Works of Honore De Balzac

by Honoré de Balzac

  He whom you love can be with you at all times, but I, poor

  Calyste! have so few days in which to see you; you will soon be

  freed from me. Therefore I may return to Les Touches to-morrow,

  may I not? You will not refuse my arm for that excursion? We shall

  go together to Croisic and to Batz? If you do not go I shall take

  it for an answer, — Calyste will understand it!

  There were four more pages of the same sort in close, fine writing, wherein Calyste explained the sort of threat conveyed in the last words, and related his youth and life; but the tale was chiefly told in exclamatory phrases, with many of those points and dashes of which modern literature is so prodigal when it comes to crucial passages, — as though they were planks offered to the reader’s imagination, to help him across crevasses. The rest of this artless letter was merely repetition. But if it was not likely to touch Madame de Rochefide, and would very slightly interest the admirers of strong emotions, it made the mother weep, as she said to her son, in her tender voice, —

  “My child, you are not happy.”

  This tumultuous poem of sentiments which had arisen like a storm in Calyste’s heart, terrified the baroness; for the first time in her life she read a love-letter.

  Calyste was standing in deep perplexity; how could he send that letter? He followed his mother back into the salon with the letter in his pocket and burning in his heart like fire. The Chevalier du Halga was still there, and the last deal of a lively mouche was going on. Charlotte de Kergarouet, in despair at Calyste’s indifference, was paying attention to his father as a means of promoting her marriage. Calyste wandered hither and thither like a butterfly which had flown into the room by mistake. At last, when mouche was over, he drew the Chevalier du Halga into the great salon, from which he sent away Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel’s page and Mariotte.

  “What does he want of the chevalier?” said old Zephirine, addressing her friend Jacqueline.

  “Calyste strikes me as half-crazy,” replied Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel. “He pays Charlotte no more attention than if she were a paludiere.”

  Remembering that the Chevalier du Halga had the reputation of having navigated in his youth the waters of gallantry, it came into Calyste’s head to consult him.

  “What is the best way to send a letter secretly to one’s mistress,” he said to the old gentleman in a whisper.

  “Well, you can slip it into the hand of her maid with a louis or two underneath it; for sooner or later the maid will find out the secret, and it is just as well to let her into it at once,” replied the chevalier, on whose face was the gleam of a smile. “But, on the whole, it is best to give the letter yourself.”

  “A louis or two!” exclaimed Calyste.

  He snatched up his hat and ran to Les Touches, where he appeared like an apparition in the little salon, guided thither by the voices of Camille and Beatrix. They were sitting on the sofa together, apparently on the best of terms. Calyste, with the headlong impulse of love, flung himself heedlessly on the sofa beside the marquise, took her hand, and slipped the letter within it. He did this so rapidly that Felicite, watchful as she was, did not perceive it. Calyste’s heart was tingling with an emotion half sweet, half painful, as he felt the hand of Beatrix press his own, and saw her, without interrupting her words, or seeming in the least disconcerted, slip the letter into her glove.

  “You fling yourself on a woman’s dress without mercy,” she said, laughing.

  “Calyste is a boy who is wanting in common-sense,” said Felicite, not sparing him an open rebuke.

  Calyste rose, took Camille’s hand, and kissed it. Then he went to the piano and ran his finger-nail over the notes, making them all sound at once, like a rapid scale. This exuberance of joy surprised Camille, and made her thoughtful; she signed to Calyste to come to her.

  “What is the matter with you?” she whispered in his ear.

  “Nothing,” he replied.

  “There is something between them,” thought Mademoiselle des Touches.

  The marquise was impenetrable. Camille tried to make Calyste talk, hoping that his artless mind would betray itself; but the youth excused himself on the ground that his mother expected him, and he left Les Touches at eleven o’clock, — not, however, without having faced the fire of a piercing glance from Camille, to whom that excuse was made for the first time.

  After the agitations of a wakeful night filled with visions of Beatrix, and after going a score of times through the chief street of Guerande for the purpose of meeting the answer to his letter, which did not come, Calyste finally received the following reply, which the marquise’s waiting-woman, entering the hotel du Guenic, presented to him. He carried it to the garden, and there, in the grotto, he read as follows: —

  Madame de Rochefide to Calyste.

  You are a noble child, but you are only a child. You are bound to

  Camille, who adores you. You would not find in me either the

  perfections that distinguish her or the happiness that she can

  give you. Whatever you may think, she is young and I am old; her

  heart is full of treasures, mine is empty; she has for you a

  devotion you ill appreciate; she is unselfish; she lives only for

  you and in you. I, on the other hand, am full of doubts; I should

  drag you down to a wearisome life, without grandeur of any kind,

  — a life ruined by my own conduct. Camille is free; she can go and

  come as she will; I am a slave.

  You forget that I love and am beloved. The situation in which I

  have placed myself forbids my accepting homage. That a man should

  love me, or say he loves me, is an insult. To turn to another

  would be to place myself at the level of the lowest of my sex.

  You, who are young and full of delicacy, how can you oblige me to

  say these things, which rend my heart as they issue from it?

  I preferred the scandal of an irreparable deed to the shame of

  constant deception; my own loss of station to a loss of honesty.

  In the eyes of many persons whose esteem I value, I am still

  worthy; but if I permitted another man to love me, I should fall

  indeed. The world is indulgent to those whose constancy covers, as

  with a mantle, the irregularity of their happiness; but it is

  pitiless to vice.

  You see I feel neither disdain nor anger; I am answering your

  letter frankly and with simplicity. You are young; you are

  ignorant of the world; you are carried away by fancy; you are

  incapable, like all whose lives are pure, of making the

  reflections which evil suggests. But I will go still further.

  Were I destined to be the most humiliated of women, were I forced

  to hide fearful sorrows, were I betrayed, abandoned, — which, thank

  God, is wholly impossible, — no one in this world would see me

  more. Yes, I believe I should find courage to kill a man who,

  seeing me in that situation, should talk to me of love.

  You now know my mind to its depths. Perhaps I ought to thank you

  for having written to me. After receiving your letter, and, above

  all, after making you this reply, I could be at my ease with you

  in Camille’s house, I could act out my natural self, and be what

  you ask of me; but I hardly need speak to you of the bitter

  ridicule that would overwhelm me if my eyes or my manner ceased to

  express the sentiments of which you complain. A second robbery

  from Camille would be a proof of her want of power which no woman

  could twice forgive. Even if I loved you, if I were blind to all

  else, if I forgot all else, I should still see Camille! Her love

  for you is a barrier too high to be o’erleaped by an
y power, even

  by the wings of an angel; none but a devil would fail to recoil

  before such treachery. In this, my dear Calyste, are many motives

  which delicate and noble women keep to themselves, of which you

  men know nothing; nor could you understand them, even though you

  were all as like our sex as you yourself appear to be at this

  moment.

  My child, you have a mother who has shown you what you ought to be

  in life. She is pure and spotless; she fulfils her destiny nobly;

  what I have heard of her has filled my eyes with tears, and in the

  depths of my heart I envy her. I, too, might have been what she

  is! Calyste, that is the woman your wife should be, and such

  should be her life. I will never send you back, in jest, as I have

  done, to that little Charlotte, who would weary you to death; but

  I do commend you to some divine young girl who is worthy of your

  love.

  If I were yours, your life would be blighted. You would have given

  me your whole existence, and I — you see, I am frank — I should have

  taken it; I should have gone with you, Heaven knows where, far

  from the world! But I should have made you most unhappy; for I am

  jealous. I see lions lurking in the path, and monsters in drops of

  water. I am made wretched by trifles that most women put up with;

  inexorable thoughts — from my heart, not yours — would poison our

  existence and destroy my life. If a man, after ten years’

  happiness, were not as respectful and as delicate as he was to me

  at first, I should resent the change; it would abase me in my own

  eyes! Such a lover could not believe in the Amadis and the Cyrus

  of my dreams. To-day true love is but a dream, not a reality. I

  see in yours only the joy of a desire the end of which is, as yet,

  unperceived by you.

  For myself, I am not forty years old; I have not bent my pride

  beneath the yoke of experience, — in short, I am a woman too young

  to be anything but odious. I will not answer for my temper; my

  grace and charm are all external. Perhaps I have not yet suffered

  enough to have the indulgent manners and the absolute tenderness

  which come to us from cruel disappointments. Happiness has its

  insolence, and I, I fear, am insolent. Camille will be always your

  devoted slave; I should be an unreasonable tyrant. Besides,

  Camille was brought to you by your guardian angel, at the turning

  point of your life, to show you the career you ought to follow, — a

  career in which you cannot fail.

  I know Felicite! her tenderness is inexhaustible; she may ignore

  the graces of our sex, but she possesses that fruitful strength,

  that genius for constancy, that noble intrepidity which makes us

  willing to accept the rest. She will marry you to some young girl,

  no matter what she suffers. She will find you a free Beatrix — if

  it is a Beatrix indeed who answers to your desires in a wife, and

  to your dreams; she will smooth all the difficulties in your way.

  The sale of a single acre of her ground in Paris would free your

  property in Brittany; she will make you her heir; are you not

  already her son by adoption?

  Alas! what could I do for your happiness? Nothing. Do not betray

  that infinite love which contents itself with the duties of

  motherhood. Ah! I think her very fortunate, my Camille! She can

  well afford to forgive your feeling for poor Beatrix; women of her

  age are indulgent to such fancies. When they are sure of being

  loved, they will pardon a passing infidelity; in fact, it is often

  one of their keenest pleasures to triumph over a younger rival.

  Camille is above such women, and that remark does not refer to

  her; but I make it to ease your mind.

  I have studied Camille closely; she is, to my eyes, one of the

  greatest women of our age. She has mind and she has goodness, — two

  qualities almost irreconcilable in woman; she is generous and

  simple, — two other grandeurs seldom found together in our sex. I

  have seen in the depths of her soul such treasures that the

  beautiful line of Dante on eternal happiness, which I heard her

  interpreting to you the other day, “Senza brama sicura ricchezza,”

  seems as if made for her. She has talked to me of her career; she

  has related her life, showing me how love, that object of our

  prayers, our dreams, has ever eluded her. I replied that she

  seemed to me an instance of the difficulty, if not the

  impossibility, of uniting in one person two great glories.

  You, Calyste, are one of the angelic souls whose mate it seems

  impossible to find; but Camille will obtain for you, even if she

  dies in doing so, the hand of some young girl with whom you can

  make a happy home.

  For myself, I hold out to you a friendly hand, and I count, not on

  your heart, but on your mind, to make you in future a brother to

  me, as I shall be a sister to you; and I desire that this letter

  may terminate a correspondence which, between Les Touches and

  Guerande, is rather absurd.

  Beatrix de Casteran.

  The baroness, stirred to the depths of her soul by the strange exhibitions and the rapid changes of her boy’s emotions, could no longer sit quietly at her work in the ancient hall. After looking at Calyste from time to time, she finally rose and came to him in a manner that was humble, and yet bold; she wanted him to grant a favor which she felt she had a right to demand.

  “Well,” she said, trembling, and looking at the letter, but not directly asking for it.

  Calyste read it aloud to her. And these two noble souls, so simple, so guileless, saw nothing in that wily and treacherous epistle of the malice or the snares which the marquise had written into it.

  “She is a noble woman, a grand woman!” said the baroness, with moistened eyes. “I will pray to God for her. I did not know that a woman could abandon her husband and child, and yet preserve a soul so virtuous. She is indeed worthy of pardon.”

  “Have I not every reason to adore her?” cried Calyste.

  “But where will this love lead you?” said the baroness. “Ah, my child, how dangerous are women with noble sentiments! There is less to fear in those who are bad! Marry Charlotte de Kergarouet and release two-thirds of the estate. By selling a few farms, Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel can bestow that grand result upon you in the marriage contract, and she will also help you, with her experience, to make the most of your property. You will be able to leave your children a great name, and a fine estate.”

  “Forget Beatrix!” said Calyste, in a muffled voice, with his eyes on the ground.

  He left the baroness, and went up to his own room to write an answer to the marquise.

  Madame du Guenic, whose heart retained every word of Madame de Rochefide’s letter, felt the need of some help in comprehending it more clearly, and also the grounds of Calyste’s hope. At this hour the Chevalier du Halga was always to be seen taking his dog for a walk on the mall. The baroness, certain of finding him there, put on her bonnet and shawl and went out.

  The sight of the Baronne du Guenic walking in Guerande elsewhere than to church, or on the two pretty roads selected as promenades on fete days, accompanied by the baron and Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, was an event so remarkable that two hours later, throughout the whole town, people accosted each other with the remark, —

  “Madame du
Guenic went out to-day; did you meet her?”

  As soon as this amazing news reached the ears of Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, she said to her niece, —

  “Something very extraordinary is happening at the du Guenics.”

  “Calyste is madly in love with that beautiful Marquise de Rochefide,” said Charlotte. “I ought to leave Guerande and return to Nantes.”

  The Chevalier du Halga, much surprised at being sought by the baroness, released the chain of his little dog, aware that he could not divide himself between the two interests.

  “Chevalier,” began the baroness, “you used to practise gallantry?”

  Here the Chevalier du Halga straightened himself up with an air that was not a little vain. Madame du Guenic, without naming her son or the marquise, repeated, as nearly as possible, the love-letter, and asked the chevalier to explain to her the meaning of such an answer. Du Halga snuffed the air and stroked his chin; he listened attentively; he made grimaces; and finally, he looked fixedly at the baroness with a knowing air, as he said, —

  “When thoroughbred horses want to leap a barrier, they go up to reconnoitre it, and smell it over. Calyste is a lucky dog!”

  “Oh, hush!” she cried.

  “I’m mute. Ah! in the olden time I knew all about it,” said the old chevalier, striking an attitude. “The weather was fine, the breeze nor’east. Tudieu! how the ‘Belle-Poule’ kept close to the wind that day when — Oh!” he cried, interrupting himself, “we shall have a change of weather; my ears are buzzing, and I feel the pain in my ribs! You know, don’t you, that the battle of the ‘Belle-Poule’ was so famous that women wore head-dresses ‘a la Belle-Poule.’ Madame de Kergarouet was the first to come to the opera in that head-dress, and I said to her: ‘Madame, you are dressed for conquest.’ The speech was repeated from box to box all through the house.”

  The baroness listened pleasantly to the old hero, who, faithful to the laws of gallantry, escorted her to the alley of her house, neglecting Thisbe. The secret of Thisbe’s existence had once escaped him. Thisbe was the granddaughter of a delightful Thisbe, the pet of Madame l’Amirale de Kergarouet, first wife of the Comte de Kergarouet, the chevalier’s commanding officer. The present Thisbe was eighteen years old.