Indiana (Oxford World's Classics)

by George Sand

  ‘Don’t you see clearly, my dear, that I have reason to be depressed and sad? You are heroic, you are cheerful whatever happens, you don’t want me to be distressed. Oh, how I need your gentle words, your gentle looks to sustain my courage! But by an unimaginable trick of fate, these days that I had hoped to pass freely at your feet have brought me an even more bitter constraint.

  ‘Just say one word, Indiana, so that we may be alone for at least an hour, so that I can weep over your white hands and tell you all I suffer, so that words from you may comfort and reassure me.

  ‘And then, Indiana, I have a childish whim, a real lover’s whim; I should like to go into your room. Oh, don’t be alarmed, my gentle Creole! I appreciate not only that I must respect you, but that I must fear you. It’s precisely for that reason that I should like to go into your room, kneel down in the very place where I saw you so angry with me and where, in spite of my presumption, I did not dare to look at you. I’d like to prostrate myself there, to spend a happy hour of meditation there. The only favour I ask of you, Indiana, is to place your hand on my heart, to purify it from its crime, to calm it if it beats too fast and to give it back all your trust if, at last, you think me worthy of you. Oh, yes, I’d like to prove to you that I am worthy of you now, that I know you really well, that I worship you with a more pure and holy devotion than ever a young girl rendered to her Madonna. I’d like to be sure that you’re no longer afraid of me, that you esteem me as much as I revere you. Resting on your heart, I should like the life of the angels for an hour. Tell me, Indiana, will you allow me! One hour, the first, perhaps the last!

  ‘It’s time to pardon me, Indiana, to give me back your trust that was so cruelly snatched away, so dearly redeemed. Are you not satisfied with me? Tell me, haven’t I spent six months behind your chair, limiting all my pleasures to looking at your snow-white neck through the ringlets of your black hair as you leaned over your work, to breathing in the perfume which emanates from you and which is wafted faintly towards me by the air from the window where you sit? Does such submission not then deserve the reward of a kiss? A sisterly kiss, if you like, a kiss on the brow. I shall remain faithful to our agreements, I swear it. I shall ask for nothing . . . But, oh cruel one, are you not willing to grant me anything? Then is it of yourself that you’re afraid?’

  Madame Delmare went up to her room to read this letter. She answered it immediately and slipped the reply into Raymon’s hand together with a garden key that he knew only too well.

  ‘I, afraid of you, Raymon? Oh, not now! I know the nature of your love too well; I am too blissfully happy in my belief in it. Come then, I’m not afraid of myself either. If I loved you less, perhaps I’d be less calm. But I love you in a way you don’t even realize. Leave here early, so that Ralph won’t have the slightest suspicion. Come back at midnight. You know the grounds and the house. Here is the key to the little door; lock it again behind you.’

  This ingenuous, generous trust made Raymon blush. He had tried to inspire it with the intention of abusing it. He had counted on the night hour, the opportunity, the danger. If Indiana had shown any fear, she would have been lost, but she was untroubled, she entrusted herself to his good faith. He swore not to make her regret her trust. In any case, the important thing was to spend a night in her room, so as not to appear foolish in his own eyes, so as to make Ralph’s prudence ineffectual and to be able to laugh at him inwardly. It was a personal satisfaction he required.

  XVI

  BUT that evening Ralph was really intolerable; he was duller, more dreary, more tiresome than ever. He could say nothing to the point and, to crown all his clumsiness, it was already late in the evening and he had not yet shown any sign of going. Madame Delmare began to be uneasy. She looked in turn at the clock which showed eleven o’clock, at the door which was creaking in the wind, and at the expressionless face of her cousin who, settled opposite her in the chimney-corner, was placidly looking at the embers without seeming to suspect that his presence was unwelcome.

  Yet, at that moment, Sir Ralph’s mask of indifference, his immobile features, hid deep, painful concern. He was a man whom nothing escaped, because he observed everything without emotion. He was not duped by Raymon’s pretended departure; he was well aware at that moment of Madame Delmare’s anxiety. He suffered from it more than she did herself and he hesitated irresolutely between the desire to give her useful warning and the fear of giving way to feelings he disapproved of. Finally, his cousin’s welfare carried the day and he summoned up all his spiritual strength to break the silence.

  ‘That reminds me that a year ago today you and I were sitting at this fireside as we are now,’ he said suddenly, following the train of thought that occupied his mind. ‘The clock showed almost the same time, the weather was bleak and cold like this evening . . . you weren’t well and you had melancholy thoughts; it’s enough almost to make me believe in the truth of presentiments.’

  ‘What’s he getting at?’ thought Madame Delmare, looking at her cousin with mingled surprise and anxiety.

  ‘Do you remember, Indiana, that then you felt worse than usual?’ he continued. ‘I remember your words as if they were still ringing in my ears. “You’ll think I’m mad”, you said, “but a danger is approaching us and threatening someone; probably me,” you added. “I feel on edge as if a great phase of my destiny was imminent; I am afraid . . .” Those were your own words, Indiana.’

  ‘I’m no longer ill,’ replied Indiana, who had suddenly again turned as pale as she was at the time Ralph was speaking of. ‘I don’t believe any more in those empty fears.’

  ‘I do believe in them,’ he continued, ‘for, that evening, you were a prophet. A great danger was threatening us, a disastrous influence was surrounding this peaceful dwelling . . .’

  ‘Oh, my goodness, I don’t understand you!’

  ‘You will understand me, my poor dear. It was that evening that Raymon de Ramière came in here . . . You remember the state he was in . . .’

  Ralph waited a few moments without daring to raise his eyes and look at his cousin. As she did not reply, he continued:

  ‘I was given the task of bringing him back to life and I did so, as much to please you as in accordance with feelings of humanity. But, to tell the truth, Indiana, it was my misfortune to save that man’s life. It was really I who did all the harm.’

  ‘I don’t know what harm you’re talking about,’ Indiana replied curtly.

  She was deeply hurt by the explanation that she knew was coming.

  ‘I’m talking about that unfortunate girl’s death,’ said Ralph. ‘But for him, she would still be alive. That beautiful, honest girl, who loved you so, would still be at your side.’

  Up to this point, Madame Delmare did not understand. She was angered to the depths of her heart by the strange, cruel words her cousin used to reproach her for her attachment to M. de Ramière.

  ‘That’s enough,’ she said, getting up.

  But Ralph did not appear to pay any attention to her remark.

  ‘What’s always surprised me,’ he said, ‘is that you didn’t guess the real motive that led M. de Ramière to come here by climbing over the wall.’

  A suspicion flashed through Indiana’s mind. Her legs trembled beneath her and she sat down again.

  Ralph had just plunged the knife in and had made a ghastly wound. He no sooner saw the effect of his work than he was horrified at what he had done. He thought only of the pain he had just caused to the person he loved best in the world. He felt his heart was breaking. He would have wept bitterly if he had been able to weep. But the unfortunate man had not the gift of tears; he had no facility for giving eloquent expression to the language of the heart. The external coldness with which he carried out this cruel operation made him seem like an executioner in Indiana’s eyes.

  ‘It’s the first time I see your antipathy for M. de Ramière expressed in a way that is unworthy of you,’ she said bitterly, ‘but I don’t see how your vengeance requir
es you to tarnish the memory of one who was dear to me and whose misfortune ought to have made her sacred to us. I haven’t asked you questions, Sir Ralph. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please allow me not to continue this conversation any further.’

  She got up and left M. Brown bewildered and shattered.

  He had indeed foreseen that he would enlighten Madame Delmare only at his own expense. His conscience had told him that he had to speak, whatever the outcome, and he had just done so with all the abruptness and clumsiness of which he was capable. What he had not properly appreciated was the violent reaction to so belated a remedy.

  He left Lagny in despair and began to wander about in the forest almost out of his mind.

  It was midnight; Raymon was at the park gate. He opened it, but as he went in he began to have cold feet. What was he going to do at this rendezvous? He had made good resolutions; would he be rewarded then by a chaste interview, by a fraternal kiss, for the suffering he was imposing on himself at this moment? For, if you remember under what circumstances he had previously walked along those paths and crossed that garden, stealthily, at night, you will appreciate that a certain degree of moral courage was required to go in search of pleasure by such a road and despite such memories.

  At the end of October, the weather in the regions around Paris becomes foggy and damp, especially in the evening near the rivers. By chance, that night was blanketed with white fog, as the corresponding nights of the preceding spring had been. Raymon was not sure of his way as he walked under the trees shrouded in mist. He passed in front of the door of a greenhouse which, in the winter, contained a very fine collection of geraniums. He cast a glance at the door and, in spite of himself, his heart beat faster at the absurd idea that perhaps it was going to open and a woman, wrapped in a cloak, was going to emerge from it . . . Raymon smiled at this superstitious weakness and continued on his way. Nevertheless, a cold fear had gripped him and his heart grew tense as he approached the river.

  He had to cross it to enter the flower garden but the only crossing at this spot was a little wooden bridge thrown up from one bank to the other. The fog became thicker still on the river-bed and Raymon clung to the handrail so as not to lose his way in the reeds which were growing along the banks. The moon was rising then and, trying to shine through the mist, cast an uncertain light on the plants which were swaying in the wind and in the currents of the water. Wailing sounds like broken human speech seemed carried by the breeze, which lightly touched the leaves and hovered over the ripples of the water. Raymon heard a faint sob beside him and a sudden movement shook the reeds; it was a curlew flying away as he approached. That river-bird’s cry is exactly like the wail of an abandoned child, and when it flies out from among the reeds it seems like the last effort of a drowning man. Perhaps you will think Raymon was very weak and cowardly; his teeth chattered and he nearly fell. But he soon realized how ridiculous his terror was and he crossed the bridge.

  He was halfway over when a barely discernible human form rose up in front of him at the end of the handrail as if it had been waiting for him to cross. Raymon’s thoughts became confused, his bewildered mind had not the strength to reason. He retraced his steps and hid under the trees, gazing with a fixed, terrified stare at that indistinct apparition which remained there, elusive and vague like the mist from the river and the quivering moonbeams. He was beginning to think, however, that his preoccupied mind had deceived him and that what he took for a human form was only the shadow of a tree or the branch of a shrub, when he distinctly saw it move, walk, and come towards him.

  If his legs had not at that moment refused entirely to be of any use, he would have fled as quickly and cravenly as a child who passes by a cemetery at night and thinks he hears light footsteps running behind him, skimming over the grass. But he felt paralysed and, to support himself, put his arms round the trunk of a willow tree to which he had retreated. Then Sir Ralph, wrapped in a light-coloured cloak, which from three paces away made him look like a ghost, passed close by him and disappeared into the path by which Raymon had just come.

  ‘You clumsy spy!’ thought Raymon as he saw Ralph looking for his footprints. ‘I’ll escape from your despicable surveillance, and while you mount guard here I’ll be happy over there.’

  He crossed the bridge as lightly as a bird and with the confidence of an accepted lover. His terrors had completely gone; Noun had never existed. He was coming back to real life; Indiana was waiting for him in the house; Ralph was at the other end of the grounds on sentry duty to prevent him from going any further.

  ‘Be on the look-out,’ said Raymon cheerfully, seeing Ralph from a distance, looking for him in the wrong direction. ‘Be on the look-out for me, good Rodolphe Brown; officious friend, protect my happiness. And if the dogs are aroused, if the servants are worried, calm them down, quieten them by telling them, “I am watching, sleep in peace.”’

  After that, Raymon felt no more remorse, had no more scruples, no more virtue; he had paid dearly enough for the hour that was striking. The blood which had been frozen in his veins now flowed back to his brain with frenzied violence. A short while ago the pale terrors of death, the funereal visions of the grave; now the passionate realities of love, the keen joys of life. Raymon felt young and daring as one is when, after being wrapped in the shrouds of a doom-laden dream, one is awakened and revived by a cheerful ray of sunlight.

  ‘Poor Ralph!’ he thought as, with a bold, light step, he went up the secret stairs. ‘It’s your own doing!’

  PART 3

  XVII

  AFTER leaving Sir Ralph, Madame Delmare had shut herself in her room and a thousand disturbing thoughts had crossed her mind. It was not the first time that a vague suspicion had cast its ominous light on the frail edifice of her happiness. M. Delmare had already in conversation let slip some of those crude jokes which pass for compliments. He had congratulated Raymon on his chivalrous conquests in such a way as almost to put ears that knew nothing of the incident on to the right track. Every time Madame Delmare had a word with the gardener, Noun’s name had come up, like a fatal necessity, in connection with the most trivial details; and then M. de Ramière’s had slipped in, too, by some kind of linkage of ideas which seemed to have taken hold of the man’s mind and obsessed him in spite of himself. Madame Delmare had been struck by his strange, clumsy questions. His language became confused when talking of the most unimportant matter. He seemed to be weighed down by a remorse which he betrayed in trying to conceal it. At other times, it was in Raymon’s own embarrassment that Indiana found indications that she did not seek but which haunted her. One circumstance in particular would have enlightened her if she had not shut her heart to all mistrust. On Noun’s finger they had found a very valuable ring which Madame Delmare had seen the girl wearing for some time before her death, and which she claimed to have found. Since then, Madame Delmare had always worn this token of grief and she had often seen Raymon turn pale when he grasped her hand to carry it to his lips. Once he had begged her never to talk to him of Noun, because he regarded himself as guilty of her death; and as she tried to rid him of that painful thought by taking all the wrongdoing on herself, he had replied:

  ‘No, poor Indiana, don’t accuse yourself. You don’t know how guilty I am.’

  These words, uttered gloomily and bitterly, had frightened Madame Delmare. She had not dared insist, and now that she was beginning to find an explanation for all these fragments of discoveries she still had not the courage to apply her mind to them and to piece them together.

  She opened her window and, seeing the calm night and the beautiful, pale moon behind the silvery mist on the horizon, remembering that Raymon was about to come, that perhaps he was in the grounds, and thinking of all the happiness she had been looking forward to for that mysterious hour of love, she cursed Ralph, who, with a word, had just poisoned her hopes and destroyed her peace for ever. She even felt that she hated him, the unhappy man who had been a father to her and who had ju
st sacrificed his future for her. For his future was Indiana’s friendship; that was the only possession he valued and he resigned himself to losing it in order to save her.

  Indiana could not read in the depths of his heart, nor had she been able to see to the bottom of Raymon’s. She was unjust, not through ingratitude but through ignorance. Under the influence of a strong passion, she could not but feel deeply the blow she had just received. For one moment she blamed Ralph for the whole crime, preferring to accuse him rather than to suspect Raymon.

  And then she had little time to collect her thoughts, to make a decision; Raymon was about to come. Perhaps it was even him she had seen in the last few minutes walking about near the little bridge. What aversion Ralph would have inspired in her at that moment if she had guessed that he was the shadowy figure who kept appearing and disappearing in the fog and who, placed like a spirit at the entrance to the Elysian fields,* tried to prohibit access to the guilty man!

  Suddenly there occurred to her one of those bizarre, half-formed ideas that are conceived only by anxious and unhappy creatures. She risked her whole fate on a strange, subtle test that Raymon could not be on his guard against. She had scarcely finished preparing this mysterious device when she heard Raymon’s steps on the secret staircase. She ran to open the door to him, then returned to her seat, so agitated that she felt she was going to fall. But, as in all the crises in her life, she retained a great clarity of judgement, a great strength of mind.

  Raymon was still pale and out of breath when he opened the door; he was impatient to see the light and regain his grip on reality. Indiana had her back turned to him. She was wrapped in a fur-lined cloak; by a strange chance, it was the same one that Noun had chosen at the time of their last rendezvous to go to meet him in the grounds. I don’t know if you remember that Raymon had had then, for a moment, the improbable idea that the woman wrapped up and concealed in the cloak was Madame Delmare. Now, when in the faint, vacillating lamplight he saw the same apparition slumped sadly on a chair, in the same place where so many memories lay in wait for him, in this room, pervaded by his remorse, which he had not entered since the most ill-fated hour of his life, he drew back involuntarily. He stayed at the door, fixing his frightened gaze on the motionless figure and trembling like a coward in case, when it turned round, it would reveal the livid features of a drowned woman.