dim foreshadowing of this future; 
 he feels himself less a man through his love. His visit to 
 Sardinia is a proof to me that he hopes by this temporary 
 separation to succeed in recovering his old self. 
 
 You never scruple to use the power which his love has 
 placed in your hand. Your position of vantage may be read 
 in a gesture, a look, a tone. Oh ! darling, how truly are you 
 the mad wanton your mother called you ! You do not ques- 
 tion, I fancy, that I am greatly Louis' superior. Well, I 
 would ask you, have you ever heard me contradict him? Am 
 I not always, in the presence of others, the wife who respects 
 in him the authority of the family? Hypocrisy ! you will say. 
 Well, listen to me. It is true that if I want to give him 
 any advice which I think may be of use to him, I wait for the 
 quiet and seclusion of our bedroom to explain what I think 
 and wish ; but, I assure you, sweetheart, that even there I 
 never arrogate to myself the place of mentor. If I did not 
 remain in private the same submissive wife that I appear to 
 others, he would lose confidence in himself. Dear, the good 
 we do to others is spoilt unless we efface ourselves so com- 
 pletely that those we help have no sense of inferiority. There 
 is a wonderful sweetness in these hidden sacrifices, and what a 
 triumph for me in your unsuspecting praises of Louis ! There 
 can be no doubt also that the happiness, the comfort, the 
 hope of the last two years have restored what misfortune, 
 hardship, solitude, and despondency had robbed him of. 
 
 This, then, is the sum-total of my observations. At the 
 present moment you love in Felipe, not your husband, but 
 yourself. There is truth in your father's words ; concealed 
 by the spring flowers of your passion lies all a great lady's
 
 300 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 selfishness. Ah ! my child, how I must love you to speak 
 such bitter truths ! 
 
 Let me tell you, if you will promise never to breathe a 
 word of this to the baron, the end of our talk. We had 
 been singing your praises in every key, for he soon discovered 
 that I loved you like a fondly cherished sister, and, having 
 insensibly brought him to a confidential mood, I ventured to 
 say 
 
 "Louise has never yet had to struggle with life. She has 
 been the spoilt child of fortune, and she might yet have to 
 pay for this were you not there to act the part of father as 
 well as lover." 
 
 "Ah! but is it possible? " He broke off abruptly, 
 
 like a man who sees himself on the edge of a precipice. But 
 the exclamation was enough for me. No doubt, if you had 
 stayed, he would have spoken more freely later. 
 
 My sweet, think of the day awaiting you when your hus- 
 band's strength will be exhausted, when pleasure will have 
 turned to satiety, and he sees himself, I will not say degraded, 
 but shorn of his proper dignity before you. The stings of 
 conscience will then waken a sort of remorse in him, all the 
 more painful for you, because you will feel yourself respon- 
 sible, and you will end by despising the man whom you have 
 not accustomed yourself to respect. Remember, too, that 
 scorn with a woman is only the earliest phase of hatred. You 
 are too noble and generous, I know, ever to forget the sacri- 
 fices which Felipe has made for you ; but what further sacri- 
 fices will be left for him to make when he has, so to speak, 
 served up himself at the first banquet? Woe to the man, as 
 to the woman, who has left no desire unsatisfied ! All is over 
 then. To our shame or our glory the point is too nice for 
 me to decide it is of love alone that women are insatiable. 
 
 Oh ! Louise, change yet, while there is still time. If you 
 would only adopt the same course with Macumer that I have 
 done with 1'Estorade, you might rouse the sleeping lion in
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 301 
 
 your husband, who is made of the stuff of heroes. One might 
 almost say that you grudge him his greatness. Would you 
 feel no pride in using your power for other ends than your 
 own gratification, in awakening the genius of a gifted man, 
 as I in raising to a higher level one of merely common 
 parts ? 
 
 Had you remained with us, I should still have written this 
 letter, for in talking you might have cut me short or got the 
 better of me with your sharp tongue. But I know that you 
 will read this thoughtfully and weigh my warnings. Dear 
 heart, you have everything in life to make you happy, do not 
 spoil your chances ; return to Paris, I entreat you, as soon as 
 Macumer comes back. The engrossing claims of society, of 
 which I complained, are necessary for both of you ; otherwise 
 you would spend your life in mutual self-absorption. A mar- 
 ried woman ought not to be too lavish of herself. The mother 
 of a family, who never gives her household an opportunity of 
 missing her, runs the risk of palling on them. If I have 
 several children, as I trust for my own sake I may, I assure 
 you I shall make a point of reserving to myself certain hours 
 which shall be held sacred ; even to one's children one's 
 presence should not be a matter of daily bread. 
 
 Farewell, my dear jealous soul ! Do you know that many 
 women would be highly flattered at having roused this passing 
 pang in you? Alas! I can only mourn, for what is not 
 mother in me is your dear friend. A thousand loves. Make 
 what excuse you will for leaving; if you are not sure of 
 Macumer, I am sure of Louis.
 
 302 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 THE BARONNE DE MACUMER TO THE VICOMTESSE DE 
 L'ESTORADE. 
 
 GENOA. 
 
 Mv BELOVED BEAUTY : I was bitten with the fancy to see 
 something of Italy, and I am delighted at having carried off 
 Macumer, whose plans in regard to Sardinia are postponed. 
 
 This country is simply ravishing. The churches above 
 all, the chapels have a seductive, bewitching air, which must 
 make every female Protestant yearn after Catholicism. Ma- 
 cumer has been received with acclamation, and they are all 
 delighted to have made an Italian of so distinguished a man. 
 Felipe could have the Sardinian embassy at Paris if I cared 
 about it, for I am made much of at Court. 
 
 If you write, address your letters to Florence. I have not 
 time now to go into any details, but I will tell you the story 
 of our travels whenever you come to Paris. We only remain 
 here a week, and then go on to Florence, taking Leghorn on 
 the way. We shall stay a month in Tuscany and a month at 
 Naples, so as to reach Rome in November. Thence we re- 
 turn home by Venice, where we shall spend the first fortnight 
 of December, and arrive in Paris, via Milan and Turin, for 
 January. 
 
 Our journey is a perfect honeymoon ; the sight of new 
 places gives fresh light to our passion. Macumer did not 
 know Italy at all, and we have begun with that splendid Cor- 
 nice road, which might be the work of fairy architects. 
 
 Adieu, darling. Don't be angry if I don't write. It is 
 impossible to get a minute to one's self in traveling ; my whole 
 time is taken up in seeing, admiring, and realizing my im- 
 pressions. But not a word to you of these till memory has 
 given them their proper atmosphere.
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 THE VICOMTESSE DE I/ESTORADE TO THE BARONNE 
 DE MACUMER. 
 
 September. 
 
 MY DEAR LOUISE: There is lying for you at Chantepleurs 
 a full reply to the letter you wrote me from Marseilles. This 
 honeymoon journey, so far from diminishing the fears I there 
 expressed, makes me beg of you to get my letter sent on from 
 Nivernais. 
 
 The Government, it is said, is resolved on dissolution. 
 This is unlucky for the Crown, since the last session of this 
 loyal Parliament would have been devoted to the passing of 
 laws, essential to the consolidation of its power ; and it is not 
 less so for us, as Louis will not be forty till the end of 1827. 
 Fortunately, however, my father has agreed to stand, and he 
 will resign his seat when the right moment arrives. 
 
 Your godson has found out how to walk without his god- 
 mother's help. He is altogether delicious, and begins to 
 make the prettiest little signs to me, which bring home to 
 one that here is really a thinking being, not a mere animal 
 or sucking machine. His smiles are full of meaning. I have 
 been so successful in my profession of nurse that I shall wean 
 Armand in December. A year at the breast is quite enough ; 
 children who are suckled longer are said to grow stupid, and 
 I am all for old-women sayings. 
 
 You must be making a tremendous sensation in Italy, my 
 fair one with the golden locks. A thousand loves.
 
 304 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 THE BARONNE DE MACUMER TO THE VICOMTESSE 
 DE L'ESTORADE. 
 
 Your atrocious letter has reached me here, the steward hav- 
 ing forwarded it by my orders. Oh ! Renee but I will 
 
 spare you the outburst of my wounded feelings, and simply 
 tell you the effect your letter produced. 
 
 We had just returned from a delightful reception given in 
 our honor by the ambassador, where I appeared in all my 
 glory, and Macumer was completely carried away in a frenzy 
 of love which I could not describe. Then I read him your 
 horrible answer to my letter, and I read it sobbing, at the risk 
 of making a fright of myself. My dear Saracen fell at my 
 feet, declaring that you raved. Then he carried me off to the 
 balcony of the palace where we are staying, from which we 
 have a view over part of the city ; there he spoke to me words 
 worthy of the magnificent moonlight scene which lay stretched 
 before us. We both speak Italian now, and his love, told in 
 that voluptuous tongue, so admirably adapted to the expres- 
 sion of passion, sounded in my ears like the most exquisite 
 poetry. He swore that, even were you right in your predic- 
 tions, he would not exchange for a lifetime a single one of 
 our blessed nights and charming mornings. At this reckon- 
 ing he has already lived a thousand years. He is content to 
 have me for his mistress, and would claim no other title than 
 that of lover. So proud and pleased is he to see himself 
 every day the chosen of my heart, that were heaven to offer 
 him the alternative between living as you would have us do 
 for another thirty years with five children, and five years 
 spent amid the dear roses of our love, he would not hesitate. 
 He would take my love, such as it is, and death.
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 305 
 
 While he was whispering this in my ear, his arm round me, 
 my head resting on his shoulder, the cries of a bat, surprised 
 by an owl, disturbed us. This death-cry struck me with such 
 terror that Felipe carried me half-fainting to my bed. But 
 don't be alarmed ! Though this augury of evil still resounds 
 in my soul, I am quite myself this morning. As soon as I 
 was up, I went to Felipe, and, kneeling before him, my eyes 
 fixed on his, hi hands clasped in mine, I said to him : 
 
 " My love, I am a child, and Rene may be right after all. 
 It may be only your love that I love in you ; but at least I 
 can assure you that this is the one feeling of my heart, and 
 that I love you as it is given me to love. But if there be 
 aught in me, in my lightest thought or deed, which jars on 
 your wishes or conception of me, I implore you to tell me, 
 to say what it is. It will be a joy to me to hear you and to 
 take your eyes as the guiding-stars of my life. Ren6e has 
 frightened me, for she is a true friend." 
 
 Macumer could not find voice to reply, tears choked him. 
 
 I can thank you now, Renee. But for your letter I should 
 not have known the depths of love in my noble, kingly 
 Macumer. Rome is the city of love ; it is there that passion 
 should celebrate its feast, with art and religion as confederates. 
 
 At Venice we shall find the Due and Duchesse de Soria. 
 If you write, address now to Paris, for we shall leave Rome in 
 three days. The ambassador's was a farewell party. 
 
 P. S. Dear, silly child, your letter only shows that you 
 knew nothing of love, except theoretically. Learn then that 
 love is a quickening force which may produce fruits so diverse 
 that no theory can embrace or coordinate them. A word 
 this for my little professor with her armor of corsets. 
 20
 
 306 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 XL. 
 
 THE COMTESSE DE L'ESTORADE TO THE BARONNE 
 DE MACUMER. 
 
 January, 1827. 
 
 My father has been elected to the Chamber, my father-iu- 
 law is dead, and I am on the point of my second confine- 
 ment ; these are the chief events marking the end of the year 
 for us. I mention them at once, lest the sight of the black 
 seal should frighten you. 
 
 My dear, your letter from Rome made my flesh creep. 
 You are nothing but a pair of children. Felipe is either a 
 dissembling diplomatist or else his love for you is the love a 
 man might have for a courtesan, on whom he squanders his all, 
 knowing all the time that she is false to him. Enough of 
 this. You say I rave, so I had better hold my tongue. Only 
 this I would say, from the comparison of our two very differ- 
 ent destinies I draw this harsh moral Love not if you would 
 be loved. 
 
 My dear, when Louis was elected to the provincial Council, 
 he received the cross of the Legion of Honor. That is now 
 nearly three years ago ; and as my father whom you will no 
 doubt see in Paris during the course of the session has asked 
 the rank of officer of the Legion for his son-in-law, I want to 
 know if you will do me the kindness to take in hand the big- 
 wig, whoever he may be, to whom this patronage belongs, and 
 to keep an eye upon the little affair. But, whatever you do, 
 don't get entangled in the concerns of my honored father. The 
 Comte de Maucombe is fishing for the title of marquis for him- 
 self; but keep your good services for me, please. When 
 Louis is a deputy next winter that is we shall come to Paris, 
 and then we will move heaven and earth to get some Govern- 
 ment appointment for him, so that we may be able to save
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 307 
 
 our income by living on his salary. My father sits between 
 the Centre and the Right; a title will content him. Our 
 family was distinguished even in the days of King Rene, and 
 Charles X. will hardly say no to a Maucombe ; but what I 
 fear is that my father may take it into his head to ask some 
 favor for my younger brother. Now, if the marquisate is 
 dangled out of his reach, he will have no thoughts to spare from 
 himself. 
 
 January \yh. 
 
 Ah ! Louise, I have been in hell. If I can bear to tell you 
 of my anguish, it is because you are another self; even so, I 
 don't know whether I shall ever be able to live again in 
 thought those five ghastly days. The mere word "convul- 
 sions" makes my very heart sick. Five days! to me they 
 were five centuries of torture. A mother who has not been 
 through this martyrdom does not know what suffering is. So 
 frenzied was I that I even envied you, who never had a child ! 
 
 The evening before that terrible day the weather was close, 
 almost hot, and I thought my little Armand was affected by 
 it. Generally so sweet and caressing, he was peevish, cried 
 for nothing, wanted to play, and then broke his toys. Perhaps 
 this sort of fractiousness is the usual sign of approaching ill- 
 ness with children. While I was wondering about it, I noticed 
 Armand's cheeks flush, but this I set down to teething, for he 
 is cutting four large teeth at once. So I put him to bed be- 
 side me, and kept constantly waking through the night. He 
 was a little feverish, but not enough to make me uneasy, my 
 mind being still full of the teething. Toward morning he 
 cried " Mamma ! " and asked by signs for something to drink; 
 but the cry was spasmodic, and there were convulsive twitch- 
 ings in the limbs, which turned me to ice. I jumped out of 
 bed to fetch him a drink. Imagine my horror when, on my 
 handing him the cup, he remained motionless, only repeating 
 " Mamma ! " in that strange, unfamiliar voice, which was in-
 
 308 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 deed by this time hardly a voice at all. I took his hand, but 
 it did not respond to my pressure ; it was quite stiff. I put the 
 cup to his lips; the poor little fellow gulped down three or 
 four mouthfuls in a convulsive manner that was terrible to 
 see, and the water made a strange sound in his throat. He 
 clung to me desperately, and I saw his eyes roll, as though 
 some hidden force within were pulling at them, till only the 
 whites were visible ; his limbs were turning rigid. I screamed 
 aloud, and Louis came. 
 
 "A doctor ! quick ! he is dying," I cried. 
 
 Louis vanished, and my poor Armand again gasped, 
 "Mamma! Mamma!" The next moment he lost all con- 
 sciousness of his mother's existence. The pretty veins on his 
 forehead swelled, and the convulsions began. For a whole 
 hour before the doctors came, I held in my arms that merry 
 baby, all lilies and roses, the blossom of my life, my pride, 
 and my joy, lifeless as a piece of wood ; and his eyes ! I 
 cannot think of them without horror. My pretty Armand 
 was a mere mummy black, shriveled, dumb, misshappen. 
 
 A doctor, two doctors, brought from Marseilles by Louis, 
 hovered about like birds of ill-omen ; it made me shudder to 
 look at them. One spoke of brain fever, the other saw noth- 
 ing but an ordinary case of convulsions in infancy. Our own 
 country doctor seemed to me to have the most sense, for he 
 offered no opinion. "It's teething," said the second doctor. 
 "Fever," said the first. Finally, it was agreed to put 
 leeches on his neck and ice on his head. It seemed to me 
 like death. To look on, to see a corpse, all purple or- black, 
 and not a cry, not a movement from this creature but now so 
 full of life and sound it was horrible ! 
 
 At one moment I lost my head, and gave a sort of hysterical 
 laugh, as I saw the pretty neck which I used to devour with 
 kisses, with the leeches feeding on it, and his darling head in 
 a cap of ice. My dear, we had to cut those lovely curls, of 
 which we were so proud and with which you used to play, in
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 309 
 
 order to make room for the ice. The convulsions returned 
 every ten minutes with the regularity of labor pains, and then 
 the poor baby writhed and twisted, now white, now violet. 
 His supple limbs clattered like wood as they struck. And 
 this unconscious flesh was the being who smiled and prattled, 
 and used to say Mamma ! At the thought, a storm of agony 
 swept tumultuously over my soul, like the sea tossing in a hur- 
 ricane. It seemed as though every tie which binds a child to 
 its mother's heart were strained to rending. My mother, 
 who might have given me help, advice, or comfort, was in 
 Paris. 
 
 Mothers, it is my belief, know more than doctors do about 
 convulsions. 
 
 After four days and nights of suspense and fear, which 
 almost killed me, the doctors were unanimous in advising the 
 application of a horrid ointment, which would produce open 
 sores. Sores on my Armand ! who only five days before was 
 playing about, and laughing, and trying to say " Godmother ! " 
 I would not have it done, preferring to trust to nature. Louis, 
 who believes in doctors, scolded me. A man is always a man. 
 But there are moments when this terrible disease takes the 
 likeness of death, and in one of these it seemed borne in upon 
 me that this hateful remedy was the salvation of Armand. 
 Louise, the skin was so dry, so rough and parched, that the 
 ointment would not act. Then I broke into weeping, and my 
 tears fell so long and so fast that the bedside was wet through. 
 And the doctors were at dinner ! 
 
 Seeing myself alone with the child, I stripped him of all 
 medical appliances, and seizing him like a mad woman, pressed 
 him to my bosom, laying my forehead against his, and be- 
 seeching God to grant him the life which I was striving to 
 pass into his veins from mine. For some minutes I held him 
 thus, longing to die with him, so that neither life nor death 
 might part us. Dear, I felt the limbs relaxing ; the writhings 
 ceased, the child stirred, and the ghastly, corpse-like tints
 
 310 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 faded away ! I screamed, just as I did when he was taken ill; 
 the doctors hurried up, and I pointed to Armand. 
 
 " He is saved ! " exclaimed the oldest of them. 
 
 What music in those words ! The gates of heaven opened ! 
 And, in fact, two hours later, Armand came back to life ; but 
 I was utterly crushed, and it was only the healing power of 
 joy which saved me from a serious illness. Oh, my God ! by 
 what tortures do you bind a mother to her child ! To fasten 
 him to our heart, need the nails be driven into the very quick ? 
 Was I not mother enough before ? I, who wept tears of joy 
 over his broken syllables and tottering steps, who spent hours 
 together planning how best to perform my duty, and fit myself 
 for the sweet post of mother? Why these horrors, these 
 ghastly and awful scenes, for a mother who already idolized 
 her child ? 
 
 As I write, our little Armand is playing, shouting, laughing. 
 What can be the cause of this terrible disease with children ? 
 Vainly do I try to puzzle it out, remembering always that I 
 am again with child. Is it teething? Is it some peculiar 
 process in the brain? Is there something wrong with the 
 nervous system of children who are subject to convulsions ? 
 All these thoughts disquiet me, in view alike of the present 
 and the future. Our country doctor holds to the theory of 
 nervous trouble produced by teething. I would give every 
 tooth in my head to see little Armand's all through. The 
 sight of one of those little white pearls peeping out of the 
 swollen gum brings a cold sweat over me now. The heroism 
 with which the little angel bore his sufferings proves to me 
 that he will be his mother's son. A look from him cleaves 
 my very heart. 
 
 Medical science can give no satisfactory explanation as to 
 the origin of this sort of tetanus, which passes off as rapidly 
 as it comes on, and can apparently be neither guarded against 
 nor cured. One thing alone, as I said before, is certain, that 
 it is hell for a mother to see her child in convulsions. How
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 311 
 
 passionately do I clasp him to my heart ! I could walk for 
 ever with him in my arms ! 
 
 To have suffered all this only six weeks before my confine- 
 ment made it much worse ; I feared for the coming child. 
 Farewell, my dear beloved. Don't wish for a child there is 
 the sum and substance of my letter ! 
 
 XLI. 
 
 THE BARONNE DE MACUMER TO THE VICOMTESSE DE 
 L'ESTORADE. 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 POOR SWEET : Macumer and I forgave you all your naughti- 
 ness when we heard of your terrible trouble. I thrilled with 
 pain as I read the details of that double agony, and there seem 
 compensations now in being childless. 
 
 I am writing at once to tell you that Louis has been pro- 
 moted. He can now wear the ribbon of an officer of the 
 Legion. You are a lucky woman, Renee, and you will prob- 
 ably have a little girl, since that used to be your wish ! 
 
 The marriage of my brother with Mile, de Mortsauf was 
 celebrated on our return. Our gracious King, who really is 
 extraordinarily kind, has given my brother the reversion of 
 the post of first gentleman of the chamber, which his father- 
 in-law now fills, on the one condition that the escutcheon of 
 the Mortsaufs should be placed side by side with that of the 
 Lenoncourts. 
 
 " The office ought to go with the title," he said to the Due 
 de Lenoncourt-Givry. 
 
 My father is justified a hundredfold. Without the help of 
 my fortune nothing of all this could have taken place. My 
 father and mother came from Madrid for the wedding, and 
 return there, after the reception which I give to-morrow for 
 the bride and bridegroom.
 
 312 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 The carnival will be a very gay one. The Due and Duch- 
 esse de Soria are in Paris, and their presence makes me a little 
 uneasy. Marie Heredia is certainly one of the most beautiful 
 women in Europe, and I don't like the way Felipe looks at 
 her. Therefore I am doubly lavish of sweetness and caresses. 
 Every look and gesture speak the words which I am careful 
 my lips should not utter: "She could not love like this!" 
 Heaven knows how lovely and fascinating I am ! Yesterday 
 Mme. de Maufrigneuse said to me : 
 
 " Dear child, who can compete with you? " 
 
 Then I keep Felipe so well amused, that his sister-in-law 
 must seem as lively as a Spanish cow in comparison. I am 
 the less sorry that a little Abencerrage is not on his way, be- 
 cause the duchess will no doubt stay in Paris over her confine- 
 ment, and she won't be a beauty any longer. If the baby is 
 a boy, it will be called Felipe, in honor of the exile. An 
 unkind chance has decreed that I shall, a second time, serve 
 as godmother. 
 
 Good-by, dear. I shall go to Chantepleurs early this year, 
 for our Italian tour was shockingly expensive. I shall leave 
 about the end of March, and retire to economize in Nivernais. 
 Beside, I am tired of Paris. Felipe sighs, as I do, after the 
 beautiful quiet of the park, our cool meadows, and our Loire, 
 with its sparkling sands, peerless among rivers. Chantepleurs 
 will seem delightful to me after the pomps and vanities of 
 Italy ; for, after all, splendor becomes wearisome, and a lover's 
 glance has more beauty than a capo a" opera or a bel quadro ! 
 
 We shall expect you there. Don't be afraid that I shall be 
 jealous again. You are free to take what soundings you 
 please in Macumer's heart, and fish up all the interjections 
 and doubts you can. I am supremely indifferent. Since that 
 day at Rome Felipe's love for me has grown. He told me 
 yesterday (he is looking over my shoulder now) that his sister- 
 in-law, the Princess Heredia, his destined bride of old, the 
 dream of his youth, had no brains. Oh ! my dear, I am worse
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 313 
 
 than a ballet-dancer ! If you knew what joy that slighting 
 remark gave me ! I have pointed out to Felipe that she does 
 not speak French correctly. She says esemple for exemple, sain 
 for cinq, cheu for Je. She is beautiful of course, but quite 
 without charm or the slightest scintilla of wit. When a com- 
 pliment is paid her, she looks at you as though she didn't 
 know what to do with such a strange thing. Felipe, being 
 what he is, could not have lived two months with Marie after 
 his marriage. Don Fernand, the Due de Soria, suits her very 
 well. He has generous instincts, but it's easy to see he has 
 been a spoilt child. I am tempted to be naughty and make 
 you laugh; but I won't draw the long bow. Ever so much 
 love, darling. 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 RENEE TO LOUISE. 
 
 My little girl is two months old. She is called Jeanne- 
 Athenai's, and has for godmother and godfather my mother 
 and an old grand-uncle of Louis'. 
 
 As soon as I possibly can, I shall start for my visit to Chan- 
 tepleurs, since you are not afraid of a nursing mother. Your 
 godson can say your name now ; he calls it Matoumer, for he 
 can't pronounce c properly. You will be quite delighted 
 with him. He has got all his teeth, and eats meat now like 
 a big boy ; he is all over the place, trotting about like a little 
 mouse ; but I watch him all the time with anxious eyes, and 
 it makes me miserable that I cannot keep him by me when I 
 am confined. The time is more than usually long with me, 
 as the doctors consider some special precautions necessary. 
 Alas ! my child, habit does not inure one to childbearing. 
 There are the same old discomforts and misgivings. However 
 (don't show this to Felipe), this little girl takes after me, and 
 she may yet cut out your Armand. 
 
 My father thought Felipe looking very thin, and my dear
 
 314 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 pet also not quite so blooming. Yet the Due and Duchesse 
 de Soria have gone ; not a loophole for jealousy is left ! Is 
 there any trouble which you are hiding from me ? Your 
 letter is neither so long nor so full of loving thoughts as usual. 
 Is this only a whim of my dear whimsical friend ? 
 
 I am running on too long. My nurse is angry with me for 
 writing, and Mile. Athenais de 1'Estorade wants her dinner. 
 Farewell, then ; write me some nice long letters. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 MME. DE MACUMER TO THE COMTESSE DE L*ESTORADE. 
 
 For the first time in my life, my dear Ren6e, I have been 
 alone and crying. I was sitting under a willow, on a wooden 
 bench by the side of the long Chantepleurs marsh. The view 
 there is charming, but it needs some merry children to com- 
 plete it, and I wait for you and yours. I have been married 
 nearly three years, and no child ! The thought of your 
 quiverful drove me to explore my heart. 
 
 And this is what I find there : " Oh ! if I had to suffer a 
 hundredfold what Renee suffered when my godson was born ; 
 if I had to see my child in convulsions, even so would to 
 God that I might have a cherub of my own, like your Ath- 
 nai's ! " I can see her from here in my mind's eye, and I 
 know she is beautiful as the day, for you tell me nothing 
 about her that is just like my Ren6e ! I believe you divine 
 my trouble. 
 
 Each time my hopes are disappointed, I fall a prey for some 
 days to the blackest melancholy. Then I compose sad elegies. 
 When shall I embroider little caps and sew lace edgings to 
 encircle a tiny head? When choose the cambric for the 
 baby-clothes? Shall I never hear baby lips shout " Mamma," 
 and have my dress pulled by a teasing despot whom my heart 
 adores? Are there to be no wheel-marks of a little carriage
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 315 
 
 on the gravel, no broken toys littered about the courtyard? 
 Shall I never visit the toy-stores, as mothers do, to buy swords, 
 and dolls, and little tea-sets? And will it never be mine to 
 watch the unfolding of a precious life another Felipe, only 
 more dear? I would have a son, if only to learn how a lover 
 can be more to one in his second self. 
 
 My park and castle are cold and desolate to me. A child- 
 less woman is a monstrosity of nature ; we exist only to be 
 mothers. Oh ! my sage in woman's livery, how well you 
 have conned the book of life ! Everywhere, too, barrenness 
 is a dismal thing. My life is a little too much like one of 
 Gessner's or Florian's sheepfolds, which Rivarol longed to see 
 invaded by a wolf. I, too, have it in me to make sacrifices ! 
 There are forces in me, I feel, which Felipe has no use for ; 
 and if I am not to be a mother, I must be allowed to indulge 
 myself in some romantic sorrow. 
 
 I have just made this remark to my belated Moor, and it 
 brought tears to his eyes. He cannot stand any joking on 
 his love, so I let him off easily, and only called him a paladin 
 of folly. 
 
 At times I am seized with a desire to go on pilgrimage, to 
 bear my longings to the shrine of some madonna or to a 
 watering-place. Next winter I shall take medical advice. I 
 am too much enraged with myself to write more. Good-by. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 THE SAME TO THE SAME. 
 
 PARIS, 1829. 
 
 A whole year passed, my dear, without a letter ! What 
 does this mean ? I am a little hurt. Do you suppose that 
 your Louis, who comes to see me almost every alternate day, 
 makes up for you? It is not enough to know that you are 
 well and that everything prospers with you ; for I love you,
 
 316 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 Renee, and I want to know what you are thinking of, just as 
 I say everything to you, at the risk of being scolded, or cen- 
 sured, or misunderstood. Your silence and seclusion in the 
 country, at a time when you might be in Paris enjoying all 
 the Parliamentary honors of the Comte de 1'Estorade, cause 
 me serious anxiety. You know that your husband's ''gift of 
 the gab" and unsparing zeal have won for him quite a posi- 
 tion here, and he will doubtless receive some very good post 
 when the session is over. Pray, do you spend your life 
 writing him letters of advice ? Numa was not so far removed 
 from his Egeria. 
 
 Why did you not take this opportunity of seeing Paris ? I 
 might have enjoyed your company for four months. Louis 
 told me yesterday that you were coming to fetch him, and 
 would have your third confinement in Paris you terrible 
 mother Gigogne ! After bombarding Louis with queries, ex- 
 clamations, and regrets, I at last defeated his strategy so far 
 as to discover that his grand-uncle, the godfather of Athenais, 
 is very ill. Now I believe that you, like a careful mother, 
 would be quite equal to angling with the member's speeches 
 and fame for a fat legacy from your husband's last remaining 
 relative on the mother's side. Keep your mind easy, my 
 Renee we are all at work for Louis : Lenoncourts, Chaulieus, 
 and the whole band of Mme. de Macumer's followers. Mar- 
 tignac will probably put him into the Audit Department. But 
 if you won't tell me why you bury yourself in the country, I 
 shall be cross. 
 
 Tell me, are you afraid that the political wisdom of the 
 house of 1'Estorade should seem to centre in you? Or is it 
 the uncle's legacy ? Perhaps you were afraid you would be 
 less to your children in Paris ? Ah ! what would I give to 
 know whether, after all, you were not simply too vain to show 
 yourself in Paris for the first time in your present condition ! 
 Vain thing ! Farewell.
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 317 
 
 XLV. 
 
 RENEE TO LOUISE. 
 
 You complain of my silence ; have you forgotten, then, 
 those two little brown heads, at once my subjects and my 
 tyrants ? And as to staying at home, you have yourself hit 
 upon several of my reasons. Apart from the condition of our 
 dear uncle, I didn't want to drag with me to Paris a boy of 
 four and a little girl who will soon be three, when I am again 
 expecting my confinement. I had no intention of troubling 
 you and upsetting your household with such a party. I did 
 not care to appear, looking my worst, in the brilliant circle 
 over which you preside, and I detest life in hotels and lodg- 
 ings. 
 
 When I come to spend the session in Paris, it will be in my 
 own house. Louis' uncle, when he heard of the rank his 
 grand-nephew had received, made me a present of two hun- 
 dred thousand francs (the half of his savings) with which to 
 buy a house in Paris, and I have charged Louis to find one in 
 your neighborhood. My mother has given me thirty thou- 
 sand francs for the furnishing, and I shall do my best not to 
 disgrace the dear sister of my election no pun intended. 
 
 I am grateful to you for having already done so much at 
 Court for Louis. But though M. de Bourmont and M. de 
 Polignac have paid him the compliment of asking him to join 
 their ministry, I do not wish so conspicuous a place for him. 
 It would commit him too much ; and I prefer the Audit Office 
 because it is permanent. Our affairs here are in very good 
 hands ; so you need not fear ; as soon as the steward has mas- 
 tered the details, I will come and support Louis. 
 
 As for writing long letters nowadays, how can I ? This 
 one, in which I want to describe to you the daily routine of 
 my life, will be a week on the stocks. Who can tell but
 
 318 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 Armand may lay hold of it to make caps for his regiments 
 drawn up on my carpet, or vessels for the fleets which sail his 
 bath ! A single day will serve as a sample of the rest, for 
 they are all exactly alike, and their characteristics reduce 
 themselves to two either the children are well or they are 
 not. For me, in this solitary grange, it is no exaggeration to 
 say that hours become minutes or minutes hours, according 
 to the children's health. 
 
 If I have some delightful hours, it is when they are asleep 
 and I am no longer needed to rock the one or soothe the 
 other with stories. When I have them sleeping by my side, I 
 say to myself, "Nothing can go wrong now." The fact is, 
 my sweet, every mother spends her time, so soon as her 
 children are out of her sight, in imagining dangers for them. 
 Perhaps it is Armand seizing the razors to play with, or his 
 coat taking fire, or a snake biting him, or he might tumble in 
 running and start an abscess on his head, or he might drown 
 himself in a pond. A mother's life, you see, is one long suc- 
 cession of dramas, now soft and tender, now terrible. Not an 
 hour but has its joys and fears. 
 
 But at night, in my room, comes the hour for waking 
 dreams, when I plan out their future, which shines brightly 
 in the smile of the guardian angel, watching over their beds. 
 Sometimes Armand calls me in his sleep ; I kiss his forehead 
 (without rousing him), then his sister's feet, and watch them 
 both lying in their beauty. These are my merry-makings ! 
 Yesterday, it must have been our guardian angel who roused 
 me in the middle of the night and summoned me in fear to 
 Na'is' crib. Her head was too low, and I found Armand all 
 uncovered, his feet purple with cold. 
 
 "Darling mother! " he cried, rousing up and flinging his 
 arms round me. 
 
 There, dear, is one of our night scenes for you. 
 
 How important it is for a mother to have her children by 
 her side at night ! It is not for a nurse, however careful she
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 319 
 
 may be, to take them up, comfort them, and hush them to 
 sleep again, when some horrid nightmare has disturbed them. 
 For they have their dreams, and the task of explaining away 
 one of these dread visions of the night is the more arduous 
 because the child is scared, stupid, and only half awake. It 
 is a mere interlude in the unconsciousness of slumber. In 
 this way I have come to sleep so lightly, that I can see my 
 little pair and hear them stirring, through the veil of my eye- 
 lids. A sigh or a rustle awakens me. For me, the demon of 
 convulsions is ever crouching by their beds. 
 
 So much for the nights ; with the first twitter of the birds 
 my babies begin to stir. Through the mists of dispersing 
 sleep, their chatter blends with the warblings that fill the 
 morning air, or with the swallows' noisy debates little cries 
 of joy or woe, which make their way to my heart rather than 
 my ears. While Nais struggles to get at me, making the pas- 
 sage from her crib to my bed on all fours or with staggering 
 steps, Armand climbs up with the agility of a monkey, and 
 has his arms round me. Then the merry couple turn my bed 
 into a playground, where mother lies at their mercy. The 
 baby-girl pulls my hair, and would take to sucking again, 
 while Armand stands guard over my breast, as though defend- 
 ing his property. Their funny ways, their peals of laughter, 
 are too much for me, and put sleep fairly to flight. 
 
 Then we play the ogress game ; mother ogress eats up the 
 white, soft flesh with hugs, and rains kisses on those rosy 
 shoulders and eyes brimming over with saucy mischief; we 
 have little jealous tiffs too, so pretty to see. It has happened 
 to me, dear, to take up my stockings to put on at eight o'clock 
 and be still barefooted at nine ! 
 
 Then comes the getting up. The operation of dressing 
 begins. I slip on my dressing-gown, turn up my sleeves, and 
 don the macintosh apron ; with Mary's assistance, I wash and 
 scrub my two little blossoms. I am sole arbiter of the temper- 
 ature of the bath, for a good half of children's crying and
 
 320 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 whimpering comes from mistakes here. The moment has 
 arrived for paper fleets and glass ducks, since the only way to 
 get children thoroughly washed is to keep them well amused. 
 If you knew the diversions that have to be invented before 
 these despotic sovereigns will permit a soft sponge to be 
 passed over every nook and cranny, you would be awestruck 
 at the amount of ingenuity and intelligence demanded by the 
 maternal profession when one takes it seriously. Prayers, 
 scoldings, promises, are alike in requisition ; above all, the 
 jugglery must be so dexterous that it defies detection. The 
 case would be desperate had not Providence to the cunning of 
 the child matched that of the mother. A child is a diplo- 
 matist only to be master, like the diplomatists of the great 
 world, through his passions ! Happily, it takes little to 
 make these cherubs laugh ; the fall of a brush, a piece of 
 soap slipping from the hand, and what merry shouts ! And 
 if our triumphs are dearly bought, still triumphs they are, 
 though hidden from mortal eye. Even the father knows 
 nothing of it all. None but God and His angels and per- 
 haps you can fathom the glances of satisfaction which Mary 
 and I exchange when the little creatures' toilet is at last con- 
 cluded, and they stand, spotless and shining, amid a chaos of 
 soap, sponges, combs, basins, blotting-paper, flannel, and all 
 the nameless litter of a true English "nursery." 
 
 For I am so far a convert as to admit that Englishwomen 
 have a* talent for this department. True, they look upon the 
 child only from the point of view of material well-being ; but 
 where this is concerned, their arrangements are admirable. 
 My children shall always be barelegged and wear woolen 
 socks. There shall be no swaddling or bandages; on the 
 other hand, they shall never be left alone. The helplessness 
 of the French infant in its swaddling-bands means the liberty 
 of the nurse that is the whole explanation. A mother, who 
 is really a mother, is never free. 
 
 There is my answer to your question why I do not write.
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 321 
 
 Beside the management of the estate, I have the upbringing 
 of two children on my hands. 
 
 The art of motherhood involves much silent, unobtrusive 
 self-denial, an hourly devotion which finds no detail too 
 minute. The soup warming over the fire must be watched. 
 Am I the kind of woman, do you suppose, to shirk such cares? 
 The humblest task may earn a rich harvest of affection. How 
 pretty is the child's laugh when he finds the food to his 
 liking ! Armand has a way of nodding his head when he is 
 pleased that is worth a lifetime of adoration. How could I 
 leave to any one else the privilege and delight, as well as the 
 responsibility, of blowing on the spoonful of soup which is too 
 hot for my little Na'is, my nursling of seven months ago, who 
 still remembers my breast ? When a nurse has allowed a child 
 to burn its tongue and lips with scalding food, she tells the 
 mother, who hurries up to see what is wrong, that the child 
 cried from hunger. How could a mother sleep in peace with 
 the thought that a breath, less pure than her own, has cooled 
 her child's food the mother whom Nature has made the 
 direct vehicle of food to infant lips. To mince a chop for 
 Na'is, who has just cut her last tooth, and mix the meat, cooked 
 to a turn, with potatoes, is a work of patience, and there are 
 times, indeed, when none but a mother could, by any possi- 
 bility, succeed in making an impatient child go through with 
 its meal. 
 
 No number of servants, then, and no English nurse can 
 dispense a mother from taking the field in person in that daily 
 contest, where gentleness alone should grapple with the little 
 griefs and pains of childhood. Louise, the care of these inno- 
 cent darlings is a work to engage the whole soul. To whose 
 hands and eyes, but one's own, intrust the task of feeding, 
 dressing, and putting to bed? Broadly speaking, a crying 
 child is the unanswerable condemnation of mother or* nurse, 
 except when the cry is the outcome of natural pain. Now 
 that I have two to look after (and a third on the road), they 
 21
 
 322 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 occupy all my thoughts. Even you, whom I love so dearly, 
 have become a memory to me. 
 
 My own dressing is not always completed by two o'clock. 
 I have no faith in mothers whose rooms are in apple-pie order, 
 and who themselves might have stepped out of a bandbox. 
 Yesterday was one of those lovely days of early April, and I 
 wanted to take my children a walk, while I was still able 
 for the warning bell is in my ears. Such an expedition is 
 quite an epic to a mother ! One dreams of it the night 
 before ! Armand was for the first time to put on a little black 
 velvet jacket, a new collar which I had worked, a Scotch cap 
 with the Stuart colors and cock's feathers ; Nai's was to be in 
 white and pink, with one of those delicious little baby caps ; 
 for she is a baby still, though she will lose that pretty title on 
 the arrival of the youngster (whom I feel kicking me) and 
 whom I call my little paup.er, for he will have the portion of 
 a younger son. (You see, Louise, the child has already 
 appeared to me in a vision, so I know it is a boy.) 
 
 Well, caps, collars, jackets, socks, dainty little shoes, pink 
 garters, the muslin frock with silk embroidery all was laid 
 out on my bed. Then the little brown heads had to be 
 brushed, twittering merrily all the time like birds answering 
 each other's call. Armand's hair is in curls, while NaYs' is 
 brought forward softly on the forehead as a border to the 
 pink-and-white cap. Then the shoes are buckled ; and when 
 the little bare legs and well-shod feet have trotted off to the 
 nursery, while two shining faces (clean, Mary calls them) and 
 eyes ablaze with life petition me to start, my heart beats fast. 
 To look on the children whom one's own hand has arrayed, 
 the pure skin brightly veined with blue, that one has bathed, 
 laved, and sponged and decked with gay colors of silk or 
 velvet why, there is no poem comes near to it ! With what 
 eager, covetous longing one calls them back for one more kiss 
 on those white necks, which, in their simple collars, the love- 
 liest woman cannot rival. Even the coarest lithograph of
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 323 
 
 such a scene makes a mother pause, and I feast my eyes daily 
 on the living picture ! 
 
 Once out of doors, triumphant in the result of my labors, 
 while I was admiring the princely air with which little 
 Armand helped baby to totter along the path you know, I saw 
 a carriage coming, and tried to get them out of the way. 
 The children tumbled into a dirty puddle, and lo ! my works 
 of art are ruined ! We had to take them back and change 
 their things. I took the little one in my arms, never thinking 
 of my own dress, which was ruined, while Mary seized 
 Armand, and the cavalcade reentered. With a crying baby 
 and a soaked child, what mind has a mother left for herself? 
 
 Dinner-time arrives, and as a rule I have done nothing. 
 Now comes the problem which faces me twice every day 
 how to suffice in my own person for two children, put on 
 their bibs, turn up their sleeves, and get them to eat. In the 
 midst of these ever-recurring cares, joys, and catastrophes, the 
 only person neglected in the house is myself. If the children 
 have been naughty, often I don't get rid of my curl-papers all 
 day. Their tempers rule my toilet. As the price of the few 
 minutes in which I write you these half-dozen pages, I have 
 had to let them cut pictures out of my novels, build castles 
 with books, chessmen, or mother-of-pearl counters, and give 
 Na'is my silks and wools to arrange in her own fashion, which, 
 I assure you, is so complicated that she is entirely absorbed 
 in it, and has not uttered a word. 
 
 Yet I have nothing to complain of. My children are both 
 strong and independent ; they amuse themselves more easily 
 than you would think. They find delight in everything ; a 
 guarded liberty is worth many toys. A few pebbles pink, 
 yellow, purple, and black, small shells, the mysteries of sand 
 are a world of pleasure to them. Their weafth consists in 
 possessing a multitude of small things. I watch Armand 
 and find him talking to the flowers, the flies, the chickens, 
 and imitating them. He is on friendly terms with insects,
 
 324 LETTERS OF TIVO BRIDES. 
 
 and never wearies of admiring them. Everything which is 
 on a minute scale interests them. Armand is beginning to 
 ask the "why" of everything he sees. He has come to ask 
 what I am saying to his godmother, whom he looks on as a 
 fairy. Strange how children hit the mark ! 
 
 Alas ! my sweet, I would not sadden you with the tale of 
 my joys. Let me give you some notion of your godson's 
 character. The other day we were followed by a poor man 
 begging beggars soon find out that a mother with her child 
 at her side can't resist them. Armand has no idea what 
 hunger is, and money is a sealed book to him ; but I had just 
 bought him a trumpet which had long been the object of his 
 desires. He held it out to the old man with a kingly air, 
 saying : 
 
 "Here, take this!" 
 
 What joy the world can give would compare with such a 
 moment? 
 
 "May I keep it?" said the poor man to me. "I too, 
 madame, have had children," he added, hardly noticing the 
 money I put into his hand. 
 
 I shudder when I think that Armand must go to school, 
 and that I have only three years and a half more to keep him 
 by me. The flowers that blossom in his sunny childhood 
 will fall before the scythe of a public-school system ; his 
 gracious ways and bewitching candor will lose their spon- 
 taneity. They will cut the curls that I have brushed and 
 smoothed and kissed so often ! What will they do with the 
 thinking being that is Armand? 
 
 And what of you ? You tell me nothing of your life. Are 
 you still in love with Felipe? For, as regards the Saracen, I 
 have no uneasiness. Adieu ; NaTs has just had a tumble, and, 
 if I run my drama on like this, my letter will become a 
 volume.
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 326 
 
 XLVI. 
 MME. DE MACUMER TO THE COMTESSE DE I/ESTORADE. 
 
 CHANTEPLEURS, 1829. 
 
 My sweet, tender Ren6e, you will have learned from the 
 papers the terrible calmity which has overwhelmed me. I 
 have not been able to write you even a word. For twenty 
 days I never left his bedside ; I received his last breath and 
 closed his eyes ; I kept holy watch over him with the priests 
 and repeated the prayers for the dead. The cruel pangs I 
 suffered were accepted by me as a rightful punishment ; and 
 yet, when I saw on his calm lips the smile which was his last 
 farewell to me, how was it possible to believe that I had 
 caused his death by my love. But he ts not, and I, lam! 
 To you, who have known us both so well, what more need I 
 say? These words contain all. 
 
 Oh ! I would give my share of heaven to hear the flattering 
 tale that my prayers have power to call him back to life ! To 
 see him again, to have him once more mine, were it only for 
 a second, would mean that I could draw breath again without 
 mortal agony. Will you not come soon and soothe me with 
 such promises? Is not your love strong enough to de- 
 ceive me. 
 
 But stay ! it was you who told me beforehand that he would 
 suffer through me. Was it so indeed ? Yes, it is true, I had 
 no right to his love. Like a thief, I took what was not mine, 
 and my frenzied grasp has crushed the life out of my bliss. 
 The madness is over now, but I feel that I am alone. Merci- 
 ful God ! what torture of the damned can exceed the misery 
 in that word ? 
 
 When they took him away from me, I lay down on the 
 same bed and hoped to die. There was but a door between 
 us, and it seemed to me I had strength to force it ! But,
 
 326 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 alas ! I was too young for death ; and after forty days, during 
 which, with cruel care and all the sorry inventions of medical 
 science, they slowly nursed me back to life, I find myself in 
 the country, seated by my window, surrounded with lovely 
 flowers, which he made to bloom for me, gazing on the same 
 splendid view over which his eyes have so often wandered, 
 and which he was so proud to have discovered, since it gave 
 me pleasure. Ah ! dear Renee, no words can tell how new 
 surroundings hurt when the heart is dead. I shiver at the 
 sight of the moist earth in my garden, for the earth is a vast 
 tomb, and it is almost as though I walked on him! When I 
 first went out, I trembled with fear and could not move. It 
 was so sad to see his flowers, and he not there ! 
 
 My father and mother are in Spain. You know what my 
 brothers are, and you yourself are detained in the country. 
 But you need not be uneasy about me ; two angels of mercy 
 flew to my side. The Due and Duchesse de Soria hastened to 
 their brother in his illness, and have been everything that 
 heart could wish. The last few nights before the end found 
 the three of us gathered, in calm and wordless grief, round 
 the bed where this great man was breathing his last, a man 
 among a thousand, rare in any age, head and shoulders above 
 the rest of us in everything. The patient resignation of my 
 Felipe was angelic. The sight of his brother and Marie gave 
 him a moment's pleasure and easing of his pain. 
 
 " Darling," he said to me with the simple frankness which 
 never deserted him, " I had almost gone from life without 
 leaving to Fernand the Barony of Macumer ; I must make a 
 new will. My brother will forgive me ; he knows what it is 
 to love ! " 
 
 I owe my life to the care of my brother-in-law and his wife ; 
 they want to carry me off to Spain ! 
 
 Ah ! Rene'e, to no one but you can I speak freely of my 
 grief. A sense of my own faults weighs me to the ground, 
 and there is a bitter solace in pouring them out to you, poor,
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 327 
 
 unheeded Cassandra. The exactions, the preposterous jeal- 
 ousy, the nagging unrest of my passion wore him to death. 
 My love was the more fraught with danger for him because we 
 had both the same exquisitely sensitive nature, we spoke the 
 same language, nothing was lost on him, and often the mock- 
 ing shaft, so carelessly discharged, went straight to his heart. 
 You can have no idea of the point to which he carried sub- 
 missiveness. I had only to tell him to go and leave me alone, 
 and the caprice, however wounding to him, would be obeyed 
 without a murmur. His last breath was spent in blessing me 
 and in repeating that a single morning alone with me was 
 more precious to him than a lifetime spent with another 
 woman, were she even the Marie of his youth. My tears fall 
 as I write the words. 
 
 This is the manner of my life now. I rise at midday and 
 go to bed at seven ; I linger absurdly long over meals ; I 
 saunter about slowly, standing motionless, an hour at a time, 
 before a single plant ; I gaze into the leafy trees ; I take a 
 sober and serious interest in mere nothings ; I long for shade, 
 silence, and night ; in a word, I fight through each hour as it 
 comes, and take a gloomy pleasure in adding it to the heap of 
 the vanquished. My peaceful park gives me all the company 
 I care for ; everything there is full of glorious images of my 
 vanished joy, invisible for others but eloquent to me. . 
 
 "I cannot away with you Spaniards!" I exclaimed one 
 morning, as my sister-in-law flung herself on my neck. "You 
 have some nobility in your souls that we lack." 
 
 Ah ! Rene"e, if I still live, it is doubtless because heaven 
 tempers the sense of affliction to the strength of those who 
 have to bear it. Only a woman can know what it is to lose a 
 love which sprang from the heart and was genuine throughout, 
 a passion which was not ephemeral, and satisfied at once the 
 spirit and the flesh. How rare it is to find a man so gifted 
 that to worship him brings no sense of degradation ! If such 
 supreme fortune befall us once, we cannot hope for it a second
 
 328 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 time. Men of true greatness, whose strength and worth are 
 veiled by poetic grace, and who charm by some high spiritual 
 power, men made to be adored, beware of love ! Love will 
 ruin you, and ruin the woman of your heart. This is the 
 burden of my cry as I pace my woodland walks. 
 
 And he has left me no child ! That love so rich in smiles, 
 which rained perpetual flowers and joy, has left no fruit. I 
 am a thing accursed. Can it be that, even as the two ex- 
 tremes of polar ice and torrid sand are alike intolerant of life, 
 so the very purity and vehemence of a single-hearted passion 
 render it barren as hate? Is it only a marriage of reason, 
 such as yours, which is blessed with a family? Can heaven 
 be jealous of our passions ? These are wild words. 
 
 You are, I believe, the one person whose company I could 
 endure. Come to me, then ; none but Renee should be with 
 Louise in her sombre garb. What a day when I first put on 
 my widow's bonnet ! When I saw myself all arrayed in black, 
 I fell back on a seat and wept till night came ; and I weep 
 again as I recall that moment of anguish. 
 
 Farewell. Writing tires me; thoughts crowd fast, but I 
 have no heart to put them into words. Bring your children ; 
 you can nurse baby here without making me jealous ; all that 
 is gone, he is not here, and I shall be very glad to see my 
 godson. Felipe used to wish for a child like little Armand. 
 Come, then ; come and help me bear my woe. 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 RENEE TO LOUISE. 
 
 829. 
 
 MY DARLING : When you hold this letter in your hands, 
 I shall be already near, for I am starting a few minutes after it. 
 We shall be alone together. Louis is obliged to remain in 
 Provence because of the approaching elections. He wants to
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 329 
 
 be elected again, and the Liberals are already plotting against 
 his return. 
 
 I don't come to comfort you; I only bring you my heart 
 to beat in sympathy with yours, and help you to bear with 
 life. I come to bid you weep, for only with tears can you 
 purchase the joy of meeting him again. Remember, he is 
 traveling toward heaven, and every step forward which you 
 take brings you nearer to him. Every duty done breaks a 
 link in the chain that parts you. 
 
 Louise, in my arms you will once more raise your head and 
 go on your way to him, pure, noble, washed of all those 
 errors, which had no root in your heart, and bearing with 
 you the harvest of good deeds which, in his name, you will 
 accomplish here. 
 
 I scribble these hasty lines in all the bustle of preparation, 
 and interrupted by the babies and by Armand, who keeps 
 crying, " Godmother, godmother ! I want to see her," till I 
 am almost jealous. He might be your child !
 
 SECOND PART. 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 THE BARONNE DE MACUMER TO THE COMTESSE DE 
 L'ESTORADE. 
 
 Dctober 15, 1833. 
 
 Well, yes, Ren6e, it is quite true ; you have been correctly 
 informed. I have sold my house, I have sold Chantepleurs, 
 and the farms in Seine-et-Marne, but no more, please ! I am 
 neither mad nor ruined, I assure you. 
 
 Let us go into the matter. When everything was wound 
 up, there remained to me of my poor Macumer's fortune 
 about twelve hundred thousand francs. I will account, as to 
 a practical sister, for every penny of this. 
 
 I put a million into the Three per Cents, when they were 
 at fifty, and so I have got an income for myself of sixty thou- 
 sand francs, instead of the thirty thousand which the property 
 yielded. Then, only think what my life was. Six months 
 of the year in the country, renewing leases, listening to the 
 grumbles of the farmers, who pay when it pleases them, and 
 getting as bored as a sportsman in wet weather. There was 
 produce to sell, and I always sold it at a loss. Then, in Paris 
 my house represented a rental of ten thousand francs ; I had 
 to invest my money at the notaries ; I was kept waiting for the 
 interest, and could only get the money back by prosecuting ; 
 in addition I had to study the law of mortgage. In short, 
 there was business in Nivernais, in Seine-et-Marne, in Paris 
 and what a burden, what a nuisance, what a vexing and losing 
 game for a widow of twenty-seven ! 
 
 Whereas now my fortune is secured on the budget. In 
 place of paying taxes to the State, I receive from it, every 
 (330)
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 331 
 
 half-year, in my own person, and free from cost, thirty thou- 
 sand francs in thirty notes, handed over the counter to me by 
 a dapper little clerk at the Treasury, who smiles when he sees 
 me coming ! 
 
 "Supposing the nation became bankrupt?" I hear you 
 say. Well, to begin with " 'Tis not mine to seek trouble so 
 far from my door." At the worst, too, the nation would not 
 dock me of more than half my income, so I should still be as 
 well off as before my investment, and in the meantime I shall 
 be drawing a double income until the catastrophe arrives. A 
 nation doesn't become bankrupt more than once in a century, 
 so I shall have plenty of time to amass a little capital out of 
 my savings. 
 
 And, finally, is not the Comte de 1'Estorade a peer of this 
 July semi-republic? Is he not one of those pillars of royalty 
 offered by the "people" to the King of the French? How 
 can I have qualms with a friend at Court, a great financier, 
 head of the Audit Department? I defy you to arraign my 
 sanity ! I am almost as good at sums as your citizen king. 
 
 Do you know what inspires a woman with all this algebraic 
 wisdom ? Love, my dear ! 
 
 Alas ! the moment has come for unfolding to you the mys- 
 teries of my conduct, the motives of which have baffled even 
 your keen sight, your prying affection, and your subtlety. I 
 am to be married in a country village near Paris. I love and 
 am loved. I love as much as a woman can who knows love 
 well. I am loved as much as a woman ought to be by the 
 man she adores. 
 
 Forgive me, Ren6e, for keeping this a secret from you and 
 from every one. If your friend evades all spies and puts cur- 
 iosity on a false track, you must admit that my feeling for 
 poor Macumer justified some dissimulation. Beside, de 1'Es- 
 torade and you would have deafened me with remonstrances, 
 and plagued me to death with your misgivings, to which the 
 facts might have lent some color. You know, if no one else
 
 332 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 does, to what pitch my jealousy can go, and all this would 
 only have been useless torture to me. I was determined to 
 carry out, on my own responsibility, what you, Renee, will 
 call my insane project, and I would take counsel only with 
 my own head and heart, for all the world like a schoolgirl 
 giving the slip to her watchful parents. 
 
 The man I love possesses nothing except thirty thousand 
 francs' worth of debts, which I have paid. What a theme for 
 comment here ! You would have tried to make Gaston out 
 an adventurer ; your husband would have set detectives on 
 the dear boy. I preferred to sift him for myself. He has 
 been wooing me now close on two years. I am twenty-seven, 
 he is twenty-three. The difference, I admit, is huge when it 
 is on the wrong side. Another source of lamentation ! 
 
 Lastly, he is a poet, and has lived by his trade that is to 
 say, on next to nothing, as you will readily understand. 
 Being a poet, he has spent more time weaving day-dreams, 
 and basking, lizard-like, in the sun, than scribing in his dingy 
 garret. Now, practical people have a way of tarring with the 
 same brush of inconstancy authors, artists, and in general all 
 men who live by their brains. Their nimble and fertile wit 
 lays them open to the charge of a like agility in matters of the 
 heart. 
 
 Spite of the debts, spite of the difference in age, spite of 
 the poetry, an end is to be placed in a few days to a heroic 
 resistance of more than nine months, during which he has not 
 been allowed even to kiss my hand, and so also ends the 
 season of our sweet, pure love-making. This is not the mere 
 surrender of a raw, ignorant, and curious girl, as it was eight 
 years ago ; the gift is deliberate, and my lover awaits it with 
 such loyal patience that, if I pleased, I could postpone the 
 marriage for a year. There is no servility in this ; love's slave 
 he may be, but the heart is not slavish. Never have I seen a 
 man of nobler feeling, or one whose tenderness was more 
 rich in fancy, whose love bore more the impress of his soul.
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 333 
 
 Alas ! my sweet one, the art of love is his by heritage. A 
 few words will tell his story. 
 
 My friend has no other name than Marie Gaston. He is 
 the illegitimate son of the beautiful Lady Brandon, whose 
 fame must have reached you, and who died broken-hearted, 
 a victim to the vengeance of Lady Dudley a ghastly story 
 of which the dear boy knows nothing. Marie Gaston was 
 placed by his brother Louis in a boarding-school at Tours,* 
 where he remained till 1827. Louis, after settling his brother 
 at school, sailed a few days later for foreign parts "to seek 
 his fortune," to use the words of an old woman who had 
 played the part of Providence to him. This brother turned 
 sailor used to write him, at long intervals, letters quite fatherly 
 in tone, and breathing a noble spirit; but a struggling life 
 never allowed him to return home. His last letter told 
 Marie that he had been appointed captain in the navy of 
 some American republic, and exhorted him to hope for better 
 days. 
 
 Alas ! since then three years have passed, and my poor poet 
 has never heard again. So dearly did he love his brother, 
 that he would have started to look for him but for Daniel 
 d'Arthez, the well-known author, who took a generous interest 
 in Marie Gaston, and prevented him carrying out his mad 
 impulse. Nor was this all ; often would he give him a crust 
 and a corner, as the poet puts it in his graphic words. 
 
 For, in truth, the poor lad was in terrible straits ; he was 
 actually innocent enough to believe incredible as it seems 
 that genius was the shortest road to fortune (that will surely 
 make you laugh for hours), and from 1828 to 1833 his one 
 aim has been to make a name for himself in letters. Naturally 
 his life was a frightful tissue of toil and hardships, alternating 
 between hope and despair. The good advice of d'Arthez 
 could not prevail against the allurements of ambition, and his 
 debts went on growing like a snowball. Still he was beginning 
 * See "La Grenadine."
 
 334 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 to come into notice when I happened to meet him at Mme. 
 de Espard's. At first sight he inspired me, unconsciously to 
 himself, with the most vivid sympathy. How did it come 
 about that this virgin heart had been left for me? The fact 
 is that my poet combines genius and cleverness, passion and 
 pride, and women are always afraid of greatness which has no 
 weak side to it. How many victories were needed before 
 Josephine could see the great Napoleon in the little Bonaparte 
 whom she had married ? 
 
 Poor Gaston is innocent enough to think he knows the 
 measure of my love ! He simply has not an idea of it, but to 
 you I must make it clear ; for this letter, Renee, is something 
 in the nature of a last will and testament. Weigh well what 
 I am going to say, I beg of you. 
 
 At this moment I am confident of being loved as perhaps 
 not another woman on this earth is, nor have I a shadow of 
 doubt as to the perfect happiness of our wedded life, to which 
 I bring a feeling hitherto unknown to me. Yes, for the first 
 time in my life, I know the delight of being swayed by passion. 
 That which every woman seeks in love will be mine in mar- 
 riage. As poor Felipe once adored me, so do I now adore 
 Gaston. I have lost control of myself, I tremble before this 
 boy as the Arab hero used to tremble before me. In a word, 
 the balance of love is now on my side, and this makes me 
 timid. I am full of the most absurd terrors. I am afraid of 
 being deserted, afraid of becoming old and ugly while Gaston 
 still retains his youth and beauty, afraid of coming short of 
 his hopes ! 
 
 And yet I believe I have it in me, I believe I have sufficient 
 devotion and ability, not only to keep alive the flame of his 
 love in our solitary life, far from the world, but even to make 
 it burn stronger and brighter. If I am mistaken, if this 
 splendid idyl of love in hiding must come to an end an end ! 
 what am I saying? if I find Gaston's love less intense any 
 day than it was the evening before, be sure of this, Ren6e, I
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 335 
 
 should visit my failure only on myself; no blame should attach 
 to him. I tell you now, it would mean my death. Not even 
 if I had children could I live on these terms, for I know 
 myself, Renee ; I know that my nature is the lover's rather 
 than the mother's. Therefore, before taking this vow upon 
 my soul, I implore you, my Renee, if this disaster befall me, 
 to take the place of mother to my children ; let them be my 
 legacy to you ! All that I know of you, your blind attach- 
 ment to duty, your rare gifts, your love of children, your 
 affection for me, would help to make my death I dare not 
 say easy but at least less bitter. 
 
 The compact I have thus made with myself adds a vague 
 terror to the solemnity of my marriage ceremony. For this 
 reason I wish to have no one whom I know present, and it 
 will be performed in secret. Let my heart fail me if it will, 
 at least I shall not read anxiety in your dear eyes, and I alone 
 shall know that this new marriage-contract which I sign may 
 be my death-warrant. 
 
 I shall not refer again to this agreement entered into 
 between my present self and the self I am to be. I have 
 confided it to you in order that you might know the full 
 extent of your responsibilities. In marrying I retain full 
 control of my property; and Gaston, while aware that I have 
 enough to secure a comfortable life for both of us, is ignorant 
 of its amount. Within twenty-four hours I shall dispose of it 
 as I please; and, in order to save him from a humiliating 
 position, I shall have stock, bringing in twelve thousand 
 francs a year, assigned to him. He will find this in his desk 
 on the eve of our wedding. If he declines to accept, I should 
 break off the whole thing. I had to threaten a rupture to 
 get his permission to pay his debts. 
 
 This long confession has tired me. I shall finish it the day 
 after to-morrow ; I have to spend to-morrow in the country.
 
 336 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 October 2oth. 
 
 I will tell you now the steps I have taken to insure secrecy. 
 My object has been to ward off every possible incitement to 
 my ever-wakeful jealousy, in imitation of the Italian princess, 
 who, like a lioness, rushing on her prey, carried it off to some 
 Swiss town to devour in peace. And I confide my plans to 
 you only because I have another favor to beg; namely, that 
 you will respect our solitude and never come to see us unin- 
 vited. 
 
 Two years ago I purchased a small property overlooking 
 the ponds of Ville d'Avray, on the road to Versailles. It con- 
 sists of twenty acres of meadow-land, the skirts of a wood, 
 and a fine fruit garden. Below the meadows the land has 
 been excavated so as to make a lake of about three acres in 
 extent, with a charming little island in the middle. The 
 small valley is shut in by two graceful, thickly wooded slopes, 
 where rise delicious springs that water my park by means of 
 channels cleverly disposed by my architect. Finally, they 
 fall into the royal ponds, glimpses of which can be seen here 
 and there, gleaming in the distance. My little park has been 
 admirably laid out by the architect, who has surrounded it 
 with hedges, walls, or sunken fences, according to the lay of 
 the land, so that no possible point of view may be lost. 
 
 A lovely cottage has been built for me half-way up the hill- 
 side, with a charming exposure, having the woods of the 
 Ronce on either side, and in front a grassy slope running 
 down to the lake. Externally the chalet is an exact copy of 
 those which are so much admired by travelers on the road 
 from Sion to Brieg, and which fascinated me when I was re- 
 turning from Italy. The internal decorations will bear com- 
 parison with those of the most celebrated buildings of the kind. 
 
 A hundred paces from this rustic dwelling stands a charm- 
 ing and ornamental house, communicating with it by a sub- 
 terranean passage. This contains the kitchen, and other 
 servants' rooms, stables, and coach-houses. Of all this series
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 337 
 
 of brick buildings the facade alone is seen, graceful in its 
 simplicity, against a background of shrubbery. Another 
 building serves to lodge the gardeners and masks the entrance 
 to the orchards and kitchen-gardens. 
 
 The entrance gate to the property is so hidden in the wall 
 dividing the park from the wood as almost to defy detection. 
 The plantations, already well grown, will, in two or three 
 years, completely hide the buildings, so that, except in winter, 
 when the trees are bare, no trace of habitation will appear to 
 the outside world, save only the smoke visible from the 
 neighboring hills. 
 
 The surroundings of my chalet have been modeled on what 
 is called the King's Garden at Versailles, but it has an out- 
 look on my lake and island. The hills on every side display 
 their abundant foliage those splendid trees for which your 
 civil list has so well cared. My gardeners have orders to cul- 
 tivate sweet-scented flowers to any extent, and no others, so 
 that our home will be a fragrant emerald. The chalet, 
 adorned with a wild vine which covers the roof, is literally 
 imbedded in climbing plants of all kinds hops, clematis, 
 jasmine, azalea, copaea. It will be a sharp eye which can 
 descry our windows ! 
 
 The chalet, my dear, is a good, solid house, with its heating 
 system and all the conveniences of modern architecture, 
 which can raise a palace in the compass of a hundred square 
 feet. It contains a suite of rooms for Gaston and another for 
 me. The first-floor is occupied by an anteroom, a parlor, and 
 a dining-room. Above our floor again are three rooms des- 
 tined for the nursery. I have five first-rate horses, a small 
 light coupe, and a two-horse milord. We are only forty 
 minutes' drive from Paris ; so that, when the spirit moves us 
 to hear an opera or see a new play, we can start after dinner 
 and return the same night to our bower. The road is a good 
 one, and passes under the shade of our green dividing wall of 
 woods for some distance. 
 22
 
 338 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 My servants cook, coachman, groom, and gardeners, in 
 addition to my maid are all very respectable people, whom 
 I have spent the last six months in picking up, and they will 
 be superintended by my old Philippe. Although confident 
 of their loyalty and good faith, I have not neglected to culti- 
 vate self-interest ; their wages are small, but will receive an 
 annual addition in the shape of a New Year's Day present. 
 They are all aware that the slightest fault, or a mere suspicion 
 of gossiping, might lose them a capital place. Lovers are 
 never troublesome to their servants; they are indulgent by 
 disposition, and therefore I feel that I can reckon on my 
 household. 
 
 All that is choice, pretty, or decorative in my house in the 
 Rue du Bac has been transported to the chalet. The Rem- 
 brandt hangs on the staircase, as though it were a mere daub ; 
 the Hobbema faces the Rubens in his study ; the Titian, 
 which my sister-in-law Marie sent me from Madrid, adorns 
 the boudoir. The beautiful furniture picked up by Felipe 
 looks very well in the parlor, which the architect has decorated 
 most tastefully. Everything at the chalet is charmingly simple, 
 with the simplicity which can't be got under a hundred thou- 
 sand francs. Our first-floor rests on cellars, which are built of 
 millstone and imbedded in concrete ; it is almost completely 
 buried in flowers and shrubs, and is deliciously cool without a 
 vestige of damp. To complete the picture, a fleet of white 
 swans sail over my lake at the foot of the lawn ! 
 
 Oh ! Renee, the silence which reigns in this valley would 
 bring joy to the dead ! One is awakened by the birds singing 
 or the breeze rustling in the poplars. A little spring, dis- 
 covered by the architect in digging the foundations of the 
 wall, trickles down the hillside over silvery sand to the lake, 
 between two banks of watercress, hugging the edge of the 
 woods. I know nothing that money can buy to equal it. 
 
 May not Gaston come to loathe this too perfect bliss? I 
 shudder to think how complete it is, for the ripest fruits
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 339 
 
 harbor the worms, the most gorgeous flowers attract the in- 
 sects. Is it not ever the monarch of the forest which is eaten 
 away by the fatal brown grub, voracious as death? I have 
 learned before now that an unseen and jealous power attacks 
 happiness which has reached perfection. Beside, this is the 
 moral of all your preaching, and you have been proved a 
 prophet. 
 
 When I went, the day before yesterday, to see whether my 
 last whim had been carried out, tears rose to my eyes ; and, 
 to the great surprise of my architect, I at once passed his 
 account for payment. 
 
 "But, madame," he exclaimed, "your man of business 
 will refuse to pay this ; it is a matter of three hundred thou- 
 sand francs." My only reply was to add the words, " To be 
 paid without question," with the bearing of a seventeenth- 
 century Chaulieu. 
 
 "But," I said, "there is one condition to my gratitude. 
 No human being must hear from you of the park and build- 
 ings. Promise me, on your honor, to observe this article in 
 our contract not to breathe to any living soul the propri- 
 etor's name." 
 
 Now, can you understand the meaning of my sudden jour- 
 neys, my mysterious comings and goings ? Now, do you 
 know whither those beautiful things, which the world supposes 
 to be sold, have flown? Do you perceive the ultimate motive 
 of my change of investment? Love, my dear, is a vast busi- 
 ness, and they who would succeed in it should have no other. 
 Henceforth I shall have no more trouble from money matters ; 
 I have taken all the thorns out of my life, and done my house- 
 keeping work once for all with a vengeance, so as never to be 
 troubled with it again, except during the daily ten minutes 
 which I shall devote to my old major-domo, Philippe. I 
 have made a study of life and its sharp curves ; there came a 
 day when death also gave me a sharp lesson. Now I want to 
 turn all this to account. My one occupation will be to please
 
 340 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 him and love him, to brighten with variety what to common 
 mortals is monotonously dull. 
 
 Gaston is still in complete ignorance. At my request he 
 has, like myself, taken up his quarters at Ville d'Avray ; to- 
 morrow we start for the chalet. Our life there will cost but 
 little ; but if I told you the sum I am setting aside for my 
 toilet, you would exclaim at my madness, and with reason. 
 I intend to take as much trouble to make myself beautiful for 
 him every day as other women do for society. My dress in 
 the country, year in, year out, will cost twenty-four thousand 
 francs, and the larger portion of this will not go in day cos- 
 tumes. As for him, he can wear a blouse if he pleases ! 
 Don't suppose that I am going to turn our life into an amorous 
 duel and wear myself out in devices for feeding passion ; all 
 that I want is to have a conscience free from reproach. Thir- 
 teen years still lie before me as a pretty woman, and I am 
 determined to be loved on the last day of the thirteenth even 
 more fondly than on the morrow of our mysterious nuptials. 
 This time no cutting words shall mar my lowly, grateful con- 
 tent. I will take the part of servant, since that of mistress 
 throve so ill with me before. 
 
 Ah ! Renee, if Gaston has sounded, as I have, the heights 
 and depths of love, my happiness is assured ! Nature at the 
 chalet wears her fairest face. The woods are charming ; each 
 step opens up to you some fresh vista of cool greenery, which 
 delights the soul by the sweet thoughts it awakens. They 
 breathe of love. 
 
 If only this be not the gorgeous theatre dressed by my hand 
 for my own martyrdom ! 
 
 In two days from now I shall be Mme. Gaston. My God ! 
 is it fitting a Christian so to love mortal man ? 
 
 "Well, at least you have the law with you," was the com- 
 ment of my man of business, who is to be one of my witnesses, 
 and who exclaimed, on discovering why my property was to 
 be realized, " I am losing a client ! "
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 341 
 
 And you, my sweet heart (whom I dare no longer call my 
 loved one), may you not cry : " I am losing a sister? " 
 
 My sweet, address when you write in future to Mme. Gas- 
 ton, Poste Restante, Versailles. We shall send there every 
 day for letters. I don't want to be known to the country 
 people, and we shall get all our provisions from Paris. In 
 this way I hope we may guard the secret of our lives. No- 
 body has been seen in the place during the year spent in pre- 
 paring our retreat ; and the purchase was made in the troubled 
 period which followed the revolution of July. The only per- 
 son who has shown himself here is the architect ; he alone is 
 known, and he will not return. 
 
 Farewell. As I write this word, I know not whether my 
 heart is fuller of grief or joy. That proves, does it not ? that 
 the pain of losing you equals my love for Gaston. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 MARIE GASTON TO DANIEL D'ARTHEZ. 
 
 October, 1833. 
 
 MY DEAR DANIEL : I need two witnesses for my marriage. 
 I beg of you to come to-morrow evening for this purpose, 
 bringing with you our worthy and honored friend, Joseph 
 Bridau. She who is to be my wife, with an instinctive divina- 
 tion of my dearest wishes, has declared her intention of living 
 far from the world in complete retirement. You, who have 
 done so much to lighten my penury, have been left in ignorance 
 of my love ; but you will understand that absolute secrecy was 
 essential. 
 
 This will explain to you why it is that, for the last year, we 
 have seen so little of each other. On the morrow of my wed- 
 ding we shall be parted for a long time ; but, Daniel, you are 
 of stuff to understand me. Friendship can exist in the ab- 
 sence of a friend. There may be times when I shall want you
 
 342 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 badly, but I shall not see you, at least not in my own house. 
 Here again she has forestalled our wishes. She has sacrificed 
 to me her intimacy with a friend of her childhood, who has 
 been a sister to her. For her sake, then, I also must relin- 
 quish my comrade ! 
 
 From this fact alone you will divine that ours is no mere 
 passing fancy, but love, absolute, perfect, godlike ; love based 
 upon the fullest knowledge that can bind two hearts in sym- 
 pathy. To me it is a perpetual spring of purest delight. 
 
 Yet nature allows of no happiness without alloy ; and deep 
 down, in the innermost recess of my heart, I am conscious of 
 a lurking thought, not shared with her, the pang of which is 
 for me alone. You have too often come to the help of my 
 inveterate poverty to be ignorant how desperate matters were 
 with me. Where should I have found courage to keep up the 
 struggle of life, after seeing my hopes so often blighted, but 
 for your cheering words, your tactful aid, and the knowledge 
 of what you had come through ? Briefly, then, my friend, 
 she freed me from that crushing load of debt, which was no 
 secret to you. She is wealthy, I am penniless. Many a time 
 have I exclaimed, in one of my fits of idleness: "Oh, for 
 some great heiress to cast her eye on me ! " And now, in 
 presence of this reality, the boy's careless jest, the unscrupu- 
 lous cynicism of the outcast, have alike vanished, leaving in 
 their place only a bitter sense of humiliation, which not the 
 most considerate tenderness on her part, nor my own assur- 
 ance of her noble nature, can remove. Nay, what better 
 proof of my love could there exist, for her or for myself, than 
 this shame, from which I have not recoiled, even when power- 
 less to overcome it ? The fact remains that there is a point 
 where, far from protecting, I am the protected. 
 
 This is my pain which I confide to you. 
 
 Except in this one particular, dear Daniel, my fondest 
 dreams are more than realized. I have found the Beautiful 
 without a flaw, the Good without defect. Fairest and noblest
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 343 
 
 among women, such a bride might indeed raise a man to 
 giddy heights of bliss. Her gentle ways are seasoned with 
 wit, her love comes with an ever-fresh grace and charm ; her 
 mind is well informed and quick" to understand ; in person, 
 she is fair and lovely, with a rounded slimness, as though 
 Raphael and Rubens had conspired to create a woman ! I do 
 not know whether I could have worshiped with such fervor at 
 the shrine of a dark beauty; a brunette always strikes me as an 
 unfinished boy. She is a widow, childless, and twenty-seven 
 years of age. Though brimful of life and energy, she has her 
 moods also of dreamy melancholy. These rare gifts go with 
 a proud aristocratic bearing ; she has a fine presence. 
 
 She belongs to one of those old families who make a fetish 
 of rank, yet loves me enough to ignore the misfortune of my 
 birth. Our secret passion is now of long standing ; we have 
 made trial, each of the other, and find that in the matter of 
 jealousy we are twin spirits ; our thoughts are the reverbera- 
 tion of the same thunderclap. We both love for the first time, 
 and this bewitching springtime has filled its days for us with 
 all the images of delight that fancy can paint in laughing, 
 sweet, or musing mood. Our path has been strewn with the 
 flowers of tender imaginings. Each hour brought its own 
 wealth, and, when we parted, it was to put our thoughts in 
 verse. Not for a moment did I harbor the idea of sullying 
 the brightness of such a time by giving the rein to sensual 
 passion, however it might chafe within. She was a widow and 
 free ; intuitively, she realized all the homage implied in this 
 constant self-restraint, which often moved her to tears. Can 
 you not read in this, my friend, a soul of noble temper ? In 
 mutual fear we shunned even the first kiss of love. 
 
 "We have each a wrong to reproach ourselves with," she 
 said one day. 
 
 " Where is yours ? " I asked. 
 
 " My marriage," was her reply. 
 
 Daniel, you are a giant among us, and you love one of the
 
 344 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 most gifted women of the aristocracy, which has produced my 
 Armande ; what need to tell you more ? Such an answer lays 
 bare to you a woman's heart and all the happiness which is in 
 
 store for your friend, 
 
 MARIE GASTON. 
 
 MME. DE L ESTORADE TO MME. DE MACUMER. 
 
 Louise, can it be that, with all your knowledge of the deep- 
 seated mischief wrought by the indulgence of passion, even 
 within the heart of marriage, you are planning a life of 
 wedded solitude ? Having sacrificed your first husband in the 
 course of a fashionable career, would you now fly to the desert 
 to consume a second ? What stores of misery you are laying 
 up for yourself ! 
 
 But I see from the way you have set about it that there is 
 no going back. The man who has overcome your aversion to 
 a second marriage must indeed possess some magic of mind 
 and heart ; and you can only be left to your illusions. But 
 have you forgotten your former criticism on young men? 
 Not one, you would say, but has visited haunts of shame, 
 and has besmirched his purity with the filth of the streets. 
 Where is the change, pray in them or in you ? 
 
 You are a lucky woman to be able to believe in happiness. 
 I have not the courage to blame you for it, though the instinct 
 of affection urges me to dissuade you from this marriage. 
 Yes, a thousand times, yes, it is true that nature and society 
 are at one in making war on absolute happiness, because such 
 a condition is opposed to the laws of both ; possibly, also, 
 because heaven is jealous of its privileges. My love for you 
 forebodes some disaster to which all my penetration can give 
 no definite form. I know neither whence nor from whom it 
 will arise ; but one need be no prophet to foretell that the
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 345 
 
 mere weight of a boundless happiness will overpower you. 
 Excess of joy is harder to bear than any amount of sorrow. 
 
 Against him I have not a word to say. You love him, and 
 in all probability I have never seen him ; but some idle day I 
 hope you will send me a sketch, however slight, of this rare, 
 fine animal. 
 
 If you see me so resigned and cheerful, it is because I am 
 convinced that, once the honeymoon is over, you will both, 
 with one accord, fall back into the corr n track. Some 
 day, two years hence, when we are walking along this famous 
 road, you will exclaim, " Why, there is the chalet which was 
 to be my home for ever!" And you will laugh your dear 
 old laugh, which shows all your pretty teeth ! 
 
 I have said nothing yet to Louis ; it would be too good an 
 opening for his ridicule. I shall tell him simply that you are 
 going to be married, and that you wish it kept secret. Un- 
 luckily, you need neither mother nor sister for your bridal 
 evening. We are in October now; like a brave woman, you 
 are grappling with winter first. If it were not a question of 
 marriage, I should say you were taking the bull by the horns. 
 In any case, you will have in me the most discreet and intelli- 
 gent of friends. That mysterious region, known as the centre 
 of Africa, has swallowed up many travelers, and you seem to 
 me to be launching on an expedition which, in the domain of 
 sentiment, corresponds to those where so many explorers have 
 perished, whether in the sands or at the hands of natives. 
 Your desert is, happily, only two leagues from Paris, so I 
 can wish you quite cheerfully, "A safe journey and speedy 
 return."
 
 346 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 LI. 
 
 THE COMTESSE DE L*ESTORADE TO MME. MARIE GASTON. 
 
 1835- 
 
 What has come to you, my dear? After a silence of two 
 years, surely Renee has a right to feel anxious about Louise. 
 So this is love ! It brushes aside and scatters to the winds a 
 friendship such as ours ! You must admit that, devoted as I 
 am to my children more even perhaps than you to your 
 Gaston a mother's love has something expansive about it 
 which does not allow it to steal from other affections, or inter- 
 fere with the claims of friendship. I miss your letters, I long 
 for a sight of your dear, sweet face. Oh ! Louise, my heart 
 has only conjecture to feed upon ! 
 
 As regards ourselves, I will try and tell you everything as 
 briefly as possible. 
 
 On reading over again your last letter but one, I find some 
 stinging comments on our political situation. You mocked 
 at us for keeping the post in the Audit Department, which, as 
 well as the title of count, Louis owed solely to the favor of 
 Charles X. But I should like to know how it would be pos- 
 sible out of an income of forty thousand francs, thirty thou- 
 sand of which go with the entail, to give a suitable start in 
 life to Athena^s and my poor little beggar Rene? Was it not 
 a duty to live on our salary and prudently allow the income 
 of the estate to accumulate? In this way we shall, in twenty 
 years, have put together about six hundred thousand francs, 
 which will provide portions for my daughter and for Rene, 
 whom I destine for the navy. The poor little chap will have 
 an income of ten thousand francs, and perhaps we may con- 
 trive to leave him in cash enough to bring his portion up to 
 the amount of his sister's. 
 
 When he is captain, my "Pauper" will be able to make a
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 347 
 
 wealthy marriage and may, perhaps, take a position in society 
 as good as his elder brother's. 
 
 These considerations of prudence determined the acceptance 
 in our family of the new order of things. The new dynasty, 
 as was natural, raised Louis to the peerage and made him a 
 grand officer of the Legion of Honor. The oath once taken, 
 1'Estorade could not be half-hearted in his services, and he 
 has since then made himself very useful in the Chamber. The 
 position he has now attained is one in which he can rest upon 
 his oars till the end of his days. He has a good deal of 
 adroitness in business matters j and though he can hardly be 
 called an orator, speaks pleasantly and fluently, which is all 
 that is necessary in politics. His shrewdness and sound knowl- 
 edge in all matters of government and administration are fully 
 appreciated, and all parties consider him indispensable. I may 
 tell you that he was recently offered an embassy, but I would 
 not let him accept it. I am tied to Paris by the education of 
 Armand and AthenaYs who are now respectively thirteen and 
 nearly eleven and I don't intend leaving till little Rene has 
 completed his, which is just beginning. 
 
 We could not have remained faithful to the elder branch of 
 the dynasty and returned to our country life without allowing 
 the education and prospects of the three children to suffer. A 
 mother, my sweet, is hardly called on to be a Decius, especi- 
 ally at a time when the type is rare. In fifteen years from now, 
 1'Estorade will be able to retire to La Crampade on a good 
 pension, having found a place as referendary for Armand in 
 the Audit Department. 
 
 As for Rene, the navy will doubtless land him into diplo- 
 macy. The little rogue, at seven years old, has all the cun- 
 ning of an old cardinal. 
 
 Oh ! Louise, I am indeed a happy mother. My children 
 are an endless source of joy to me " Senza brama sicura 
 ricchezza." 
 
 Armand is a day scholar at Henri IV. 's school. I made
 
 348 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 up my mind he should have a public-school training, yet could 
 not reconcile myself to the thought of parting with him ; so 
 I compromised, as the Due d' Orleans did before he became 
 or in order that he might become Louis Philippe. Every 
 morning Lucas, the old servant whom you will remember, 
 takes Armand to school in time for the first lesson, and brings 
 him home again at half-past four. In the house we have a private 
 tutor, an admirable scholar, who helps Armand with his work 
 in the evenings, and calls him in the morning at the school 
 hour. Lucas takes him some lunch during the play-hour at 
 midday. In this way I am with my boy at dinner and until 
 he goes to bed at night, and I see him off in the morning. 
 
 Armand is the same charming little fellow, full of feeling 
 and unselfish impulse, whom you loved ; and his tutor is quite 
 pleased with him. I still have Na'is and the baby two rest- 
 less little mortals but I am quite as much a child as they are. 
 I could not bring myself to lose the darlings' sweet caresses. 
 I could not live without the feeling that at any moment I can 
 fly to Armand's bedside and watch his slumbers or snatch a 
 kiss. 
 
 Yet home education is not without its drawbacks, to which 
 I am fully alive. Society, like nature, is a jealous power, and 
 will not have her rights encroached on, or her system set at 
 naught. Thus, children who are brought up at home are ex- 
 posed too early to the fire of the world ; they see its passions 
 and become at home in its subterfuges. The finer distinctions, 
 which regulate the conduct of matured men and women, 
 elude their perceptions, and they take feeling and passion for 
 their guide instead of subordinating these to the code of 
 society ; whilst the gay trappings and tinsel which attract so 
 much of the world's favor blind them to the importance of 
 the more sober virtues. A child of fifteen with the assurance 
 of a man of the world is a thing against all nature ; at twenty- 
 five he will be prematurely old, and his precocious knowledge 
 only unfits him for the genuine study on which all solid ability
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 349 
 
 must rest. Life in society is one long comedy, and those 
 who take part in it, like other actors, reflect impressions 
 which never penetrate below the surface. A mother, there- 
 fore, who wishes not to part from her children, must resolutely 
 determine that they shall not enter the gay world ; she must 
 have courage to resist their inclinations, as well as her own, 
 and keep them in the background. Cornelia had to keep her 
 jewels under lock and key. Shall I do less for the children 
 who are all the world to me ? 
 
 Now that I am thirty, the heat of the day is over, the 
 hardest bit of the road lies behind me. In a few years I shall 
 be an old woman, and the sense of duty done is an immense 
 encouragement. It would almost seem as though my trio can 
 read my thoughts and shape themselves accordingly. A mys- 
 terious bond of sympathy unites me to these children who 
 have never left my side. If they knew the blank in my life 
 which they have to fill, they could not be more lavish of the 
 solace they bring. 
 
 Armand, who was dull and dreamy during his first three 
 years at school, and caused me some uneasiness, has made a 
 sudden start. Doubtless he realized, in a way most children 
 never do, the aim of all this preparatory work, which is to 
 sharpen the intelligence, to get them into habits of application, 
 and accustom them to that fundamental principle of all society 
 obedience. My dear, a few days ago I had the proud joy 
 of seeing Armand crowned at the great inter-scholastic com- 
 petition in the crowded Sorbonne, when your godson received 
 the first prize for translation. At the school distribution he 
 got two first prizes one for verse and one for an essay. I 
 went quite white when his name was called out, and longed to 
 shout aloud : " I am his mother ! " Little Nais squeezed my 
 hand till it hurt, if at such a moment it were possible to feel 
 pain. Ah ! Louise, a day like this might outweigh many a 
 dream of love ! 
 
 His brother's triumphs have spurred on little Rene, who
 
 350 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 wants to go to school too. Sometimes the three children 
 make such a racket, shouting and rushing about the house, 
 that I wonder how my head stands it. I am always with 
 them ; no one else, not even Mary, is allowed to take care of 
 my children. But the calling of a mother, if taxing, has so 
 many compensating joys ! To see a child leave its play and 
 run to hug one, out of the fullness of its heart, what could be 
 sweeter ? 
 
 Then it is only in being constantly with them that one can 
 study their characters. It is the duty of a mother, and one 
 which she can depute to no hired teacher, to decipher the 
 tastes, temper, and natural aptitudes of her children from 
 their infancy. All homebred children are distinguished by 
 ease of manner and tact, two acquired qualities which may go 
 far to supply the lack of natural ability, whereas no natural 
 ability can atone for the loss of this early training. I have 
 already learned to discriminate this difference of tone in the 
 men whom I meet in society, and to trace the hand of a 
 woman in the formation of a young man's manners. How 
 could any woman defraud her children of such a possession ? 
 You see what rewards attend the performance of my tasks? 
 
 Armand, I feel certain, will make an admirable judge, the 
 most upright of public servants, the most devoted of deputies. 
 And where would you find a sailor bolder, more adventurous, 
 more astute than my Rene will be a few years hence ? The 
 little rascal has already an iron will, whatever he wants he 
 manages to get ; he will try a thousand circuitous ways to reacli 
 his end, and, if not successful then, will devise a thousand and 
 first. Where dear Armand quietly resigns himself and tries to 
 get at the reason of things, Rene will storm, and strive, and 
 puzzle, chattering all the time, till at last he finds some chink 
 in the obstacle ; if there is room for the blade of a knife to 
 pass, his little carriage will ride through in triumph. 
 
 And Nals ? Na'is is so completely a second self that I can 
 hardly realize her as distinct from my own flesh and blood.
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 351 
 
 What a darling she is, and how I love to make a little lady of 
 her, to dress her curly hair, tender thoughts mingling the 
 while with every touch ! I must have her happy ; I shall only 
 give her to the man who loves her and whom she loves. But, 
 heavens ! when I let her put on her little ornaments, or pass 
 a cherry-colored ribbon through her hair, or fasten the shoes 
 on her tiny feet, a sickening thought comes over me. How 
 can one order the destiny of a girl ? Who can say that she 
 will not love a scoundrel or some man who is indifferent to 
 her? Tears often spring to my eyes as I watch her. This 
 lovely creature, this flower, this rosebud which has blossomed 
 in one's heart, to be handed over to a man who will tear it 
 from the stem and leave it bare ! Louise, it is you you, who 
 in two years have not written three words to tell me of your 
 welfare it is you who have recalled to my mind the terrible 
 possibilities of marriage, so full of anguish for a mother wrapped 
 up, as I am, in her child. Farewell now, for in truth you 
 don't deserve my friendship, and I hardly know how to write. 
 Oh ! answer me, my own Louise. 
 
 LII. 
 
 MME. GASTON TO MME. DE I/ESTORADE. 
 
 THE CHALET. 
 
 So, after a silence of two years, you are pricked by curiosity, 
 and want to know why I have not written. My dear Renee, 
 there are no words, no images, no language to express my 
 happiness. That we have strength to bear it sums up all I 
 could say. It costs us no effort, for we are in perfect sympathy. 
 The whole two years have known no note of discord in the 
 harmony, no jarring word in the interchange of feeling, no 
 shade of difference in our lightest wish. Not one in this 
 long succession of days has failed to bear its own peculiar
 
 352 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 fruit ; not a moment has passed without being enriched by 
 the play of fancy. So far are we from dreading the clanker 
 of monotony in our life, that our only fear is lest it should 
 not be long enough to contain all the poetic creations of a 
 love as rich and varied in its development as nature herself. 
 Of disappointment not a trace ! We find more pleasure in 
 being together than on the first day, and each hour as it goes 
 by discloses fresh reason for our love. Every day as we take 
 our evening stroll after dinner, we tell each other that we 
 really must go and see what is doing in Paris, just as one 
 might talk of going to Switzerland. 
 
 "Only think," Gaston will exclaim, "such and such a 
 boulevard is being made, the Madeleine is finished. We ought 
 to see it. Let us go to-morrow." 
 
 And to-morrow comes, and we are in no hurry to get up, 
 and we breakfast in our bedroom. Then midday is on us, 
 and it is too hot ; a siesta seems appropriate. Then Gaston 
 wishes to look at me, and he gazes on my face as though it 
 were a picture, losing himself in this contemplation, which, as 
 you may suppose, is not one-sided. Tears rise to the eyes of 
 both as we think of our love and tremble. I am still the 
 mistress, pretending, that is, to give less than I receive, and I 
 revel in this deception. To a woman what can be sweeter 
 than to see passion ever held in check by tenderness, and the 
 man who is her master stayed, like a timid suitor, by a word 
 from her, within the limits that she chooses? There is a great 
 charm for women in seeing sentiment stronger than desire. 
 
 You asked me to describe him ; but, Renee, it is not possi- 
 ble to make a portrait of the man we love. How could the 
 heart be kept out of the work ? Beside, to be frank between 
 ourselves, we may admit that one of the dire effects of civiliza- 
 tion on our manners is to make of man in society a being so 
 utterly different from the natural man of strong feelings, that 
 sometimes not a single point of likeness can be found between 
 these two aspects of the same person. The man who falls into
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 353 
 
 the most graceful operatic poses, as he pours sweet nothings 
 into your ear by the fire at night, may be entirely destitute of 
 those more intimate charms which a woman values. On the 
 other hand, an ugly, boorish, badly-dressed figure may mark 
 a man endowed with the very genius of love, and who has a 
 perfect mastery over situations which might baffle even us 
 with our superficial graces. A man whose conventional aspect 
 accords with his real nature, who, in the intimacy of wedded 
 love, possesses that inborn grace which can be neither given 
 nor acquired, but which Greek art has embodied in statuary, 
 that careless innocence of the ancient poets which, even in 
 frank undress, seems to clothe the soul as with a veil of 
 modesty this is our ideal, born of our own conceptions, and 
 linked with the universal harmony which seems to be the 
 reality underlying all created things. To find this ideal in 
 life is the problem which haunts the imagination of every 
 woman in Gaston I have found it. 
 
 Ah ! dear, I did not know what love could be, united to 
 youth, talent, and beauty. Gaston has no affectation, he 
 moves with an instinctive and unstudied grace. When we 
 walk alone together in the woods, his arm round my waist, 
 mine resting on his shoulder, body fitted to body, and head 
 touching head, our step is so even, uniform, and gentle, that 
 those who see us pass by night take the vision for a single 
 figure gliding over the graveled walks, like one of Homer's 
 immortals. A like harmony exists in our desires, our thoughts, 
 our words. More than once on some evening when a passing 
 shower has left the leaves glistening and the moist grass bright 
 with a more vivid green, it has chanced that we ended our 
 walk without uttering a word, as we listened to the patter of 
 falling drops and feasted our eyes on the scarlet sunset, flaring 
 on the hilltops or dyeing with a warmer tone the gray of the 
 tree-trunks. 
 
 Beyond a doubt our thoughts then rose to heaven in silent 
 prayer, pleading, as it were, for our happiness. At times a 
 28
 
 354 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 cry wouid escape us at the moment when some sudden bend 
 on the path opened up fresh beauties. What words can tell 
 how honey-sweet, how full of meaning, is a kiss half-timidly 
 exchanged within the sanctuary of nature it is as though 
 God had created us to worship in this fashion. And we re- 
 turn home, loving each other better, always better. 
 
 A love so passionate between old married people would be 
 an outrage on society in Paris ; only in the heart of the woods, 
 like lovers, can we give scope to it. 
 
 To come to particulars, Gaston is of middle height the 
 height proper to all men of purpose. Neither stout nor thin, 
 his figure is admirably made, with ample fullness in the pro- 
 portions, while every motion is agile ; he leaps a ditch with 
 the easy grace of a wild animal. Whatever his attitude, he 
 seems to have an instinctive sense of balance, and this is very 
 rare in men who are given to thought. Though a dark man, 
 he has an extraordinarily fair complexion ; his jet-black hair 
 contrasts finely with the lustreless tints of the neck and fore- 
 head. He has the tragic head of Louis XIII. His mustache 
 and tuft have been allowed to grow, but I made him shave 
 the whiskers and beard, which were getting too common. 
 An honorable poverty has been his safeguard, and handed 
 him over to me, unsoiled by the loose life which ruins so 
 many young men. His teeth are magnificent, and he has a 
 constitution of iron. His keen blue eyes, for me full of ten- 
 derness, will flash like lightning at any rousing thought. 
 
 Like all men of strong character and powerful mind, he has 
 an admirable temper; its evenness would surprise you, as it 
 did me. I have listened to the tale of many a woman's home 
 troubles ; I have heard of the moods and depression of men 
 dissatisfied with themselves, who either won't get old or age 
 ungracefully, men who carry about through life the rankling 
 memory of some youthful excess, whose veins run poison 
 and whose eyes are never frankly happy, men who cloak sus- 
 picion under bad temper, and make their women pay for an
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 355 
 
 hour's peace by a morning of annoyance, who take vengeance 
 on us for a beauty which is hateful to them because they have 
 ceased themselves to be attractive all these are horrors un- 
 known to youth. They are the penalty of unequal unions. 
 Oh ! my dear, whatever you do, marry Athenais to none but 
 a young man ! 
 
 But his smile how I feast on it ! A smile which is always 
 there, yet always fresh through the play of subtle fancy, a 
 speaking smile which makes of the lips a storehouse for 
 thoughts of love and unspoken gratitude, a smile which links 
 present joys to past. For nothing is allowed to drop out of 
 our common life. The smallest works of nature have become 
 part and parcel of our joy. In these delightful woods every- 
 thing is alive and eloquent of ourselves. An old moss-grown 
 oak, near the woodman's house on the roadside, reminds us 
 how we sat there, wearied, under its shade, while Gaston 
 taught me about the mosses at our feet and told me their 
 story, till, gradually ascending from science to science, we 
 touched the very confines of creation. 
 
 There is something so kindred in our minds that they seem 
 to me like two editions of the same book. You see what a 
 literary tendency I have developed ! We both have the habit, 
 or the gift, of looking at every subject broadly, of taking in 
 all its points of view, and the proof we are constantly giving 
 ourselves of the singleness of our inward vision is an ever-new 
 pleasure. We have actually come to look on this community 
 of mind as a pledge of love ; and if it ever failed us, it would 
 mean as much to us as would a breach of fidelity in an ordi- 
 nary home. 
 
 My life, full as it is of pleasures, would seem to you, never- 
 theless, extremely laborious. To begin with, my dear, you 
 must know that Louise-Armande-Marie de Chaulieu does her 
 own room. I could not bear that a hired menial, some 
 woman or girl from the outside, should become initiated 
 literary touch again ! into the secrets of my bedroom. The
 
 356 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 veriest trifles connected with the worship of my heart partake 
 of its sacred character. This is not jealousy ; it is self-respect. 
 Thus my room is done out with all the care a young girl in 
 love bestows on her person, and with the precision of an old 
 maid. My dressing-room is no chaos of litter ; on the con- 
 trary, it makes a charming boudoir. My keen eye has fore- 
 seen all contingencies. At whatever hour the lord and master 
 enters, he will find nothing to distress, surprise, or shock him ; 
 he is greeted by flowers, perfume, elegance, and everything 
 that can charm the eye. 
 
 I get up in the early dawn, while he is still sleeping, and, 
 without disturbing him, pass into the dressing-room, where, 
 profiting by my mother's experience, I remove the traces of 
 sleep by bathing in cold water. For during sleep the skin, 
 being less active, does not perform its functions adequately ; 
 it becomes warm and covered with a sort of mist or atmos- 
 phere of sticky matter, visible to the eye. From a sponge-bath 
 a woman issues forth ten years younger, and this, perhaps, is 
 the interpretation of the myth of Venus rising from the sea. 
 So the cold water restores to me the saucy charm of dawn, 
 and, having combed and scented my hair and made a most 
 fastidious toilet, I glide back, snake-like, in order that my 
 master may find me, dainty as a spring morning, at his waken- 
 ing. He is charmed with this freshness, as of a newly opened 
 flower, without having the least idea how it is produced. 
 
 The regular toilet of the day is a matter for my maid, and 
 this takes place later in a larger room, set aside for the purpose. 
 As you may suppose, there is also a toilet for going to bed. 
 Three times a day, you see, or it may be four, do I array my- 
 self for the delight of my husband ; which, again, dear one, 
 is suggestive of certain ancient myths. 
 
 But our work is not all play. We take a great deal of in- 
 terest in our flowers, in the beauties of the hot-house, and in 
 our trees. We give ourselves in all seriousness to horticulture, 
 and embosom the chalet in flowers, of which we are passion-
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 357 
 
 ately fond. Our lawns are always green, our shrubberies as 
 well tended as those of a millionaire. And nothing, I assure 
 you, can match the beauty of our walled garden. We are 
 regular gluttons over our fruit, and watch with tender interest 
 our Montreuil peaches, our hotbeds, our laden wall-fruit, and 
 pyramidal pear-trees. 
 
 But lest these rural pursuits should fail to satisfy my 
 beloved's mind, I have advised him to finish, in the quiet of 
 this retreat, some plays which were begun in his starvation 
 days, and which are really very fine. This is the only kind 
 of literary work which can be done in odd moments, for it 
 requires long intervals of reflection, and does not demand 
 the elaborate pruning essential to a finished style. One can't 
 make a task-work of dialogue ; there must be biting touches, 
 summings-up, and flashes of wit, which are the blossoms of the 
 mind, and come rather by inspiration than reflection. This 
 sort of intellectual sport is very much in my line. I assist 
 Gaston in his work, and in this way manage to accompany 
 him even in the boldest flights of his imagination. Do you 
 see now how it is that my winter evenings never drag or be- 
 come wearisome ? 
 
 Our servants have such an easy time, that never once since 
 we were married have we had to reprimand any of them. 
 When questioned about us, they have had wit enough to draw 
 on their imaginations, and have given us out as the companion 
 and secretary of a lady and gentleman supposed to be travel- 
 ing. They never go out without asking permission, which 
 they know will not be refused ; they are contented too, and 
 see plainly that it will be their own fault if there is a change 
 for the worse. The gardeners are allowed to sell the surplus 
 of our fruit and vegetables. The dairymaid does the same 
 with the milk, the cream, and the fresh butter on condition 
 that the best of the produce is reserved for us. They are 
 well pleased with their profits, and we are delighted with an 
 abundance which no money and no ingenuity can procure in
 
 358 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 that terrible Paris, where it costs the interest of a hundred 
 francs to produce a single fine peach. 
 
 All this is not without its meaning, my dear. I wish to fill 
 the place of society to my husband ; now society is amusing, 
 and therefore his solitude must not be allowed to pall on him. 
 I believed myself jealous in the old days, when I merely 
 allowed myself to be loved ; now I know real jealousy, the 
 jealousy of the lover. A single indifferent glance unnerves 
 me. From time to time I say to myself: " Suppose he ceased 
 to love me ! " And a shudder goes through me. I tremble 
 before him, as the Christian before his God. 
 
 Alas ! Renee, I am still without a child. The time will 
 surely come it must come when our hermitage will need a 
 father's and a mother's care to brighten it, when we shall 
 both pine to see the little frocks and pelisses, the brown or 
 golden heads, leaping, running through our shrubberies and 
 flowery paths. Oh ! it is a cruel jest of nature's, a flowering 
 tree that bears no fruit. The thought of your lovely children 
 goes through me like a knife. My life has grown narrow, 
 while yours has expanded and shed its rays afar. The passion 
 of love is essentially selfish, while motherhood widens the 
 circle of our feelings. How well I felt this difference when 
 I read your kind, tender letter ! To see you thus living in 
 three hearts roused my envy. Yes, you are happy ; you have 
 had wisdom to obey the laws of social life, whilst I stand out- 
 side, an alien. 
 
 Children, dear and loving children, can alone console a 
 woman for the loss of her beauty. I shall soon be thirty, and 
 at that age the dirge within begins. What though I am still 
 beautiful, the limits of my woman's reign are none the less in 
 sight. When they are reached, what then ? I shall be forty 
 before he is ; I shall be old while he is still young. When 
 this thought goes to my heart, I lie at his feet for an hour at 
 a time, making him swear to tell me instantly if ever he feels 
 his love diminishing.
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 359 
 
 But he is a child. He swears, as though the mere sugges- 
 tion were an absurdity, and he is so beautiful that Renee, you 
 understand I believe him. 
 
 Adieu, my angel. Shall we ever again let years pass without 
 writing ? Happiness is a monotonous theme, and that is, 
 perhaps, the reason why, to souls who love, Dante appears 
 even greater in the Paradiso than in the Inferno. I am not 
 Dante; I am only your friend, and I don't want to bore you. 
 You can write, for in your children you have an ever-growing, 
 
 ever-varying source of happiness, while mine No more 
 
 of this. A thousand loves. 
 
 LIII. 
 MME. DE L'ESTORADE TO MME. GASTON. 
 
 MY DEAR LOUISE : I have read and re-read your letter, and 
 the more deeply I enter into its spirit, the clearer does it be- 
 come to me that it is the letter, not of a woman, but of a 
 child. You are the same old Louise, and you forget, what I 
 used to repeat over and over again to you, that the passion of 
 love belongs rightly to a state of nature, and has only been 
 purloined by civilization. So fleeting is its character that the 
 resources of society are powerless to modify its primitive con- 
 dition, and it becomes the effort of all noble minds to make a 
 man of the infant Cupid. But, as you yourself admit, such 
 love ceases to be natural. 
 
 Society, my dear, abhors sterility ; by substituting a lasting 
 sentiment for the mere passing frenzy of nature, it has suc- 
 ceeded in creating that greatest of all human inventions the 
 Family, which is the enduring basis of all organized society. 
 To the accomplishment' of this end, it has sacrificed the in- 
 dividual, man as well as woman ; for we must not shut our 
 eyes to the fact that a married man devotes his energy, his 
 power, and all his possessions to his wife. Is it not she who
 
 360 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 reaps the benefit of all his care ? For whom, if not for her, 
 are the luxury and wealth, the position and distinction, the 
 comfort and the gayety of the home? 
 
 Oh ! my sweet, once again you have taken the wrong turn- 
 ing in life. To be adored is a young girl's dream, which may 
 survive a few springtimes; it cannot be that of the mature 
 woman, the wife and mother. To a woman's vanity it is, 
 perhaps, enough to know that she can command adoration if 
 she likes. If you would live the life of a wife and mother, 
 return, I beg of you, to Paris. Let me repeat my warning : 
 It is not misfortune which you have to dread, as others do 
 it is happiness. 
 
 Listen to me, my child 1 It is the simple things of life 
 bread, air, silence of which we do not tire ; they have no 
 piquancy which can create distaste ; it is highly flavored dishes 
 which irritate the palate, and in the end exhaust it. Were it 
 possible that I should to-day be loved by a man for whom I 
 could conceive a passion, such as yours for Gaston, I would 
 still cling to the duties and the children, who are so dear to 
 me. To a woman's heart the feelings of a mother are among 
 the simple, natural, fruitful, and inexhaustible things of life. 
 I can recall the day, now nearly fourteen years ago, when I 
 embarked on a life of self-sacrifice with the despair of a ship- 
 wrecked mariner clinging to the mast of his vessel ; now, as I 
 invoke the memory of past years, I feel that I would make the 
 same choice again. No other guiding principle is so safe, or 
 leads to such rich reward. The spectacle of your life, which, 
 for all the romance and poetry with which you invest it, still 
 remains based on nothing but a ruthless selfishness, has helped 
 to strengthen my convictions. This is the last time I shall 
 speak to you in this way ; but I could not refrain from once 
 more pleading with you when I found that your happiness had 
 been proof against the most searching of all trials. 
 
 And one more point I must urge on you, suggested by my 
 meditations on your retirement. Life, whether of the body
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 361 
 
 or the heart, consists in certain balanced movements. Any 
 excess introduced into the working of this routine gives rise 
 either to pain or to pleasure, both of which are a mere fever 
 of the soul, bound to be fugitive because nature is not so 
 framed as to support it long. But to make of life one long 
 excess is surely to choose sickness for one's portion. You are 
 sick because you maintain at the temperature of passion a 
 feeling which marriage ought to convert into a steadying, 
 purifying influence. 
 
 Yes, my sweet, I see it clearly now ; the glory of a home 
 consists in this very calm, this intimacy, this sharing alike of 
 good and evil, which the vulgar ridicule. How noble was the 
 reply of the Duchesse de Sully, the wife of the great Sully, to 
 some one who remarked that her husband, for all his grave 
 exterior, did not scruple to keep a mistress. " What of that ?" 
 she said. "I represent the honor of the house, and should 
 decline to play the part of a courtesan there." 
 
 But you, Louise, who are naturally more passionate than 
 tender, would be at once the wife and the mistress. With the 
 soul of a Heloi'se and the passions of a Saint Theresa, you 
 slip the leash on all your impulses, so long as they are sanc- 
 tioned by the law ; in a word, you degrade the marriage rite. 
 Surely the tables are turned. The reproaches you once heaped 
 on me for immorally, as you said, seizing the means of happi- 
 ness from the very outset of my wedded life, might be directed 
 against yourself for grasping at everything which may serve 
 your passion. What ! must nature and society alike be in 
 bondage to your caprice ? You are the old Louise ; you have 
 never acquired the qualities which ought to be a woman's ; 
 self-willed and unreasonable as a girl, you introduce withal 
 into your love the keenest and most mercenary of calcula- 
 tions ! Are you sure that, after all, the price you ask for your 
 toilets is not too high ? All these precautions are to my mind 
 very suggestive of mistrust. 
 
 Oh, dear Louise, if only you knew the sweetness of a
 
 362 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 mother's efforts to discipline herself in kindness and gentle- 
 ness to all about her ! My proud, self-sufficing temper grad- 
 ually dissolved into a soft melancholy, which in turn has been 
 swallowed up by those delights of motherhood which have 
 been its reward. If the early hours were toilsome, the evening 
 will be tranquil and clear. My dread is lest the day of your 
 life should take the opposite course. 
 
 When I had read your letter to a close, I prayed God to 
 send you among us for a day, that you might see what family 
 life really is, and learn the nature of those joys which are 
 lasting and sweeter than tongue can tell, because they are 
 genuine, simple, and natural. But, alas ! what chance have I 
 with the best of arguments against a fallacy which makes you 
 happy? As I write these words, my eyes fill with tears. I 
 had felt so sure that some months of honeymoon would prove 
 a surfeit and restore you to reason. But I see that there is no 
 limit to your appetite, and that, having killed a man, you 
 will not cease till you have killed love itself. Farewell, dear 
 misguided friend. I am in despair that the letter which I 
 hoped might reconcile you to society by its picture of my 
 happiness should have brought forth only a paean of selfishness. 
 Yes, your love is selfish ; you love Gaston far less for himself 
 than for what he is to you. 
 
 LIV. 
 
 MME. GASTON TO THE COMTESSE DE I/ESTORADE. 
 
 May 2oth. 
 
 Renee, calamity has come no, that is no word for it it 
 has burst like a thunderbolt over your poor Louise. You 
 know what that means ; calamity for me is doubt; certainty 
 would be death. 
 
 The day before yesterday, when I had finished my first toilet, 
 I looked everywhere for Gaston to take a little turn with me
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 363 
 
 before lunch, but in vain. I went to the stable, and there I 
 saw his mare all in a lather, while the groom was scraping off 
 the foam before rubbing her down. 
 
 "Who in the world has put Fedelta in such a state?" I 
 asked. 
 
 " Master," replied the lad. 
 
 I saw the mud of Paris on the mare's legs, for country mud 
 is quite different ; and at once it flashed through me : " He 
 has been to Paris." 
 
 This thought raised a swarm of others in my heart, and it 
 seemed as though all the life in my body rushed there. To 
 go to Paris without telling me, at the hour when I leave him 
 alone, to hasten there and back at such speed as to distress 
 Fedelta. Suspicion clutched me in its iron grip, till I could 
 hardly breathe. I walked aside a few steps to a seat, where I 
 tried to recover my self-command. 
 
 Here Gaston found me, apparently pale and fluttered, for 
 he immediately exclaimed: "What is wrong?" in a tone of 
 such alarm, that I rose and took his arm. But my muscles 
 refused to move, and I was forced to sit down again. Then 
 he took me in his arms and carried me to the parlor close by, 
 where the frightened servants pressed after us, till Gaston 
 motioned them away. Once left to ourselves, I refused to 
 speak, but was able to reach my room, where I shut myself 
 in, to weep my fill. Gaston remained something like two 
 hours at my door, listening to my sobs and questioning with 
 angelic patience his poor darling, who made no response. 
 
 At last I told him that I would see him when my eyes were 
 less red and my voice was steady again. 
 
 My formal words drove him from the house. But by the 
 time I had bathed my eyes in iced water and cooled my face, 
 I found him in our room, the door into which was open, 
 though I had heard no steps. He begged me to tell him what 
 was wrong. 
 
 " Nothing," I said ; " I saw the mud of Paris on Fedelta's
 
 3G4 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 trembling legs ; it seemed strange that you should go there 
 without telling me; but, of course, you are free." 
 
 " I shall punish you for such wicked thoughts by not giving 
 any explanation till to-morrow," he replied. 
 
 " Look at me," I said. 
 
 My eyes met his ; deep answered to deep. No, not a trace 
 of the cloud of disloyalty which, rising from the soul, must 
 dim the clearness of the eye. I feigned satisfaction, though 
 really unconvinced. It is not women only who can lie and 
 dissemble ! 
 
 The whole of the day we spent together. Ever and again, 
 as I looked at him, I realized how fast my heart-strings were 
 bound to him. How I trembled and fluttered within when, 
 after a moment's absence, he reappeared. I live in him, not 
 in myself. My cruel sufferings gave the lie to your unkind 
 letter. Did I ever feel my life thus bound up in the noble 
 Spaniard, who adored me, as I adore this heartless boy ? I 
 hate that mare ! Fool that I was to keep horses ! But the 
 next thing would have been to lame Gaston or imprison him 
 in the cottage. Wild thoughts like these filled my brain; 
 you see how near I was to madness ! If love be not the 
 cage, what power on earth can hold back the man who 
 wants to be free ? 
 
 I asked him point-blank : " Do I bore you? " 
 
 "What needless torture you give yourself! " was his reply, 
 while he looked at me with tender, pitying eyes. "Never 
 have I loved you so deeply." 
 
 "If that is true, my beloved, let me sell Fedelta," I an- 
 swered. 
 
 "Sell her, by all means !" 
 
 The reply crushed me. Was it not a covert taunt at my 
 wealth and his own nothingness in the house? This may 
 never have occurred to him, but I thought it had, and once 
 more I left him. It was night, and I would go to bed. 
 
 Oh ! Renee, to be alone with a harrowing thought drives
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES, 365 
 
 one to thoughts of death. These charming gardens, the starry 
 night, the cool air, laden with incense from our wealth of 
 flowers, our valley, our hills all seemed to me gloomy, black, 
 and desolate. It was as though I lay at the foot of a precipice, 
 surrounded by serpents and poisonous plants, and saw no God 
 in the sky. Such a night ages a woman. 
 
 Next morning I- said 
 
 " Take Fedelta and be off to Paris ! Don't sell her ; I love 
 her. Does she not carry you? " 
 
 But he was not deceived; my tone betrayed the storm of 
 feeling which I strove to conceal. 
 
 "Trust me!" he replied; and the gesture with which he 
 held out his hand, the glance of his eye, were so full of loyalty 
 that I was overcome. 
 
 " What petty creatures women are ! " I exclaimed. 
 
 " No, you love me, that is all," he said, pressing me to his 
 heart. 
 
 "Go to Paris without me," I said, and this time I made 
 him understand that my suspicions were laid aside. 
 
 He went ; I thought he would have stayed. I won't attempt 
 to tell you what I suffered. I found a second self within, 
 quite strange to me. A crisis like this has, for the woman 
 who loves, a tragic solemnity that baffles words; the whole of 
 life rises before you then, and you search in vain for any 
 horizon to it ; the veriest trifle is big with meaning, a glance 
 contains a volume, icicles drift on uttered words, and the 
 death-sentence is read in a movement of the lips. 
 
 I thought he would have paid me back in kind ; had I not 
 been magnanimous? I climbed to the top of the chalet, and 
 my eyes followed him on the road. Ah ! my dear Renee, he 
 vanished from my sight with an appalling swiftness ! 
 
 " How keen he is to go ! " was the thought that sprang of 
 itself. 
 
 Once more alone, I fell back into the hell of possibilities, 
 the maelstrom of mistrust. There were moments when I would
 
 386 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES.^ 
 
 have welcomed any certainty, even the worst, as a relief from 
 the torture of suspense. Suspense is a duel carried on in the 
 heart, and we give no quarter to ourselves. 
 
 I paced up and down the walks. I returned to the house, 
 only to tear out again, like a mad woman. Gaston, who left 
 at seven o'clock, did not return till eleven. Now, as it only 
 takes half an hour to reach Paris through the park of St. Cloud 
 and the Bois de Boulogne, it is plain that he must have spent 
 three hours in town. He came back radiant, with a whip in 
 his hand for me, an india-rubber whip with a gold handle. 
 
 For the last two weeks I had been without a whip, my old 
 one being worn and broken. 
 
 "Was it for this you tortured me?" I said, as I admired 
 the workmanship of this beautiful ornament, which contains a 
 little vinaigrette at one end. 
 
 Then it flashed on me that the present was a fresh artifice. 
 Nevertheless I threw myself at once on his neck, not without 
 reproaching him gently for having caused me so much pain 
 for the sake of a trifle. He was greatly pleased with his in- 
 genuity ; his eyes and his whole bearing plainly showed the 
 restrained triumph of the successful plotter; for there is a 
 radiance of the soul which is reflected in every feature and 
 turn of the body. While still examining the beauties of this 
 work of art, I asked him at a moment when we happened to 
 be looking each other in the face 
 
 " Who is the artist ?" 
 
 "A friend of mine." 
 
 "Ah ! I see it has been mounted by Verdier," and I read 
 the name of the store printed on the handle. 
 
 Gaston is nothing but a child yet. He blushed, and I 
 made much of him as a reward for the shame he felt in de- 
 ceiving me. I pretended to notice nothing, and he may well 
 have thought the incident was over.
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 367 
 
 May 2$th. 
 
 The next morning I was in my riding-habit by six o'clock, 
 and by seven landed at Verdier's, where several whips of the 
 same pattern were shown me. One of the men serving recog- 
 nized mine when I pointed it out to him. 
 
 "We sold that yesterday to a young gentleman," he said. 
 And from the description I gave him of my traitor Gaston, 
 not a doubt was left of his identity. I will spare you the pal- 
 pitations which rent my heart during that journey to Paris 
 and the little scene there, which marked the turning-point of 
 my life. 
 
 By half-past seven I was home again, and Gaston found me, 
 fresh and blooming, in my morning dress, sauntering about 
 with a make-believe nonchalance. I felt confident that old 
 Philippe, who had been taken into my confidence, would not 
 have betrayed my absence. 
 
 "Gaston," I said, as we walked by the side of the lake, 
 " you cannot blind me to the difference between a work of 
 art inspired by friendship and something which has been cast 
 in a mould." 
 
 He turned white, and fixed his eyes on me rather than on 
 the damaging piece of evidence I thrust before them. 
 
 " My dear," I went on, " this is not a whip ; it is a screen 
 behind which you are hiding something from me." 
 
 Thereupon I gave myself the gratification of watching his 
 hopeless entanglement in the coverts and labyrinths of deceit 
 and the desperate efforts he made to find some wall he might 
 scale and thus escape. In vain ; he had perforce to remain 
 upon the field, face to face with an adversary, who at last laid 
 down her arms in a feigned complacence. But it was too 
 late. The fatal mistake, against which my mother had tried 
 to warn me, was made. My jealousy, exposed in all its 
 nakedness, had led to war and all its stratagems between 
 Gaston and myself. Jealousy, dear, has neither sense nor 
 decency.
 
 368 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 I made up my mind now to suffer in silence, but to keep 
 my eyes open, until my doubts were resolved one way or an- 
 other. Then I would either break with Gaston or bow to my 
 misfortune : no middle course is possible for a woman who 
 respects herself. 
 
 What can he be concealing ? For a secret there is, and the 
 secret has to do with a woman. Is it some youthful escapade 
 for which he still blushes ? But if so, what ? The word WHAT 
 is written in letters of fire on all I see. I read it in the glassy 
 water of my lake, in the shrubbery, in the clouds, on the 
 ceilings, at table, in the flowers of the carpets. A voice cries 
 to me WHAT? in my sleep. Dating from the morning of my 
 discovery, a cruel interest has sprung into our lives, and I 
 have become familiar with the bitterest thought that can cor- 
 rode the heart the thought of treachery in him one loves. 
 Oh ! my dear, there is heaven and hell together in such a life. 
 Never had I felt this scorching flame, I to whom love had 
 appeared only in the form of devoutest worship. 
 
 "So you wished to know the gloomy torture-chamber of 
 pain!" I said to myself. "Good, the spirits of evil have 
 heard your prayer ; go on your road, unhappy wretch ! ' ' 
 
 May 30^. 
 
 Since that fatal day Gaston no longer works with the care- 
 less ease of the wealthy artist, whose work is merely pastime ; 
 he sets himself tasks like a professional writer. Four hours a 
 day he devotes to finishing his two plays. 
 
 " He wants money ! " 
 
 A voice within whispered the thought. But why? He 
 spends next to nothing ; we have absolutely no secrets from 
 each other; there is not a corner of his study which my eyes 
 and my fingers may not explore. His yearly expenditure 
 does not amount to two thousand francs, and I know that he 
 has thirty thousand, I can hardly say laid by, but scattered 
 loose in a drawer. You can guess what is coming. At mid-
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 369 
 
 night, while he was sleeping, I went to see if the money was 
 still there. An icy shiver ran through me. The drawer was 
 empty. 
 
 That same week I discovered that he went to Sevres to 
 fetch his letters, and these letters he must tear up immediately ; 
 for though I am a very Figaro in contrivances, I have never 
 yet seen a trace of one. Alas ! my sweet, despite the fine 
 promises and vows by which I bound myself after the scene 
 of the whip, an impulse, which I can only call madness, drove 
 me to follow him in one of his rapid rides to the postoffice. 
 Gaston was appalled to be thus discovered on horseback, pay- 
 ing the postage of a letter which he held in his hand. He 
 looked fixedly at me, and then put spurs to Fedelta. The 
 pace was so hard that I felt shaken to bits when I reached the 
 lodge gate, though my mental agony was such at the time 
 that it might well have dulled all consciousness of bodily pain. 
 Arrived at the gate, Gaston said nothing ; he rang the bell 
 and waited without a word. I was more dead than alive. I 
 might be mistaken or I might not, but in neither case was it 
 fitting for Armande-Louise-Marie de Chaulieu to play the spy. 
 I had sunk to the level of the gutter, by the side of courtesans, 
 opera-dancers, mere creatures of instinct; even the vulgar 
 shop-girl or humble seamstress might look down on me. 
 
 What a moment ! At last the door opened ; he handed his 
 horse to the groom, and I also dismounted, but into his arms, 
 which were stretched out to receive me. I threw my skirt 
 over my left arm, gave him my right, and we walked on 
 still in silence. The few steps we thus took might be reckoned 
 to me for a hundred years of purgatory. A swarm of thoughts 
 beset me as I walked, now seeming to take visible form in 
 tongues of fire before my eyes, now assailing my mind, each 
 with its own poisoned dart. When the groom and the 
 horses were far away, I stopped Gaston, and, looking him 
 in the face, said, as I pointed, with a gesture that you should 
 have seen, to the fatal letter still in his right hand 
 24
 
 370 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 "May I read it?" 
 
 He gave it me. I opened it, and found a letter from 
 Nathan, the dramatic author, informing Gaston that a play of 
 his had been accepted, learned, rehearsed, and would be 
 produced the following Saturday. He also inclosed a box 
 ticket. 
 
 Though for me this was the opening of heaven's gates to 
 the martyr, yet the fiend would not leave me in peace, but 
 kept crying: "Where are the thirty thousand francs?" It 
 was a question which self-respect, dignity, all my old self, in 
 fact, prevented me from uttering. If my thought became 
 speech, I might as well throw myself into the lake at once, 
 and yet I could hardly keep the words down. Dear friend, 
 was not this a trial passing the strength of woman? 
 
 I returned the letter, saying 
 
 " My poor Gaston, you are getting bored down here. Let 
 us go back to Paris, won't you?" 
 
 "To Paris?" he said. "But why? I only wanted to 
 find out if I had any gift, to taste the flowing bowl of suc- 
 cess ! ' ' 
 
 Nothing would be easier than for me to ransack the drawer 
 some time when he is working and pretend great surprise at 
 finding the money gone. But that would be going half-way 
 to meet the answer, "Oh! my friend So-and-so was hard 
 up ! " etc., which a man of Gaston's quick wit would not have 
 far to seek. 
 
 The moral, my dear, is that the brilliant success of this play, 
 which all Paris is crowding to see, is due to us, though the 
 whole credit goes to Nathan. I am represented by one of the 
 two stars in the legend : AND MM**. I saw the first night 
 from the depths of one of the stage boxes. 
 
 July \st. 
 
 Gaston's work and his visits to Paris still continue. He is 
 preparing new plays, partly because he wants a pretext for
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 371 
 
 going to Paris, partly in order to make money. Three plays 
 have been accepted, and two more are commissioned. 
 
 Oh ! my dear, I am lost, all is darkness around me. I 
 would set fire to the house in a moment if that would bring 
 light. What does it all mean? Is he ashamed of taking 
 money from me ? He is too high-minded for so trumpery a 
 matter to weigh with him. Beside, scruples of the kind could 
 only be the outcome of some love affair. A man would take 
 anything from his wife, but from the woman he has ceased to 
 care for, or is thinking of deserting, it is different. If he 
 needs such large sums, it must be to spend them on a woman. 
 For himself, why should he hesitate to draw from my purse ? 
 Our savings amount to one hundred thousand francs ! 
 
 In short, my sweetheart, I have explored a whole continent 
 of possibilities, and, after carefully weighing all the evidence, 
 am convinced I have a rival. I am deserted for whom ? At 
 all costs I must see the unknown. 
 
 July loth. 
 
 Light has come, and it is all over with me. Yes, Ren6e, 
 at the age of thirty, in the perfection of my beauty, with all 
 the resources of a ready wit and the seductive charms of dress 
 at my command, I am betrayed and for whom ? A large- 
 boned Englishwoman, with big feet and thick waist a reg- 
 ular British cow ! There is no longer room for doubt. I will 
 tell you the history of the last few days. 
 
 Worn out with suspicions, which were fed by Gaston's guilty 
 silence (for, if he had helped a friend, why keep it a secret 
 from me?), his insatiable desire for money, and his frequent 
 journeys to Paris; jealous, too, of the work from which he 
 seemed unable to tear himself, I at last made up my mind to 
 take certain steps, of such a degrading nature that I cannot 
 tell you about them. Suffice it to say that three days ago I 
 ascertained that Gaston, when in Paris, visits a house in the 
 Rue de la Ville I'Ev&que, where he guards his mistress with
 
 372 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 jealous mystery, unexampled in Paris. The porter was surly, 
 and I could get little out of him, but that little was enough 
 to put an end to any lingering hope, and with hope to life. 
 On this point my mind was resolved, and I only waited to 
 learn the whole truth first. 
 
 With this object I went to Paris and took rooms in a house 
 exactly opposite the one which Gaston visits. Thence I saw 
 him with my own eyes enter the courtyard on horseback. 
 Too soon a ghastly fact forced itself on me. This English- 
 woman, who seems to me about thirty-six, is known as Mme. 
 Gaston. 
 
 This discovery was my death-blow. 
 
 I saw him next walking to the Tuileries with a couple of 
 children. Oh ! my dear, two children, the living images of 
 Gaston ! The likeness is so strong that it bears scandal on 
 the face of it. And what pretty children ! in their handsome 
 English costumes ! She is the mother of his children. Here 
 is the key to the whole mystery. 
 
 The woman herself might be a Greek statue, stepped down 
 from some monument. Cold and white as marble, she moves 
 sedately with a mother's pride. She is undeniably beautiful, 
 but heavy as a man of war. There is no breeding or dis- 
 tinction about her ; nothing of the English lady. Probably 
 she is a farmer's daughter from some wretched or remote 
 country village, or, it may be, the eleventh child of some 
 poor clergyman ! 
 
 I reached home, after a miserable journey, during which all 
 sort of fiendish thoughts had me at their mercy, with hardly 
 any life left in me. Was she married ? Did he know her be- 
 fore our marriage ? Had she been deserted by some rich man, 
 whose mistress she was, and thus thrown back upon Gaston's 
 hands ? Conjectures without end flitted through my brain, 
 as though conjecture were needed in the presence of the chil- 
 dren. 
 
 The next day I returned to Paris, and by a free use of my
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 373 
 
 purse extracted from the porter the information that Mme. 
 Gaston was legally married. 
 
 His reply to my question took the form " Yes, Miss." 
 
 July 15^. 
 
 My dear, my love for Gaston is stronger than ever since 
 that morning, and he has every appearance of being still more 
 deeply in love. He is so young ! A score of times it has 
 been on my lips, when we rise in the morning, to say, "Then 
 you love me better than the lady of the Rue de la Ville 
 1'EvSque ? " But I dare not explain to myself why the words 
 are checked on my tongue. 
 
 "Are you very fond of children ?" I asked. 
 
 " Oh yes ! " was his reply ; " but children will come ! " 
 
 " What makes you think so ? " 
 
 "I have consulted the best doctors, and they agree in ad- 
 vising me to travel for a few months." 
 
 "Gaston," I said, "if love in absence had been possible 
 for me, do you suppose I should ever have left the con- 
 vent?" 
 
 He laughed; but as for me, dear, the word "travel" 
 pierced my heart. Rather, far rather, would I leap from the 
 top of the house than be rolled down the staircase, step by 
 step. Farewell, my sweet heart. I have arranged for my death 
 to be easy, and without horrors, but certain. I made my will 
 yesterday. You can come to me now, the prohibition is re- 
 moved. Come, then, and receive my last farewell. I will 
 not die by inches ; my death, like my life, shall bear the im- 
 press of dignity and grace. 
 
 Farewell, dear sister soul, whose affection has never wavered 
 nor grown weary, but has been the constant tender moonlight 
 of my soul. If the intensity of passion has not been ours, at 
 least we have been spared its venomous bitterness. How 
 rightly you have judged of life ! Farewell.
 
 374 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 LV. 
 
 THE COMTESSE DE L*ESTORADE TO MME. GASTON. 
 
 July 1 6/7*. 
 
 Mv DEAR LOUISE : I send this letter by an express before 
 hastening to the chalet myself. Take courage. Your last 
 letter seemed to me so frantic that I thought myself justified, 
 under the circumstances, in confiding all to Louis ; it was a 
 question of saving you from yourself. If the means we have 
 employed have been, like yours, repulsive, yet the result is so 
 satisfactory that I am certain you will approve. I went so far 
 as to set the police to work, but the whole thing remains a 
 secret between the prefect, ourselves, and you. 
 
 In one word, Gaston is a jewel ! But here are the facts. 
 His brother, Louis Gaston, died at Calcutta, while in the ser- 
 vice of a mercantile company, when he was on the very point 
 of returning to France, a rich, prosperous, married man, 
 having received a very large fortune with his wife, who was 
 the widow of an English merchant. For ten years he had 
 worked hard that he might be able to send home enough to 
 support his brother, to whom he was devotedly attached, and 
 from whom his letters generously concealed all his trials and 
 disappointments. 
 
 Then came the failure of the great Halmer house ; the 
 widow was ruined, and the sudden shock affected Louis 
 Gaston's brain. He had no mental energy left to resist the 
 disease which attacked him, and he died in Bengal, whither 
 he had gone to try and realize the remnants of his wife's 
 property. The dear, good fellow had deposited with a banker 
 a first sum of three hundred thousand francs, which was to 
 go to his brother, but the banker was involved in the Halmer 
 crash, and thus their last resource failed them.
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 375 
 
 Louis' widow, the handsome woman whom you took for 
 your rival, arrived in Paris with two children your nephews 
 and an empty purse, her mother's jewels having barely 
 sufficed to pay for bringing them over. The instructions 
 which Louis Gaston had given the banker for sending the 
 money to his brother enabled the widow to find your hus- 
 band's former home. As Gaston had disappeared without 
 leaving any address, Mme. Louis Gaston was directed to 
 d'Arthez, the only person who could give any information 
 about him. 
 
 D'Arthez was the more ready to relieve the young woman's 
 pressing needs, because Louis Gaston, at the time of his 
 marriage four years before, had written to make inquiries 
 about his brother from the famous author, whom he knew to 
 be one of his friends. The captain had consulted d'Arthez 
 as to the best means of getting the money safely transferred 
 to Marie, and d'Arthez had replied, telling him that Gaston 
 was now a rich man through his marriage with the Baronne 
 de Macumer. The personal beauty, which was the mother's 
 rich heritage to her sons, had saved them both one in India, 
 the other in Paris from destitution. A touching story, is it 
 not? 
 
 D'Arthez naturally wrote, after a time, to tell your husband 
 of the condition of his sister-in-law and her children, inform- 
 ing him, at the same time, of the generous intentions of the 
 Indian Gaston toward his Paris brother, which an unhappy 
 chance alone had frustrated. Gaston, as you may imagine, 
 hurried off to Paris. Here is the first ride accounted for. 
 During the last five years he had saved fifty thousand francs 
 out of the income which you forced him to accept, and this 
 sum he invested in the public funds under the names of his 
 two nephews, securing them each, in this way, an income of 
 twelve hundred francs. Next he furnished his sister-in-law's 
 rooms, and promised her a quarterly allowance of three thou- 
 sand francs. Here you see the meaning of his dramatic
 
 376 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 labors and the pleasure caused him by the success of his first 
 play. 
 
 Mme. Gaston, therefore, is no rival of yours, and has every 
 right to your name. A man of Gaston's sensitive delicacy 
 was bound to keep the affair secret from you, knowing, as he 
 did, your generous nature. Nor does he look on what you 
 give him as his own. D'Arthez read me the letter he had 
 from your husband, asking him to be one of the witnesses at 
 his marriage. Gaston in this declares that his happiness 
 would have been perfect but for the one drawback of his 
 poverty and indebtedness to you. A virgin soul is at the 
 mercy of such scruples. Either they make themselves felt or 
 they do not ; and when they do, it is easy to imagine the 
 conflict of feeling and embarrassment to which they give rise. 
 Nothing is more natural than Gaston's wish to provide in 
 secret a suitable maintenance for the woman who is his 
 brother's widow, and who had herself set aside one hundred 
 thousand crowns for him from her own fortune. She is a 
 handsome woman, warm-hearted, and extremely well-bred, 
 but not clever. She is a mother ; and, you may be sure, I 
 lost my heart to her at first sight when I found her with one 
 child in her arms, and the other dressed like a little lord. 
 The children first ! is written in every detail of her house. 
 
 Far from being angry, therefore, with your beloved hus- 
 band, you should find in all this fresh reason for loving him. 
 I have met him, and think him the most delightful young 
 fellow in Paris. Yes ! dear child, when I saw him, I had no 
 difficulty in understanding that a woman might lose her head 
 about him ; his soul is mirrored in his countenance. If I were 
 you, I should settle the widow and her children near the 
 chalet, in a pretty little cottage which you could have built 
 for them, and adopt the boys ! 
 
 Be at peace, then, dear soul, and plan this little surprise, 
 in your turn, for Gaston.
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 377 
 
 LVI. 
 
 MME. GASTON TO THE COMTESSE DE I/ESTORADE. 
 
 Ah ! my dear friend, what can I say in answer except the 
 cruel "It is too late" of that fool Lafayette to his royal 
 master ? Oh ! my life, my sweet life, what physician will 
 give it back to me? My own hand has dealt the death-blow. 
 Alas ! have I not been a mere will-o'-the-wisp, whose twink- 
 ling spark was fated to perish before it reached a flame? My 
 eyes rain torrents of tears and yet they must not fall when I 
 am with him. I fly him, and he seeks me. My despair is all 
 within. This torture Dante forgot to place in his "Inferno." 
 Come to see me die. 
 
 LVII. 
 
 THE COMTESSE DE I/ESTORADE TO THE COMTE DE 
 L'ESTORADE. 
 
 THE CHALET, August jtk. 
 
 MY LOVE: Take the children away to Provence without 
 me ; I remain with Louise, who has only a few days yet to 
 live. I cannot leave either her or her husband, for whose 
 reason I fear. 
 
 You know the scrap of letter which sent me flying to Ville 
 d'Avray, picking up the doctors on my way. Since then I 
 have not left my darling friend, and it has been impossible to 
 write you, for I have sat up every night for two weeks. 
 
 When I arrived, I found her with Gaston, in full dress, 
 beautiful, laughing, happy. It was a heroic falsehood ! They 
 were like two lovely children together in their restored con- 
 fidence. For a moment I was deceived, like Gaston, by this 
 effrontery ; but Louise pressed my hand, whispering 
 
 " He must not know ; I am dying."
 
 378 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 An icy chill fell over me as I felt her burning hand and 
 saw the red spot on her cheeks. I congratulated myself on 
 my prudence in leaving the doctors in the wood till they 
 should be sent for. 
 
 " Leave us for a little," she said to Gaston. " Two women 
 who have not met for five years have plenty of secrets to talk 
 over, and Renee, I have no doubt, has things to confide in 
 me." 
 
 Directly we were alone, she flung herself into my arms, 
 unable longer to restrain her tears. 
 
 "Tell me about it," I said. "I have brought with me, in 
 case of need, the best surgeon and the best physician from the 
 hospital, and Bianchon as well; there are four altogether." 
 
 " Ah! " she cried, " have them in at once if they can save 
 me, if there is still time. The passion which hurried me to 
 death now cries for life ! " 
 
 "But what have you done to yourself?" 
 
 " I have in a few days brought myself to the last stage of 
 consumption." 
 
 "But how?" 
 
 "I got myself into a profuse perspiration in the night, and 
 then ran out and lay down by the side of the lake in the dew. 
 Gaston thinks I have a cold, and I am dying ! " 
 
 "Send him to Paris; I will fetch the doctors myself," 
 I said, as I rushed out wildly to the spot where I had left 
 them. 
 
 Alas ! my love, after the consultation was over, not one of 
 the doctors gave me the least hope; they all believe that 
 Louise will die with the fall of the leaves. The dear child's 
 constitution has wonderfully helped the success of her plan. 
 It seems she has a predisposition to this complaint ; and 
 though, in the ordinary course, she might have lived a long 
 time, a few day's folly has made the case desperate. 
 
 I cannot tell you what I felt on hearing this sentence, based 
 on such clear explanations. You know that I have lived in
 
 SHE CARRIED ME OFF TO HER PRETTY GARDEN.
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 379 
 
 Louise as much as in my own life. I was simply crushed, and 
 could not stir to escort to the door these harbingers of evil. 
 I don't know how long I remained lost in bitter thoughts, the 
 tears running down my cheeks, when I was roused from my 
 stupor by the words : 
 
 " So there is no hope for me! " in a clear, angelic voice. 
 
 It was Louise, with her hand on my shoulder. She made 
 me get up, and carried me off to her pretty garden. With a 
 beseeching glance, she went on : 
 
 " Stay with me to the end ; I won't have doleful faces round 
 me. Above all, I must keep the truth from him. I know that 
 I have strength to do it. I am full of youth and spirit, and 
 can die standing ! For myself, I have no regrets. I am dying 
 as I wished to die, still young and beautiful, in the perfection 
 of my womanhood. 
 
 "As for him, I can see very well now that I should have 
 made his life miserable. Passion has me in its grip, like a 
 struggling fawn, impatient of the toils. My groundless jeal- 
 ousy has already wounded him sorely. When the day came 
 that my suspicions met only indifference which in the long- 
 run is the rightful meed of all jealousy well, that would have 
 been my death. I have had my share of life. There are 
 people whose names on the muster-roll of the world show 
 sixty years of service, and yet in all that time they have not 
 had two years of real life, whilst my record of thirty is doubled 
 by the intensity of my love. 
 
 " Thus for him, as well as for me, the close is a happy one. 
 But between us, dear Ren<e, it is different. You lose a loving 
 sister, and that is a loss which nothing can repair. You alone 
 here have the right to mourn my death." 
 
 After a long pause, during which I could only see her 
 through a mist of tears, she continued : 
 
 " The moral of my death is a cruel one. My dear doctor 
 in petticoats was right ; marriage cannot rest upon passion as 
 its foundation, nor even upon love. How fine and noble is
 
 380 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 your life ! keeping always to the one safe road, you give your 
 husband an ever-growing affection ; while the passionate eager- 
 ness with which I threw myself into wedded life was bound in 
 nature to diminish. Twice have I gone astray, and twice has 
 Death stretched forth his bony hand to strike my happiness. 
 The first time, he robbed me of the noblest and most devoted 
 of men ; now it is my turn, the grinning monster tears me 
 from the arms of my poet husband, with all his beauty and 
 his grace. 
 
 "Yet I would not complain. Have I not known in turn 
 two men, each the very pattern of nobility one in mind, the 
 other in outward form ? In Felipe, the soul dominated and 
 transformed the body ; in Gaston, one could not say which 
 was supreme heart, mind, or grace of form. I die adored 
 what more could I wish for? Time, perhaps, in which to 
 draw near the God of whom I may have too little thought. 
 My spirit will take its flight toward Him, full of love, and 
 with the prayer that some day, in the world above, He will 
 unite me once more to the two who made a heaven of my 
 life below. Without them, paradise would be a desert to me. 
 
 "To others, my example would be fatal, for mine was no 
 common lot. To meet a Felipe or a Gaston is more than 
 mortals can expect, and therefore the doctrine of society in 
 regard to marriage accords with the natural law. Woman is 
 weak, and in marrying she ought to make an entire sacrifice of 
 her will to the man who, in return, should lay his selfishness 
 at her feet. The stir which women of late years have created 
 by their whining and insubordination is ridiculous, and only 
 shows how well we deserve the epithet of children, bestowed 
 by philosophers on our sex." 
 
 She continued talking thus in the gentle voice you know so 
 well, uttering the gravest truths in the prettiest manner, until 
 Gaston entered, bringing with him his sister-in-law, the two 
 children, and the English nurse, whom, at Louise's request, 
 lie had been to fetch from Paris.
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 381 
 
 " Here are the pretty instruments of my torture," she said, 
 as her nephews approached. " Was not the mistake excusable ? 
 What a wonderful likeness to their uncle? " 
 
 She was most friendly to Mme. Gaston the elder, and begged 
 that she would look upon the chalet as her home ; in short, 
 she played the hostess to her in her best de Chaulieu manner, 
 in which no one can rival her. 
 
 I wrote at once to the Due and Duchesse de Chaulieu, the 
 Due de Rhetor6, and the Due de Lenoncourt-Givry, as well 
 as to Madeleine. It was time. Next day, Louise, worn out 
 with so much exertion, was unable to go out ; indeed, she only 
 got up for dinner. In the course of the evening, Madeleine 
 de Lenoncourt, her two brothers, and her mother arrived. 
 The coolness which Louise's second marriage had caused 
 between herself and her family disappeared. Every day since 
 that evening, Louise's father and both her brothers have 
 ridden over in the morning, and the two duchesses spend all 
 their evenings at the chalet. Death unites as well as separates; 
 it silences all paltry feeling. 
 
 Louise is perfection in her charm, her grace, her good sense, 
 her wit, and her tenderness. She has retained to the last that 
 perfect tact for which she has been so famous, and she lavishes 
 on us the treasures of her brilliant mind, which made her one 
 of the queens of Paris. 
 
 "I should like to look well even in my coffin," she said 
 with her matchless smile, as she lay down on the bed where 
 she has lingered for the past two weeks. 
 
 Her room has nothing of the sick-chamber in it ; medicines, 
 ointments, the whole apparatus of nursing, is carefully con- 
 cealed. 
 
 "I am making a good death, am I not?" she said to the 
 Sevres priest who came to confess her. 
 
 We gloated over her like misers. All this anxiety and the 
 terrible truths which dawned on him have prepared Gaston 
 for the worst. He is full of courage, but the blow has gone
 
 382 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 
 
 home. It would not surprise me to see him follow his wife in 
 the natural course. Yesterday, as we were walking round the 
 lake, he said to me 
 
 " I must be a father to those two children," and he pointed 
 to his sister-in-law, who was taking the boys for a walk. "But 
 though I shall do nothing to hasten my end, I want your 
 promise that you will be a second mother to them, and will 
 persuade your husband to accept the office of guardian, which 
 I shall depute to him in conjunction with my sister-in-law." 
 
 He said this quite simply, like a man who knows he is not 
 long for this world. He has smiles on his face to meet 
 Louise's, and it is only I whom he does not deceive. He is 
 a mate for her in courage. 
 
 Louise has expressed a wish to see her godson, but I am not 
 sorry he should be in Provence ; she might want to remember 
 him generously, and I should be in a great difficulty. 
 
 Adieu, my dear friend. 
 
 August 2^th (her birthday). 
 
 Yesterday evening Louise was delirious for a short time ; 
 but her delirium was the prettiest babbling, which shows that 
 even the madness of gifted people is not that of fools or no- 
 bodies. In a mere thread of a voice she sang some Italian 
 airs from "I Puritani," "La Somnambula," "MoTse," while 
 we stood round the bed in silence. Not one of us, not even 
 the Due de Rhetore, had dry eyes, so clear was it to us all that 
 her soul was in this fashion passing from us. She could no 
 longer see us ! Yet she was there still in the charm of the faint 
 melody, with its sweetness not of this earth. 
 
 During the night the death agony began. It is now seven 
 in the morning, and I myself have just raised her from bed. 
 Some flicker of strength revived ; she wished to sit by her win- 
 dow, and asked for Gaston's hand. And then, my love, the 
 sweetest spirit whom we shall ever see on this earth de- 
 parted, leaving us the empty shell.
 
 LETTERS OF TWO BRIDES. 383 
 
 The last sacrament had been administered the evening be- 
 fore, unknown to Gaston, who was taking a snatch of sleep 
 during this agonizing ceremony ; and after she was moved to 
 the window, she asked me to read her the De Profundis in 
 French, while she was thus face to face with the lovely scene, 
 which was her handiwork. She repeated the words after me 
 to herself, and pressed the hands of her husband, who knelt 
 on the other side of the chair. 
 
 August 2&tA. 
 
 My heart is broken. I have just seen her in her shroud ; 
 her face is quite pale now with purple shadows. Oh ! my 
 children ! I want my children ! Bring me my children !
 
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