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Marquis de Villemer

<h4>V</h4> The Marquis conducted his brother to the Bois de Boulogne, which at that period was not a splendid English garden, but a charming grove of dreamy shade. It was one of the first days of April; the weather was magnificent; the thickets were covered with violets, and a thousand foolish tomtits were chattering around the first buds, while the citron-hued butterflies of those early beautiful days seemed, by their form, their color, and their undecided flight, like new leaves fluttering gently in the wind. The Marquis was ordinarily thought to take his meals at home. In reality, he did not take his meals at all, using those terms after the manner of generous livers. He had a few very simple dishes served up, and he swallowed them hastily, without raising his eyes from the book at his side. That frugal habit agreed very well with the rule of strict economy which he was now about to adopt; for, in order that his mother's table might continue to be carefully and abundantly served, it was necessary that his own should not in the future be allowed the least superfluity. Not only anxious to conceal this fact from his brother, but fearing, also, to sadden him by the usual austerity of his mode of life, the Marquis led him to a pavilion in the Bois and ordered a comfortable repast, saying to himself that he would buy so many books the less, and frequent the public libraries by necessity, neither more nor less than a needy scholar. He felt himself in no way saddened or appalled by a succession of little sacrifices. He did not think even of his delicate health, which demanded a certain amount of comforts in his sedentary life. He was happy at having finally broken down the cold barrier between himself and Gaëtan, and also at the prospect of gaining his confidence and affection. The Duke, who was still pale and nervously thoughtful, began to yield himself up more and more to the influence of the spring air which entered freely through the open window. The meal restored the equilibrium of his faculties, for he was of a robust nature, that could not endure privation; and his mother, who had certain pretensions of alliance to the ex-royal family, was in the habit of saying, somewhat vainly, that the Duke had the fine appetite of the Bourbons. In the course of an hour the Duke was charming in his manner toward his brother; that is, he was with him, for the first time in his life, as amiable and as much at his ease as he was with everybody else. These two men had sometimes perhaps divined more or less of each other, but a thorough understanding had never been reached; and, surely, they had never questioned each other openly. The Marquis had been restrained by discretion; the Duke by indifference. Now the Duke felt a real need to know the man who had just rescued his honor and made him certain of his future. He questioned the Marquis with a freedom which had never before had place between them. "Explain your happiness to me," he said, "for you are really happy; at least, I have never heard you complain." The Marquis made a reply which astonished him greatly. "I cannot explain to you my courage," he said, "except by my devotion to my mother and by my love for study, since, as for happiness, I never had it and never shall have it. That, perhaps, is not what I should say to allure you to a quiet and retired life; but I would commit a crime not to be sincere with you; and besides, I shall never make myself a pretender to virtue, though you have slightly accused me of that eccentricity." "It is true; I was very wrong; I see it now. But how and why are you unhappy, my poor brother? Can you tell me?" "I cannot tell you, but I will confide in you. I have loved!" "You? you have loved a woman? When was that?" "It is now a long time ago, and I loved her a long time." "And you do not love her any more?" "She is dead." "She was a married woman?" "Precisely, and her husband is yet living. You will permit me to conceal her name." "There is no need whatever to mention that; but you will conquer this feeling, will you not?" "I do not positively know. Up to the present time I have not succeeded at all." "She has not been dead long?" "Three years." "She loved you then very much?" "No." "How, no?" "She loved me as much as a woman can love who ought not and will not break with her husband." "Bah! that's no reason; on the contrary, obstacles stimulate passion." "And they wear it out. She was weary with deceiving, and consequently of suffering. It was only the fear of driving me to despair that hindered her from breaking with me. I was greatly wanting in courage. She died a suffering death,—and through my fault!" "But no, O no! You imagine that to torment yourself." "I imagine nothing, and my grief is without resource, as my fault is without excuse. You shall see. There came one of those paroxysms of passion in which we wish, in spite of God and men, to appropriate forever the object of our love. She bore me a son whom I saved, concealed, and who still lives; but she, not wishing to give a foothold to suspicion, made her appearance in society the day after her delivery. There she seemed still beautiful, and full of her wonted animation; she spoke and walked, notwithstanding the fever which was devouring her: twenty-four hours afterwards she was a corpse. Nothing was ever known. She passed for the most rigid person—" "I know who it was,—Madame de G——." "Yes, you alone in the whole world possess the secret." "Ah! Do not be so sure. Does not our mother herself suspect it?" "Our mother suspects nothing." The Duke was silent for a moment, then he said with a sigh, "My poor brother, this child that is living, and that you probably cherish—" "Certainly." "And I have ruined him too." "What matter? If he has the means of learning to work, of being a man, it will be all that I desire for him. I can never recognize him openly, and for some years I do not wish to have him near me. He is very frail; I am having him brought up in the country, at the house of some peasants. He must get the physical strength which I have always lacked, and whose absence has, perhaps, induced in me the want of moral force. Then, too, at the last hour, from an imprudent word of the physician, M. de G—— gained a suspicion of the truth. It would not do to have about me a child whose age should coincide with the time which has intervened since that sad event. Do you not see, Gaëtan, I am not, I cannot be, happy!" "Is it then that passion which keeps you from marrying!" "I shall never marry; I have sworn it." "Very well, now you must think of it." "And you preach marriage to me!" "Yes, indeed, why not? Marriage is not, as you suppose, the object of my scorn! I proclaimed that antipathy to relieve myself of the trouble of finding a wife at the age when I might have chosen one. Since I have been ruined the thing has become more conditional. My mother would never have allowed me to accept a fortune without a name, and having nothing now but my name, I can no longer aspire to anything but fortune. You know that, wholly detestable as I am, I have never wanted to wound my mother by going counter to her opinions. I have therefore seen my chances rapidly decrease, and at this moment I should put the worst sort of estimate upon any young lady or widow, whatsoever her wealth or birth, who would have me. I should persuade myself that, to accept a good-for-nothing like me, she must have some very dark motive. But, Urbain, your position is altogether different; I have lessened your fortune, perhaps made you poor. That, however, takes nothing from your personal merit; on the contrary, it should make it greater in the eyes of every one knowing the cause of your meagre fortune. It is nothing more than probable that some pure young woman, of noble family and with a fortune, should be inspired with esteem and affection for you. It seems to me even that all you will have to do is but to wish such a thing, and to show yourself." "No, I do not know how to show myself, except to my own disadvantage. Society paralyzes me, and my reputation as a scholar injures more than it serves me. Society does not understand why a man born for society does not prefer it above all things. Besides, you see, I cannot want to love; my heart is too dark and heavy." "Why, then, do you mourn so long a woman who did not know how to be happy with your affection?" "Because I loved her. In her it was perhaps my own passion that I loved. I am not of those lively natures which bloom again at each new season. Things take a terrible hold of me." "You read too much, you reflect too much." "Perhaps I do; come to the country, brother, as you have promised to do; you shall assist me; you will benefit me greatly. Will you come? I have a real need of a friend, and I have none. A silent passion has absorbed my life; your affection will rejuvenate me." The Duke was greatly moved by the frank and tender confidence of his brother. He had expected lessons, counsels, consolations, which would have made him play the part of the weak, in the presence of the strong man; on the contrary, it was of him that Urbain asked for strength and pity. Whether this came from an actual need of the Marquis or from an exalted delicacy, the Duke was too intelligent not to be struck by the change. He assured him, therefore, of a lively affection, a tender solicitude; and after having spent the whole afternoon talking and walking in the grove, the two brothers took a carriage and returned together to dine with their mother. For some days the Marchioness had been secretly very ill at ease. She had feared the resistance of Urbain when he should learn the whole amount of his brother's debts. However great her esteem for her younger son, she had not foreseen to what lengths his disinterestedness would go. Not having received his usual visit on that morning, she became seriously troubled, when, just before the hour of dinner, she saw her two sons arrive. She observed in the face of each such a calm expression of confidence and affection as led her at first to divine what had passed between them; then, however, in the presence of a visitor who was slow to depart, she could not question them, and finally she received the dreadful impression that she had been deceived and that neither the one nor the other was fully aware of the situation. But when they were at last at table, she remarked that they addressed each other in the familiar and endearing thee and thou, she understood all, and the presence of Caroline and the servants hindering her from expressing her emotion, she concealed her joy in an affectation of extreme cheerfulness, while great tears fell upon her faded cheeks. Caroline and the Marquis perceived these tears at the same moment, and her troubled look seemed to ask of him whether the Marchioness was concealing joy or suffering. The Marquis quieted her solicitude by the same means in which it had been conveyed; and the Duke, detecting this mute, rapid dialogue, smiled with a sort of good-natured malice. Neither Caroline nor the Marquis paid attention to this smile. There was too much good faith in their mutual sympathy. Caroline still held to her dislike and distrust of the Duke. She continued to grudge him the power of being so amiable and of appearing so good. She thought indeed that Madame de D—— had slightly exaggerated his waywardness; but feeling, in spite of herself, a vague fear, she avoided seeing him, and even in his presence forced herself to forget his face. When the dessert was brought in and the servants had retired, the conversation became a little more intimate. Caroline asked timidly of the Marchioness if she did not think the clock was slow. "No, no, not yet, dear child," kindly replied the old lady. Caroline understood that she was to remain till they left the table. "So, my good friends," said the Marchioness, addressing her sons, "you breakfasted together in the Bois?" "Like Orestes and Pylades," answered the Duke, "and you could n't imagine, dear mother, how fine it all was. And then I made a delightful discovery there, namely, that I have a charming brother. O, the word seems frivolous to you when applied to him; very well, I at least do not understand it in its trivial sense. The charm of the understanding is occasionally the charm of the heart, and my brother has them both." The Marchioness smiled again, but she soon became thoughtful; a cloud passed athwart her mind. "Gaëtan should be pained to receive his brother's sacrifice," she thought; "he takes it too lightly; perhaps he has lost his pride. Heavens! that would be fatal to him." Urbain saw this cloud and hastened to dissipate it. "For my part," he said, addressing his mother cheerfully and tenderly, "I will not say in return that my brother is more charming than I am, for that is too apparent; but I will say that I have also made a discovery, which is that he has admirable and serious depths in his nature, and an unalterable respect for all that is true. Yes," he added, in instinctive reply to the profoundly astonished look of Caroline, "there is in him a veritable candor which no one suspects, and which I have never before fully appreciated." "My children," said the Marchioness, "it does me good to hear you speak thus of each other; you touch my pride in the most sensitive place, and I am really led to believe that you are both right." "As far as it concerns me," rejoined the Duke, "you think so because you are the best of mothers; but you are blind. I am good for nothing at all, and the sad smile of Mlle de Saint-Geneix says plainly enough that you and my brother are both deceiving yourselves." "What! I smiled!" cried Caroline, in stupefaction; "have I looked sad? I could take my oath that I have not raised my eyes from this decanter, and that I have been meditating profoundly upon the qualities of crown-glass." "Do not fancy we believe," returned Gaëtan, "that your thoughts are always absorbed by household cares. I believe that they are frequently elevated far above the region of decanters, and that you judge of men and things from a very high stand-point." "I allow myself to judge no one, your Grace." "So much the worse for those who are not worth the exercise of your judgment. They could but gain by knowing it, however severe it might be. I myself, for instance, like to be judged by women. From their mouths I like a frank condemnation better than the silence of disdain or of mistrust. I regard women as the only beings really capable of appreciating our failings or our good qualities." "But, Madame de Villemer," said Caroline to the Marchioness in a distressed manner which was sportively assumed, "please tell his Grace the Duke that I have not the honor of knowing him at all, and that I am not here to continue in my head the portraits of La Bruyère." "Dear child," replied the Marchioness, "you are here to be a sort of adopted daughter, to whom everything is permitted, because we are aware of your fine discretion and your perfect modesty. Do not hesitate therefore to answer my son, and do not be disturbed by his friendly attempt to tease you. He knows as well as I do who you are, and he will never be wanting in the respect which is your due." "This time, mother, I accept the compliment," said the Duke, in a tone of entire frankness. "I have the profoundest respect for every pure, generous, and devoted woman, and consequently for Mlle de Saint-Geneix in particular." Caroline did not blush, or stammer the thanks of a prude governess. She looked the Duke squarely in the eyes, saw that he was not at all mocking her, and answered him with kindness,— "Why, then, your Grace, having so generous an opinion of me, do you suppose that I permit myself to have a bad one of you?" "O, I have my reasons," answered the Duke; "I will tell them to you when you know me better." "Well, but why not now?" said the Marchioness; "it would be the preferable way." "So be it," rejoined the Duke. "It is an anecdote. I will tell it. Day before yesterday I was alone in your drawing-room, waiting for you, mother mine. I was musing in a corner, and finding myself comfortably seated upon one of your little sofas,—I had that morning been training an unruly horse and was as tired as an ox,—I was meditating upon the destiny of cappadine seats in general, as Mlle de Saint-Geneix was just meditating upon that of crown-glass, and I said to myself, 'How astonished these sofas and easy-chairs would be to find themselves in a stable or in a cattle-shed! And how troubled those beautiful ladies in robes of satin who are coming here directly would certainly be, if in the place of these luxurious seats they should find nothing but litter!'" "But your revery hasn't common sense in it," said the Marchioness, laughing. "That's true," rejoined the Duke. "Those were the thoughts of a man slightly intoxicated." "What do you say, my son?" "Nothing very improper, dear mother. I came home hungry, weak, bruised, already intoxicated with the open air. You know that water does not agree with me. I cannot slake my thirst, and in making the attempt I got fuddled,—that 's all. You know too that it lasts me but a quarter of an hour at most, and that I have sense enough to keep myself quiet the necessary time. That is why, instead of coming to kiss your hand during your dessert, I slipped into the drawing-room, there to recover my senses." "Come, come," said the Marchioness, "slip over this confusion of your senses, and let us have the point of your story." "But that's just what I am coming to," rejoined the Duke, "as you shall see." As he took up again the thread of his discourse with more or less difficulty, Caroline could see that the Duke was in exactly the same state of mind as that of which he was telling, and that his mother's heady wines had probably for some moments been responsible for his prolixity. Very soon, however, he overcame the slight disorder of his ideas, and continued with a grace which was really perfect. "I was a little absent-minded, I will confess, but not at all besotted. On the contrary, I had poetical visions. From the litter scattered on the floor by my imagination, I saw a thousand odd figures arise. They were all women, some attired as for an old-fashioned court ball, others as for a Flemish peasant festival; the former embarrassed by contact of their crinoline and laces with the fresh straw, which impeded their steps and wounded their feet; the latter in short dresses, shod in great wooden shoes, which tramped lustily over the litter, while their wearers laughed till their mouths were opened wellnigh from ear to ear, at the odd appearance of the others. "With regard to this side of the picture, it was, as the canvases of Rubens have been called, the festival of flesh. Large hands, red cheeks, powerful shoulders, very prominent noses upon blooming faces, still with admirable eyes, and a sort of cappadine attraction like your sofas and easy-chairs, which had undergone this magic transformation. I cannot otherwise explain to myself the point of departure of my hallucination. "These splendid, great strapping women abandoned themselves entirely to a light-hearted joy; jumped up a foot in the air and came down again, to make the pendants of the candelabra vibrate, some of them rolling upon the straw, and getting up again with empty wheat-ears tangled in their hair of reddened gold. Opposite these the princesses of the fan attempted a stately dance without being able to accomplish it. The straws arrayed themselves against their furbelows, the heat of the atmosphere caused the paint to fall off, the powder trickled down upon their shoulders, and left the meagreness of their visages confessed; a mortal anguish was depicted in their expressive eyes. Evidently they feared the shining of the sun upon their counterfeit charms, and saw with fury the reality of life ready to triumph over them." "Well, well, my son," said the Marchioness, "where are you wandering, and what signifies all this? Have you undertaken the panegyric of viragos?" "I have undertaken nothing at all," replied the Duke; "I relate; I am inventing nothing. I was under the empire of that vision, and I have no idea into what reflections it would have led me, if I had not heard a woman singing close by me—" Gaëtan sang very pleasantly the rustic words of which he had faithfully retained the air, and Caroline began to laugh, remembering that she had sung that refrain of her province before perceiving the Duke in the drawing-room. The Duke continued: "Then I arose, and my vision was completely dissipated. There was no more straw upon the floor; the plump chairs and sofas with wooden legs were no longer girls in wooden shoes from the poultry yard; the slender candelabra, with their bulging ornaments, were no longer thin women in hoop-petticoats. I was quite alone in the lighted apartment, and had completely come to my senses; but I heard the singing of a village air in a style altogether rustic and true and charming, with a freshness of voice, too, of which mine certainly can give you no idea. 'What!' cried I to myself, 'a peasant, a peasant girl in the drawing-room of my mother!' I kept still, hardly breathing, and the peasant girl appeared. She passed before me twice without seeing me, walking quickly and almost touching me with her dress of pearl-gray silk." "Ah, that," said the Marchioness,—"that then was Caroline?" "It was somebody unknown," rejoined the Duke; "a singular peasant girl, you will agree, for she was dressed like a modest person, and of the best society. About her head she wore nothing but the glory of her own yellow hair, and she showed neither her arms nor her shoulders; but I saw her neck of snow, and her nice little hand, and feet too, for she did not have on wooden shoes." Caroline, a little annoyed at the description of her person by this veteran Lovelace, looked toward the Marquis as if in protest. She was surprised to find a certain anxiety expressed in his face, and he avoided her look with a slight contraction of his brows. The Duke, from whom nothing escaped, proceeded: "This adorable apparition struck me all the more that it recalled to my eyes the two types of my dispelled vision; that is, she preserved all that made the merit of the one or the other: nobleness of bearing and freshness of manners, delicacy of features, and the glow of health. She was a queen and a shepherdess in the same person." "That is a picture which does not flatter," said the Marchioness, "but which, exposed face to face with its original, lacks perhaps a lightness of touch. Ah, my son, may you not again be a little—over-excited?" "You ordered me to speak," rejoined the Duke. "If I speak too much, make me keep still." "No," was the quick remark of Caroline, who observed a queer, half-suspicious look upon the face of the Marquis, and who was anxious that nothing vague should be left about her first interview with the Duke. "I do not recognize the original of the picture, and I wait for his Grace the Duke to make her speak a little." "I have a good memory and I shall invent nothing," rejoined he. "Carried away by a sudden, irresistible sympathy, I spoke to this young lady from the country. Her voice, her look, her neat, frank replies, her air of goodness, of real innocence,—the innocence of the heart,—won me to such a degree that I told her of my esteem and respect at the end of five minutes as if I had known her all my life, and I felt myself jealous of her esteem as if she had been my own sister. Is that the truth this time, Mlle de Saint-Geneix?" "I know nothing of your private sentiments, your Grace," replied Caroline; "but you seemed to me so affable that it never crossed my mind you could be tender in your cups, and that I was very grateful for your kindness. I see now that I must put a lower estimate upon it, and that there was a trifle of irony in the whole." "And in what do you see that, if you please?" "In the exaggerated praise with which you seem to try to excite my vanity; but I protest against it, your Grace, and perhaps it would have been more generous in you not to have commenced the attack upon a person so inoffensive and of so humble a quality as I am." "Come now," said the Duke, turning toward his brother, who appeared to be thinking upon an entirely different subject, and who, nevertheless, heard everything, as if in his own despite; "she persists in suspecting me and in regarding my respect as an injury. Come now, Marquis, you have been telling her naughty things of me?" "That is not a habit of mine," answered the Marquis, with the gentleness of truth. "Well, then," continued the Duke, "I know who has ruined me in the opinion of Mlle de Saint-Geneix. It is an old lady whose gray hairs are turning to a slaty blue, and whose hands are so thin that her rings have to be hunted up in the sweepings every morning. She talked about me to Mlle de Saint-Geneix for a quarter of an hour the other evening, and when I sought again the kindly look which had made my heart young, I did not find it, and I do not find it now. You see. Marquis, there is no other way. Ah! but why are you so silent? You commenced my eulogy, and Mlle de Saint-Geneix seems to have confidence in you. If you would just commence again." "My children," said the Marchioness, "you can resume the discussion another time. I have to dress, and I want to say something to you before any one comes to interrupt us. The clock is perhaps a few minutes slow." "I think, indeed, that it is very slow," observed Caroline, rising; and, leaving the Duke and the Marquis to help their mother to her apartment, the young lady went quickly to the drawing-room. She expected to find visitors there, for the dinner had been prolonged a little more than usual; but no one had yet arrived, and, instead of tripping lightly about, singing as she went, she seated herself thoughtfully by the fire. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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