Indiana (Oxford World's Classics)

by George Sand

  ‘What did you say? This man was in love with you?’

  ‘You were no doubt well aware of that,’ said Madame Delmare, pushing her away violently and disdainfully. ‘You knew very well what motives a man can have for hiding behind a woman’s bed-curtains. Oh Noun,’ she added, seeing the girl’s despair, ‘it was an appalling thing to do and I’d never have thought you capable of it. You were willing to sell the honour of a woman who had such faith in yours! . . .’

  Madame Delmare was weeping, but from anger as well as from grief. Never had Raymon seen her look so beautiful, but he scarcely dared look at her, for her pride as a woman insulted made him lower his eyes. He stood there, dismayed and petrified by Noun’s presence. If he had been alone with Madame Delmare, he might have been capable of softening her. But Noun’s expression was terrible; her face was distorted with hate and fury.

  A knock at the door startled all three of them. Noun dashed forward again to stop anyone coming in, but Madame Delmare, pushing her back with authority, ordered Raymon with a commanding gesture to withdraw to the side of the room. Then, with the coolness which made her so remarkable in moments of crisis, she wrapped a shawl round herself, half-opened the door, and asked the servant who had knocked what he had to tell her:

  ‘M. Rodolphe Brown has just arrived,’ he replied. ‘He wants to know if Madame will receive him.’

  ‘Tell M. Rodolphe that I’m delighted with his visit and that I’ll join him presently. Light a fire in the drawing-room and get supper ready. Just a moment! Go and fetch me the key to the little garden gate.’

  The servant went away. Madame Delmare remained standing, still holding the door half-open, not deigning to listen to Noun and imperiously imposing silence on Raymon.

  The servant came back three minutes later. Madame Delmare, still holding the door between herself and M. de Ramière, took the key, told the servant to hurry up the supper, and, as soon as he had gone, turned to Raymon saying:

  ‘My cousin, Sir Brown’s arrival, saves you from the scandal to which I was going to expose you. He is a man of honour who would defend me warmly. But as I would be sorry to risk the life of a man like him against the life of a man like you, I am allowing you to go quietly. Noun, who let you in here, will know how to let you out. Go!’

  ‘We shall meet again, Madame,’ Raymon replied, making an effort to be self-assured, ‘and although I’m very guilty, perhaps you’ll regret the severity with which you’re treating me now.’

  ‘I hope, Monsieur, that we’ll never meet again,’ she replied.

  And still standing, holding the door open, and without deigning to make a farewell gesture, she saw him out with his trembling, wretched accomplice.

  Alone with Noun in the darkness of the grounds, Raymon expected her to reproach him. But she did not say a word. She took him to the gate of the enclosure and, when he wanted to take her hand, she had already gone. He called her quietly, for he wanted to know her decision about him, but she made no reply, and the gardener, appearing just then, said:

  ‘Come, Monsieur, you must go. Madame has arrived and you might be discovered.’

  Raymon went, in utter despair, but in his grief at having offended Madame Delmare, he almost forgot Noun and thought only of ways of appeasing her mistress; for it was in his nature to be annoyed by obstacles and to be passionately attached only to what seemed almost unattainable.

  In the evening, when, after a silent supper with Sir Ralph, Madame Delmare retired to her room, Noun did not come as usual to help her undress. Indiana rang the bell in vain and, thinking it was deliberate disobedience, she closed her door and went to bed. But she had a terrible night and, as soon as day broke, she went down into the grounds. She was feverish; she needed to feel the penetrating cold and to allay the fire that was consuming her. Only the previous day, at the same time, she was happy, enjoying the novelty of an intoxicating love affair. In twenty-four hours, what awful disappointments! First of all, there was the news of her husband’s return several days earlier than she expected. The four or five days she had hoped to spend in Paris were for her a whole lifetime of endless happiness, a whole dream of love from which she would never awake. But the very next morning, she had to give it up, resume her yoke, and come back to meet her master so that he would not meet Raymon at Madame de Carvajal’s house; for Indiana thought it would be impossible to deceive her husband if he saw her in Raymon’s presence. And then, that Raymon whom she loved like a god, it was he who vilely insulted her! Finally, the companion of her life, the young Creole to whom she was deeply attached, was suddenly found unworthy of her trust and esteem!

  Madame Delmare had wept all night. She sank down on to the grass, still white with the morning frost, by the bank of the little river which went through the grounds. It was the end of March; nature was beginning to reawaken. Although the morning was cold, it was not without attractions; wisps of fog were still lying on the water like a floating scarf, and the birds were practising their first songs of love and spring.

  Indiana felt soothed and a religious feeling filled her heart.

  ‘It’s God who willed it so,’ she said to herself. ‘His providence has given me a rude awakening, but it’s a good fortune for me. That man might have dragged me into vice; he would have ruined me, whereas now the baseness of his feelings has been revealed to me and I’ll be on my guard against the stormy, fatal passion that was raging in my breast . . . I’ll love my husband . . . I’ll try to! At least I’ll be obedient to him, I’ll make him happy by never opposing his wishes. I’ll avoid everything which might arouse his jealousy; for now I know what to make of the lying eloquence that men know how to lavish on us. Perhaps I’ll be happy, if God takes pity on my sorrows and soon brings me death . . .’

  The sound of the mill which provided the power for M. Delmare’s factory began to be heard behind the willows on the opposite bank. Ripples were already beginning to appear on the surface of the river rushing through the newly opened lock gates, and as Madame Delmare’s melancholy eyes followed the swifter flow of the water, she saw, between the reeds, something like a heap of cloth which the current was trying to pull along. She got up, leaned over the water, and could see clearly a woman’s clothes, clothes she knew only too well. Terror deprived her of movement, but the water flowed on, slowly dragging a corpse out of the reeds in which it had become entangled, and bringing it towards Madame Delmare.

  A piercing shriek brought the factory workers to the spot. Madame Delmare had fainted on the river bank and Noun’s dead body was floating on the water in front of her.

  PART 2

  IX

  TWO months have elapsed. Nothing has changed at Lagny in the house I took you into one winter’s evening, except that, around its red walls edged with grey stone, and its slate roof yellowed by age-old moss, spring is in bloom. The family, in different parts of the house, is enjoying the mild, fragrant evening; the setting sun gilds the window panes and the sounds of the factory mingle with those of the farm. M. Delmare, sitting on the porch steps, is practising killing swallows in flight. Indiana, seated at her loom by the drawing-room window, leans forward from time to time to look sadly at the Colonel’s cruel pastime in the courtyard. Ophelia is leaping, barking, and getting angry at a chase so alien to her habits; and Sir Ralph, astride the stone balustrade, is smoking a cigar and, as usual, looking on impassively at the pleasure or annoyance of others.

  ‘Indiana,’ exclaimed the Colonel, putting down his gun. ‘Do leave your work; you tire yourself as if you were paid at so much an hour.’

  ‘It’s still broad daylight,’ Madame Delmare replied.

  ‘Never mind. Come to the window; I’ve something to tell you.’

  Indiana obeyed, and the Colonel, going up to the window which was almost at ground level, said with the playful look typical of an elderly, jealous husband:

  ‘Since you’ve worked well today and are very good, I’ll tell you something that will please you.’

  Madame Delmare tri
ed to smile but the smile would have been the despair of a more sensitive man than the Colonel.

  ‘I want to tell you,’ he continued, ‘that to relieve your boredom, I’ve invited one of your humble admirers to lunch tomorrow. You’re going to ask me which one, for, you little minx, you’ve quite a nice collection.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s our good old parish priest?’ asked Madame Delmare, who was always saddened by her husband’s gaiety.

  ‘Oh, certainly not!’

  ‘Then it’s the Mayor of Chailly or the old lawyer from Fontainebleau.’

  ‘Oh, a woman’s cunning! You know quite well that it’s not one of them. Come on, Ralph, tell Madame the name that’s on the tip of her tongue but that she doesn’t want to say herself.’

  ‘You don’t need so many preliminaries to announce M. de Ramière,’ said Sir Ralph calmly, throwing away his cigar. ‘I don’t suppose it matters to her.’

  Madame Delmare felt the blood rush to her face. She pretended to look for something in the drawing-room and coming back, looking as calm as she could, said, trembling all over:

  ‘I assume you’re joking.’

  ‘On the contrary, I’m quite serious. You’ll see him here tomorrow at eleven o’clock.’

  ‘What! That man who got into your property to steal your discovery, and that you almost killed like a burglar? . . . You are both very forgiving to forget such grounds for complaint.’

  ‘You set me an example, dearest, by welcoming him so warmly at your aunt’s house where he paid you a visit.’

  Indiana turned pale. ‘That visit wasn’t on my account,’ she said with alacrity, ‘and I feel so little flattered by it that if I were you I wouldn’t receive him.’

  ‘You’re all cunning liars just for the pleasure of it. I’m told you danced with him for the whole evening at a ball.’

  ‘You’re not told the truth.’

  ‘But it was your aunt herself who told me! In any case, don’t protest so much. I think it’s not a bad idea, since your aunt wanted and worked for this reconciliation between us. M. de Ramière has been eager for it for a long time. Without fuss and almost without my knowledge, he’s helped me a lot in my business, and as I’m not as fierce as you say, and also don’t want to be obliged to a stranger, I thought I’d pay my debt to him.’

  ‘But how?’

  ‘By making a friend of him, by going to Cercy this morning with Sir Ralph. We met there his good old mother, a charming woman, living in a fashionable, comfortable house, but without ostentation and with none of the pride of the old families. After all, he’s a good fellow, that Ramière, and I invited him to lunch with us and to visit the factory. I have good reports of his brother and I’ve made sure he can do me no harm in using the same methods as I do. So I’d rather this family benefit from them than any other. Anyway, secrets aren’t kept for long and mine could soon be a farce if industrial progress goes in that direction.’

  ‘You know, my dear Delmare,’ said Sir Ralph, ‘that it was always my view that this secrecy was a mistake. A good citizen’s discovery belongs to his country as much as to himself, and if I. . .’

  ‘Oh, my goodness! That’s just like you with your practical philanthropy! . . . You’ll make me believe your fortune doesn’t belong to you and that tomorrow, if the nation takes a fancy to it, you are ready to exchange your income of fifty thousand francs for a beggar’s knapsack and staff. It’s fitting for a strong chap like you, who’s as fond of the comforts of life as a sultan, to preach contempt for wealth!’

  ‘I don’t say that to pose as a philanthropist; it’s because selfishness, properly understood, leads us to do good to people to prevent them from doing us harm. I’m selfish; that’s well known. I’ve got used to not being ashamed of that any more and, after analysing all the virtues, I’ve discovered self-interest to be the basis of them all. Love and devotion, which are apparently two generous emotions, are perhaps the most self-interested of all, and patriotism is no less, you may be sure. I’ve no great love for mankind, but I wouldn’t want to make that obvious for anything in the world; for my fear of men is in proportion to the little esteem I have for them. So we’re both selfish, but I admit it and you deny it.’

  An argument arose between them, in which, by giving all the reasons for selfishness, each one tried to prove the selfishness of the other. Madame Delmare took advantage of the situation to go to her room and give herself up to all the reflections that such unexpected news aroused in her.

  I ought not only to let you into the secret of her thoughts but also to inform you of how things stood with the different people more or less affected by Noun’s death.

  It has almost been accepted by the reader and by me that the unfortunate girl threw herself into the river in despair in one of those moments of violent crisis when extreme decisions are easiest. But as she probably did not go back to the house after leaving Raymon, and as nobody saw her or could have an opinion on her intentions, no indication of suicide was available to explain the mystery of her death.

  Two people could with certainty attribute it to a voluntary act on her part: M. de Ramière and the Lagny gardener. The former’s grief was hidden under cover of illness; fear and remorse made the latter keep silent. The gardener, out of greed, had facilitated the meetings of the two lovers and only he was in a position to notice the young Creole’s secret sorrows.

  Rightly fearing the reproaches of his superiors and the blame of his equals, he said nothing out of self-interest and when, after discovering the affair, M. Delmare had some suspicions and questioned the gardener about the consequences it might have had during his absence, he boldly denied that it had any.

  A few people in the district (it must be said that it was a very isolated region) had certainly seen Noun sometimes take the road to Cercy late in the evening, but there had been no obvious relationship between her and M. de Ramière since the end of January and she had died on the 28 March. According to this information the event could be attributed to chance. As she crossed the grounds at nightfall she might have been misled by the thick fog that had been prevalent for several days, lost her way, and missed the English bridge over the stream which, though narrow, had steep banks and was swollen by rain.

  Although Sir Ralph, naturally more observant than you would think from the thoughts he expressed, might in some of his obscure innermost feelings have discovered strong grounds for suspicion against M. de Ramière, he did not mention them to anyone; he thought that any reproach addressed to a man unhappy enough to have such remorse in his life would be useless and cruel. The Colonel had expressed a doubt in this matter to Sir Ralph, who even made him feel that it was important, in Madame Delmare’s delicate state of health, to continue concealing from her the possible causes of her childhood companion’s suicide. So the unfortunate girl’s death was treated in the same way as her love affair. There was an unspoken agreement never to speak about it in front of Indiana, and soon they even never spoke about it at all.

  But these precautions were futile, for Madame Delmare, too, had her reasons for suspecting a part of the truth. The bitter reproaches she had addressed to the unhappy girl on that fatal evening seemed to her a sufficient explanation for her maid’s sudden decision. So, from the terrible moment when she had been the first to see Noun’s dead body floating on the water, her heart, which was already so sad, had received the final blow. Her slow illness now progressed apace, and this young woman, who was perhaps quite strong, refused to get well and hid her suffering from her husband’s short-sighted and insensitive affection; she was allowing herself to die under the weight of grief and despair.

  ‘What ill luck for me!’ she cried as she went to her room after learning of Raymon’s impending arrival at her home. ‘A curse on that man, who came in here only to bring death and despair! Oh God! Why do you let him come between you and me, and take control of my fate as he pleases, so that he has only to stretch out his hand and say: “She’s mine! I’ll drive her out of her mind, I’ll make her
life a misery and, if she resists me, I’ll spread mourning around her, I’ll surround her with remorse, regrets, and fears!” Oh God! It’s not fair that a poor woman should be persecuted so!’

  She began to weep bitterly, for the thought of Raymon brought back to her the more vivid and devastating memory of Noun.

  ‘My poor Noun! My poor childhood playmate! My fellow Creole, my only friend!’ she said sorrowfully. ‘It’s that man who’s your murderer. Unhappy child! He was fatal to you as to me! You, who loved me so much, who alone guessed at my sorrows and could relieve them with your innocent gaiety! What a misfortune for me that I’ve lost you! Was it for that I brought you from so far away? By what wiles could that man undermine your loyalty and make you commit so base a deed? Oh, I’m sure he utterly deceived you and you understood your fault only when you saw my indignation. I was too severe, Noun. I was so severe that I was cruel. I reduced you to despair, I caused your death! Unhappy girl! Why didn’t you wait a few hours till the wind had carried away my resentment against you like a light straw! Why didn’t you come and weep on my bosom, saying to me: “I was deceived, I acted without knowing what I was doing but you know very well that I respect and love you’? I would have put my arms round you, we would have wept together, and you wouldn’t be dead. Dead! Dead, so young, so beautiful, so full of life! Dead at nineteen years of age and with such a frightful death!’

  As she mourned in this way for her companion, Indiana, without realizing it, was also mourning for the illusions of three days, the finest three days of her life, the only ones she had really lived; for during those three days she had loved with a passion that Raymon, even if he had been the most presumptuous of men, could never have imagined. But the more that love had been blind and violent, the more she felt the insult she had received; the first love of a heart like hers is so modest and sensitive!