The Lily of the Valley p.58

as if to tell me by a look
that she wished to be still and silent; then suddenly, for an instant,
there seemed a change; she rose on her elbow and whispered, "Unhappy
man!--ah! if you did but know--"

She fell back upon the pillow. The remembrance of her past sufferings,
joined to the present shock, threw her again into the nervous
convulsions I had just calmed by the magnetism of love,--a power then
unknown to me, but which I used instinctively. I held her with gentle
force, and she gave me a look which made me weep. When the nervous
motions ceased I smoothed her disordered hair, the first and only time
that I ever touched it; then I again took her hand and sat looking
at the room, all brown and gray, at the bed with its simple chintz
curtains, at the toilet table draped in a fashion now discarded, at the
commonplace sofa with its quilted mattress. What poetry I could read
in that room! What renunciations of luxury for herself; the only luxury
being its spotless cleanliness. Sacred cell of a married nun, filled
with holy resignation; its sole adornments were the crucifix of her bed,
and above it the portrait of her aunt; then, on each side of the holy
water basin, two drawings of the children made by herself, with locks
of their hair when they were little. What a retreat for a woman whose
appearance in the great world of fashion would have made the handsomest
of her sex jealous! Such was the chamber where the daughter of an
illustrious family wept out her days, sunken at this moment in anguish,
and denying herself the love that might have comforted her. Hidden,
irreparable woe! Tears of the victim for her slayer, tears of the slayer
for his victim! When the children and waiting-woman came at length into
the room I left it. The count was waiting for me; he seemed to seek me
as a mediating power between himself and his wife. He caught my hands,
exclaiming, "Stay, stay with us, Felix!"

"Unfortunately," I said, "Monsieur de Chessel has a party, and my
absence would cause remark. But after dinner I will return."

He left the house when I did, and took me to the lower gate without
speaking; then he accompanied me to Frapesle, seeming not to know what
he was doing. At last I said to him, "For heaven's sake, Monsieur le
comte, let her manage your affairs if it pleases her, and don't torment
her."

"I have not long to live," he said gravely; "she will not suffer long
through me; my head is giving way."

He left me in a spasm of involuntary self-pity. After dinner I returned
for news of Madame de Mortsauf, who was already better. If such were the
joys of marriage, if such scenes were frequent, how could she survive
them long? What slow, unpunished murder was this? During that day I
understood the tortures by which the count was wearing out his wife.
Before what tribunal can we arraign such crimes? These thoughts stunned
me; I could say nothing to Henriette by word of mouth, but I spent the
night in writing to her. Of the three or four letters that I wrote I
have kept only the beginning of one, with which I was not satisfied.
Here it is, for though it seems to me to express nothing, and to speak
too much of myself when I ought only to have thought of her, it will
serve to show you the state my soul was in:--

  To Madame de Mortsauf:

  How many things I had to say to you when I reached the house! I
  thought of them on the way, but I forgot them in your presence.
  Yes, when I see you, dear Henriette, I find my thoughts no longer
  in keeping with the light from your soul which heightens your
  beauty; then, too, the happiness of being near you is so ineffable
  as to efface all other feelings. Each time we meet I am born into
  a broader life; I am like the traveller who climbs a rock and sees
  before him a new horizon. Each time you talk with me I add new
  treasures to my treasury. There lies, I think, the secret of long
  and inexhaustible affections. I can only speak to you of yourself
  when away from you. In your presence I am too dazzled to see, too
  happy to question my happiness, too full of you to be myself, too
  eloquent through you to speak, too eager in seizing the present
  moment to remember the past. You must think of this state of
  intoxication and forgive me its consequent mistakes.

The Lily of the Valley p.57

"Never marry, Felix," said the count as soon as he saw me; "a woman is
led by the devil; the most virtuous of them would invent evil if it did
not exist; they are all vile."

Then followed arguments without beginning or end. Harking back to
the old troubles, Monsieur de Mortsauf repeated the nonsense of the
peasantry against the new system of farming. He declared that if he had
had the management of Clochegourde he should be twice as rich as he now
was. He shouted these complaints and insults, he swore, he sprang around
the room knocking against the furniture and displacing it; then in the
middle of a sentence he stopped short, complained that his very marrow
was on fire, his brains melting away like his money, his wife had ruined
him! The countess smiled and looked upward.

"Yes, Blanche," he cried, "you are my executioner; you are killing me; I
am in your way; you want to get rid of me; you are monster of hypocrisy.
She is smiling! Do you know why she smiles, Felix?"

I kept silence and looked down.

"That woman," he continued, answering his own question, "denies me all
happiness; she is no more to me than she is to you, and yet she pretends
to be my wife! She bears my name and fulfils none of the duties which
all laws, human and divine, impose upon her; she lies to God and man.
She obliges me to go long distances, hoping to wear me out and make me
leave her to herself; I am displeasing to her, she hates me; she puts
all her art into keeping me away from her; she has made me mad through
the privations she imposes on me--for everything flies to my poor head;
she is killing me by degrees, and she thinks herself a saint and takes
the sacrament every month!"

The countess was weeping bitterly, humiliated by the degradation of
the man, to whom she kept saying for all answer, "Monsieur! monsieur!
monsieur!"

Though the count's words made me blush, more for him than for Henriette,
they stirred my heart violently, for they appealed to the sense of
chastity and delicacy which is indeed the very warp and woof of first
love.

"She is virgin at my expense," cried the count.

At these words the countess cried out, "Monsieur!"

"What do you mean with your imperious 'Monsieur!'" he shouted. "Am I not
your master? Must I teach you that I am?"

He came towards her, thrusting forward his white wolf's head, now
hideous, for his yellow eyes had a savage expression which made him look
like a wild beast rushing out of a wood. Henriette slid from her chair
to the ground to avoid a blow, which however was not given; she lay at
full length on the floor and lost consciousness, completely exhausted.
The count was like a murderer who feels the blood of his victim spurting
in his face; he stopped short, bewildered. I took the poor woman in my
arms, and the count let me take her, as though he felt unworthy to touch
her; but he went before me to open the door of her bedroom next the
salon,--a sacred room I had never entered. I put the countess on her
feet and held her for a moment in one arm, passing the other round her
waist, while Monsieur de Mortsauf took the eider-down coverlet from the
bed; then together we lifted her and laid her, still dressed, on the
bed. When she came to herself she motioned to us to unfasten her belt.
Monsieur de Mortsauf found a pair of scissors, and cut through it; I
made her breathe salts, and she opened her eyes. The count left the
room, more ashamed than sorry. Two hours passed in perfect silence.
Henriette's hand lay in mine; she pressed it to mine, but could not
speak. From time to time she opened her eyes

The Lily of the Valley p.56

I loved her too passionately not to feel jealous,--I who could give her
nothing! In my rage against myself I longed for some means of dying for
her. She asked me to tell her the thoughts that filled my eyes, and I
told her honestly. She was more touched than by all her presents; then
taking me to the portico, she poured comfort into my heart. "Love me as
my aunt loved me," she said, "and that will be giving me your life; and
if I take it, must I not ever be grateful to you?

"It was time I finished my tapestry," she added as we re-entered the
salon, where I kissed her hand as if to renew my vows. "Perhaps you do
not know, Felix, why I began so formidable a piece of work. Men find the
occupations of life a great resource against troubles; the management of
affairs distracts their mind; but we poor women have no support within
ourselves against our sorrows. To be able to smile before my children
and my husband when my heart was heavy I felt the need of controlling my
inward sufferings by some physical exercise. In this way I escaped
the depression which is apt to follow a great strain upon the moral
strength, and likewise all outbursts of excitement. The mere action of
lifting my arm regularly as I drew the stitches rocked my thoughts and
gave to my spirit when the tempest raged a monotonous ebb and flow
which seemed to regulate its emotions. To every stitch I confided my
secrets,--you understand me, do you not? Well, while doing my last chair
I have thought much, too much, of you, dear friend. What you have put
into your bouquets I have said in my embroidery."

The dinner was lovely. Jacques, like all children when you take notice
of them, jumped into my arms when he saw the flowers I had arranged for
him as a garland. His mother pretended to be jealous; ah, Natalie, you
should have seen the charming grace with which the dear child offered
them to her. In the afternoon we played a game of backgammon, I alone
against Monsieur and Madame de Mortsauf, and the count was charming.
They accompanied me along the road to Frapesle in the twilight of a
tranquil evening, one of those harmonious evenings when our feelings
gain in depth what they lose in vivacity. It was a day of days in
this poor woman's life; a spot of brightness which often comforted her
thoughts in painful hours.

Soon, however, the riding lessons became a subject of contention. The
countess justly feared the count's harsh reprimands to his son. Jacques
grew thin, dark circles surrounded his sweet blue eyes; rather than
trouble his mother, he suffered in silence. I advised him to tell
his father he was tired when the count's temper was violent; but that
expedient proved unavailing, and it became necessary to substitute
the old huntsman as a teacher in place of the father, who could
with difficulty be induced to resign his pupil. Angry reproaches and
contentions began once more; the count found a text for his continual
complaints in the base ingratitude of women; he flung the carriage,
horses, and liveries in his wife's face twenty times a day. At last a
circumstance occurred on which a man with his nature and his disease
naturally fastened eagerly. The cost of the buildings at the Cassine
and the Rhetoriere proved to be half as much again as the estimate.
This news was unfortunately given in the first instance to Monsieur de
Mortsauf instead of to his wife. It was the ground of a quarrel, which
began mildly but grew more and more embittered until it seemed as
though the count's madness, lulled for a short time, was demanding its
arrearages from the poor wife.

That day I had started from Frapesle at half-past ten to search for
flowers with Madeleine. The child had brought the two vases to the
portico, and I was wandering about the gardens and adjoining meadows
gathering the autumn flowers, so beautiful, but too rare. Returning from
my final quest, I could not find my little lieutenant with her white
cape and broad pink sash; but I heard cries within the house, and
Madeleine presently came running out.

"The general," she said, crying (the term with her was an expression of
dislike), "the general is scolding mamma; go and defend her."

I sprang up the steps of the portico and reached the salon without being
seen by either the count or his wife. Hearing the madman's sharp cries
I first shut all the doors, then I returned and found Henriette as white
as her dress.

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