Indiana (Oxford World's Classics)

by George Sand

  ‘My poor friend,’ Ralph would say, ‘do be fair: you think it’s bad that the Restoration has not rewarded services rendered to the Empire and that it pays the émigrés. Tell me, if Napoleon could come back to life tomorrow with all his power, would you think it right that he should withdraw his favour from you and bestow it on the partisans of the legal sovereign? Everyone for himself and for his own side. These are discussions of business matters, arguments about personal interest, which are of very little interest to France now that you are almost as disabled as the infantrymen of the emigration and that gouty, married, or disgruntled, you are all equally useless to her. Yet France must feed the lot of you and you vie with each other in complaining about her. When the Republic’s day* dawns, it will liberate itself from all your demands and justice will be done.’

  These obvious commonplaces offended the Colonel like so many personal insults, and Ralph, who with all his good sense did not understand that the petty-mindedness of a man whom he esteemed could go so far, became used to upsetting him unsparingly.

  Before Raymon’s arrival there was a tacit agreement between these two men to avoid any subject of controversy in which delicate susceptibilities might have been mutually hurt. But Raymon brought into their quiet household all the subtleties of language, all the petty treacheries of civilized society. He taught them that people can say anything to each other, reproach each other with anything, and always retract under the pretext of having a discussion. He introduced into their home the habit of argument which was then tolerated in fashionable drawing-rooms because the passionate hatreds of the Hundred Days* had finally soothed down and been absorbed into various different feelings. But the Colonel had retained his in all their strength, and Ralph made a great mistake in thinking that M. Delmare might listen to the language of reason. He turned daily more bitter against Ralph and came closer to Raymon, who, without giving way too much, knew how to express himself elegantly so as to spare the Colonel’s amour-propre.

  It is very unwise to introduce politics into families as a pastime. If peaceful, happy families still exist today, I advise them not to subscribe to any newspaper, not to read the smallest item of the budget, to retreat to the depths of their country estates as if to an oasis, and to erect an impassable barrier between themselves and the rest of society; for, if they let the clamour of our disputes reach them, that’s an end to their peace and unity. You cannot imagine what bitterness and gall divisions of opinion bring between near relatives. Most of the time it is only an opportunity to reproach each other for character failings, intellectual weaknesses, and evil emotions.

  They would not have dared to treat each other as rascals, fools, ambitious schemers, or cowards. They clothe the same ideas with the names of Jesuit, royalist, revolutionary, and happy man. The words are different but the insults are the same, and they are all the more biting in that the family members have allowed themselves to pursue and attack each other ceaselessly, without indulgence and without restraint. Then they have no more tolerance for each other’s faults, no more charitable attitudes, no more generous, sensitive reserve; nothing is overlooked any more, everything is linked to a political opinion, and beneath this mask they breathe out hatred and vengeance. Happy country-dwellers (if there is still country in France), flee, flee from politics, and read Peau d’Ane* in your family circle! . . . But the contagion is such that there is no retreat hidden enough, no solitude absolute enough, to conceal and protect the man who wants to spare his easy-going temperament the storms of our civil discords.

  The little manor-house at Brie had in vain defended itself for a few years against this fatal invasion; it had finally lost its carefree attitude, its busy domestic life, its long evenings of silence and meditation. Noisy arguments aroused its dormant echoes; bitter, threatening words frightened the faded cherubs who had been smiling for a hundred years in the dusty wainscoting. The emotions of the present day had made their way into that ancient dwelling; all those old-fashioned decorations, all those remnants of a pleasure-loving, frivolous age,* saw with terror the entry of our age of scepticism and ranting oratory, represented by three people who shut themselves up together every day to quarrel from morning to night.

  XV

  IN spite of these perpetual quarrels, Madame Delmare, with the confidence of youth, gave herself up to the hope of a happy future. It was her first taste of happiness and her lively imagination, her full young heart, were able to embellish it with everything it had lacked. She was ingenious in creating keen, pure joys for herself, in completing for herself the favours which destiny might have in store for her. Raymon loved her. Indeed, he was not lying when he told her that she was the only love of his life; he had never before loved so purely nor for such a long time. In her presence he would forget everything that was not her. Society and politics were erased from his memory. He was happy with this domestic life, with the family routine which she created for him. He admired her patience and her strength. He was amazed at the contrast between her intelligence and her character. Above all, he was surprised that after the solemnity of their initial agreement, she should prove so undemanding, happy with such furtive and infrequent joys, and trusting with such blind abandon. This was because love was a new, generous passion in her heart, and a thousand sensitive, noble feelings were linked to it which gave her a strength that Raymon could not understand.

  As for him, to start with he was distressed by the constant presence of her husband and her cousin. He had thought he would handle this love affair like all the others he had experienced, but soon Indiana compelled him to rise to her level. The resignation with which she put up with being watched, the look of happiness with which she secretly gazed at him, her eyes which spoke to him in eloquent but silent language, her heavenly smile when a sudden allusion in conversation brought their hearts close to each other, these were soon subtle, exquisite pleasures that Raymon appreciated, thanks to the refinement of his mind and to the culture he had acquired by education.

  What a difference between this chaste being who seemed not to contemplate the possibility of a consummation of their love and all those women concerned only to hasten it while pretending to flee from it! When, by chance, Raymon found himself alone with her, Indiana’s cheeks were not animated by a warmer red, she did not turn away her eyes in embarrassment. No, her clear, calm eyes still gazed at him with ecstatic delight, an angelic smile was still on her lips, which were as rosy as those of a little girl who has not yet known any kisses but her mother’s. When he saw her so trusting, so much in love, so pure, living only the life of the heart and not realizing that there was torment in her lover’s when he was at her feet, Raymon no longer dared be a man, fearing to seem inferior to her dreams of him, and through pride he became virtuous like her.

  Madame Delmare, ignorant as real Creoles are, had never till then thought of considering the serious matters that were now discussed in her presence every day. She had been brought up by Sir Ralph, who had a poor opinion of the intelligence and reasoning power of women and had confined himself to giving her some practical knowledge of immediate use. So she scarcely knew an outline of world history and any serious discourse bored her to tears. But when she heard Raymon apply all the charm of his wit, all the poetry of his language, to these dry subjects, she listened and tried to understand; then she timidly ventured to ask naïve questions which a ten year old girl, brought up in a wider world, would have answered capably. Raymon enjoyed enlightening her untutored intelligence, which seemed bound to be receptive to his principles. But despite his sway over her young, unsophisticated mind, his sophistry sometimes met with resistance.

  To the interests of civilization set up as principles, Indiana opposed the honest ideas and the simple laws of good sense and humanity. Her counter-arguments were characterized by a straightforward frankness which sometimes embarrassed Raymon but whose childlike simplicity always charmed him. He applied himself as he would to a serious undertaking; he made it an important task for himself to b
ring her gradually to an acceptance of his beliefs and principles. He would have been proud to overrule her conscientious and naturally enlightened convictions, but he had some difficulty in attaining his objective. Ralph’s generous theories, his implacable hatred of society’s vices, his keen impatience at seeing the dominance of other laws and other ways, these were indeed sympathetic feelings to which Indiana’s unhappy memories responded. But suddenly Raymon would annihilate his opponent by pointing out to him that his dislike of the present stemmed from selfishness. He would warmly describe his own affections, his devotion to the royal family, whom he knew how to make attractive by giving them all the heroism of loyalty in dangerous situations, his respect for the persecuted religion of his fathers, his religious feelings, which he did not subject to reasoning and which, he would say, he retained by instinct and from necessity. And then the happiness of loving his fellow man, of being bound to the present generation by all the bonds of honour and philanthropy; the pleasure of rendering service to his country by rejecting dangerous innovations, by maintaining internal peace, by giving, if necessary, all his blood to spare the least of his compatriots one drop of theirs! He depicted all these benevolent Utopias with so much art and charm that Indiana let herself be carried away by the need to love and respect everything that Raymon loved and respected. In fact, it was proved that Ralph was an egoist. When he supported a generous idea, they smiled; it was established that his mind and his heart were then in contradiction. Was it not better to believe Raymon, who had such a warm, large, expansive heart?

  Nevertheless, there were many moments when Raymon almost forgot his love and thought only of his antipathy. In Madame Delmare’s presence, he could see only Sir Ralph who, with his rough, cold, good sense, dared to attack him, a man of superior talents, who had wiped the floor with powerful opponents. He was humiliated at seeing himself fighting against such a poor adversary and then he would overwhelm him with the weight of his eloquence. He would bring all the resources of his talent into play, and Ralph, bewildered, slow to collect his thoughts, slower still to express them, suffered from the consciousness of his weakness.

  In those moments it seemed to Indiana that Raymon’s thoughts were completely detached from her. She had fits of anxiety and terror, thinking that perhaps all these grand, noble sentiments, so well expressed, were only a pompous display of words, the ironic fluency of a lawyer, listening to his own words and practising the sentimental play-acting designed to captivate the good feelings of the audience. Above all, she would be apprehensive when, her eye meeting his, she thought she saw in it not the pleasure of being understood by her, but triumphant pride at having delivered a good speech. Then she would be afraid and think of Ralph, the egoist; perhaps they were being unfair to him, but Ralph did not know what to say to prolong this uncertainty and Raymon was skilful at removing it.

  So there was only one person whose life was really disturbed, only one happiness in the household really ruined; it was the life and happiness of Ralph, a man unfortunate from birth, for whom life had never had its bright side, its complete, all-pervasive joys. His was a great but obscure misfortune pitied by no one and of which he complained to no one, a truly accursed destiny but one devoid of poetry or adventure, an ordinary, commonplace, sad destiny softened by no friendship, charmed by no love, one which wasted away in silence with the heroism that comes from the love of life and the need for hope. He was a solitary being who, like everyone else, had had a father and a mother, a brother, a wife, a son, and a sweetheart, but who had not profited nor retained anything from all these affections. He was a stranger in life who went on his way, melancholy and indifferent, not even having the exaggerated sense of his misfortune which makes some people find a certain glamour in sorrow.

  In spite of his strength of character, Ralph sometimes felt weary of virtue. He hated Raymon and, by saying one word, he could drive him out of Lagny. But he did not say it, because Ralph had one belief, only one that was stronger than Raymon’s thousands of beliefs. It was not the Church, nor the monarchy, nor society, nor reputation, nor the law, that dictated his sacrifices and his courage; it was his conscience.

  He had lived alone so much that he had never been able to count on others. But in his isolation he had also learned to know himself. He had made a friend of his own heart. By dint of falling back on his own thoughts, of asking himself why others inflicted injustices upon him, he had assured himself that he had no vice for which he deserved them. He was no longer annoyed by them because he had little esteem for himself, knowing that he was uninteresting and ordinary. He understood why people took no account of him and he was resigned to the fact. But his heart told him he was capable of all the feelings he did not inspire, and if he was ready to forgive others everything, he had decided to tolerate nothing in himself. This wholly introverted life, these wholly private feelings, gave him all the appearance of being selfish, and perhaps nothing resembles selfishness more closely than self-respect.

  As it often happens, however, that when trying too hard to do good we do less good, it happened that Sir Ralph made a great mistake by being so sensitively scrupulous, and he did Madame Delmare irreparable harm in the fear of burdening his conscience with a reproach. His mistake was not to inform her of the real cause of Noun’s death. Had he done so, she would no doubt have reflected on the dangers of her love for Raymon. But we shall see later why M. Brown dared not enlighten his cousin and what painful scruples made him keep silent on such an important matter. When he decided to break his silence, it was too late; Raymon had had time to establish his sway.

  An unexpected event had just shattered the future prospects of the Colonel and his wife. A Belgian trading establishment, on which all the prosperity of Delmare’s business depended, had suddenly gone bankrupt, and the Colonel, barely well again, had just set off in great haste for Antwerp.

  Aware that he was still weak and unfit, his wife had wanted to go with him, but M. Delmare, threatened with complete ruin and resolved to honour all his obligations, was afraid that his journey would look like a flight, and so he wanted to leave his wife at Lagny as a guarantee of his return. Similarly, he refused Sir Ralph’s company and begged him to remain to be a support to Madame Delmare, in case there was trouble from anxious or zealous creditors.

  In these distressing circumstances, Indiana’s only fear was of the possibility of leaving Lagny and of being separated from Raymon, but he reassured her by pointing out that the Colonel was bound to go to Paris. Moreover, he swore that he would follow her wherever she might go and under whatever pretext, and the credulous woman thought herself almost happy through a misfortune which allowed her to put Raymon’s love to the test. As for him, a vague hope, a persistent nagging thought, filled his mind since he had heard of these events. At last he was going to be alone with Indiana; it would be the first time in six months. She had never seemed to try to avoid him, and though in no hurry to triumph over a love whose naive chastity had the charm of the unusual for him, he was beginning to feel that his honour was involved in bringing it to a favourable outcome. He honourably repelled any malicious insinuation about his relationship with Madame Delmare. He very modestly asserted that there was only a pleasant, calm friendship between her and him. But, for nothing in the world would he have been willing to confess, even to his best friend, that he had been loved passionately for six months but had so far obtained nothing from that love.

  He was a little put out in his expectations when he saw that Sir Ralph seemed determined to replace M. Delmare as far as surveillance was concerned, that Indiana’s cousin settled in at Lagny first thing in the morning and only returned to Belleville in the evening; and as they had to follow the same road for part of the way to reach their respective homes, Ralph even behaved with an intolerable show of politeness in timing his departure to coincide with Raymon’s. M. de Ramière soon came to detest this constraint and at the same time Madame Delmare thought it contained a suspicion that was insulting to her, and the intention o
f assuming a despotic power over her behaviour.

  Raymon dared not request a secret interview. Whenever he had attempted to do so, Madame Delmare had reminded him of certain conditions agreed between them. However, a week had already elapsed since the Colonel’s departure. He might soon be home again. Raymon must make the most of the opportunity. To allow victory to Sir Ralph was dishonour for Raymon. One morning he slipped the following letter into Madame Delmare’s hand:

  ‘Indiana, don’t you love me then as I love you? My darling, I am unhappy and you don’t notice it. I am sad, and anxious about your future, not about mine, for wherever you may be, I shall go to live and die. But I’m afraid of poverty for you. Delicate and frail as you are, my poor dear, how will you put up with privations? You have a rich, open-handed cousin; perhaps your husband will accept from his hands what he will refuse from mine. Ralph will ameliorate your lot, but I shall do nothing for you!