The Memoirs of Two Young Wives

by Honoré de Balzac

My dear, by the time this letter is in your hands I will not be far, for I will leave a few moments after I have sent it off. We will be alone. Louis must remain in Provence for the upcoming elections; he wants to be reelected, and already the Liberals are scheming against him.

  I come not to console you but simply to bring you my heart, so that it might keep yours company and help you to live. I come to compel you to weep. That is the price to be paid for the happiness of rejoining him one day, for he is only traveling toward God; henceforth, every single step you take will bring you nearer to him. Every duty you accomplish will break a link of the chain that separates you. Come, my Louise, you will recover from this in my arms, and you will go to him pure, noble, forgiven your unmeaning wrongs, and accompanied by the good works you will do here below in his name.

  I write these lines in great haste, as I prepare for my departure, with Armand crying out “Godmother! Godmother! Let’s go see Godmother!” until I find myself jealous: he is almost your son!

  PART TWO

  48

  FROM BARONESS DE MACUMER TO COUNTESS DE L’ESTORADE

  October 15, 1833

  Well, my Renée, it’s true, you’ve heard right. I have sold my house in Paris, I have sold Chantepleurs and the farms in the Seine-et-Marne, but there is no truth to the rumor that I am ruined and mad. Shall we count it all up? Having burned all my bridges behind me, I found myself with some one million two hundred thousand francs from my poor Macumer’s fortune. I will give you a faithful account of my investments, like a sensible sister. I put one million francs into three-percent bonds when the going rate was fifty francs, and have thus assured myself an annual income of sixty thousand francs, rather than the thirty thousand I had from my land. Spending six months each year in the provinces, drawing up leases, listening to the farmers’ complaints—they who pay when it pleases them—feeling as bored as a hunter on a rainy day, having produce to sell and selling it at a loss; living in a Parisian house that represented an income of ten thousand livres, overseeing investments, waiting for dividends, having to sue for payments, studying the proposed mortgage laws, in short having financial affairs to keep up with in Paris, in the Seine-et-Marne, and in the Nivernais, what a burden, what a bore, how many possible missteps and enormous losses for a twenty-seven-year-old widow! Now my fortune is invested in the national budget. Rather than pay taxes to the state, it is the state that pays me, every six months, at the Public Treasury: a handsome little clerk smiles when he sees me coming, and then hands me thirty thousand-franc notes, free and clear. Suppose France goes bankrupt, you will ask? Well, for one thing, Such distant misfortunes I cannot foresee.[1] But also, France would then deprive me of half of my revenue at most; I would still be as rich as I was before my investment, and besides, between now and that catastrophe, I will have earned twice the revenue I made before. Catastrophes come only once in a century; if I live frugally, there is more than enough time to amass a capital sufficient to see me through. And then, is Count de l’Estorade not a peer of the July Monarchy’s semi-republican France? Is he not one of the rivets in the crown offered by “the people” to the king of the French? Need I worry when I have as a friend a presiding officer at the Court of Audit, a great financier? Dare tell me that I am mad! I can calculate nearly as well as your Citizen King. And what is it that endows a woman with this algebraic erudition? It is love!

  Alas, the time has come to explain the mysteries of my conduct, whose reasons defied your discernment, your affectionate curiosity, and your perceptive mind. I will soon marry in secret, in a village not far from Paris. I am in love, and I am loved. I love as only a woman who knows what love is can love. I am loved as a woman must be loved by the man she adores. Forgive me, Renée, for hiding myself away from you, and from everyone. If your Louise eludes every eye, frustrates every curiosity, you must see that this deceit was required by my passion for my poor Macumer. You and l’Estorade would have pelted me with misgivings, smothered me with reproaches. And the circumstances would only have strengthened your case! You alone know how jealous I am, and you would have tormented me to no purpose. What you will call my folly, dear Renée, is a thing I wanted to do all on my own, obeying my head and my heart, like a young girl evading her parents’ vigilance. My lover’s fortune amounts to thirty thousand francs in debts, which I have paid off. What perfect grounds for concern! You would have set out to prove that Gaston is an adventurer, and your husband would have spied on the poor boy. I preferred to study him myself. He has been courting me for the past twenty-two months; I am twenty-seven years old and he twenty-three—an enormous difference, when the woman is older. Another cause for alarm! And finally, he is a poet, who was living off his work, which is to say on next to nothing. That dear lazy lizard of a poet spent more time sunning himself and building castles in Spain than toiling over his poems in the gloom of his garret. Now, among practically minded people, writers and artists and all those who live by their ideas are often thought of as inconstant. They imagine and embrace so many fanciful thoughts that it is only natural to suppose that their hearts are as unbound as their minds. In spite of the paid-off debts, in spite of the age difference, in spite of the poetry, after nobly defending myself for nine months, never allowing him even to kiss my hand, after the most chaste and most delicious of love affairs, I will in a few days not surrender myself, inexperienced, ignorant, and curious, as I did eight years ago, but give myself to him, by my own choice, and I am awaited with such deference that I could well delay my wedding by a year—but there is no servility in that: servitude, yes, but no submission. I have never known a man with a nobler heart than my intended, with more eloquence in his tenderness or more soul in his love. Alas, my angel! It runs in his family! I will tell you his story in a few words.

  My beloved has no name beyond Marie Gaston.[2] He is the son, not illegitimate but adulterous, of the beautiful Lady Brandon, whom you must have heard of; Lady Dudley’s vengeance ended up killing her of chagrin, a horrible business of which this dear child knows nothing.[3] Marie Gaston’s brother Louis enrolled him in the Collège de Tours, which he left in 1827. A few days after entrusting him to that school, the brother sailed off in search of his fortune, as Marie learned from an old woman who was his own Providence. That brother became a sailor, and now and then wrote him truly fatherly letters, the emanations of a beautiful soul, but his labors kept him far from France. In his last letter, he announced that he had been named ship’s captain in some American republic, and enjoined his brother not to lose hope. Alas! three years have now gone by with no further word from him, and my lizard so loves his brother that he wanted to sail away and go looking for him. Our great writer Daniel d’Arthez prevented that act of madness and nobly took Marie Gaston under his wing, often providing him grub and a roof, as the poet told me in his vigorous language. And indeed, imagine the child’s difficult straits: he thought genius was the quickest way to fortune, is that not enough to make you laugh for twenty-four hours straight? And so, from 1828 to 1833, he tried to make a name for himself in literature, and naturally he led the most appalling life of doubt, hope, work, and privation that can possibly be imagined. Driven by excessive ambition and despite all d’Arthez’s wise advice, he only added to his pile of debts. His name was nonetheless beginning to become known when I met him at the Marquise d’Espard’s. There, though he saw nothing, I found myself sympathetically drawn to him on first sight. How is it that he has never been loved? How could he have been left to me? Oh! he has genius and wit, he has heart and pride; women are always skittish of such complete greatness. Did it not take a hundred victories for Josephine to glimpse Napoleon in her little Bonaparte? The innocent believes he knows the depth of my love for him! Poor Gaston! He has no idea, but you I will tell. It is important that you know, for there is something of the last will and testament in this letter, Renée. Heed these words closely.

  At this moment I am certain of being loved as much as any woman can be loved on this earth, and I have every faith in
the magical marriage that will be mine, to which I bring a love I did not know before. . . . Yes, at long last I know the pleasure of a passion fully felt. Marriage is giving me what women today seek from love. I feel for Gaston the very adoration I inspired in my poor Felipe! I am not my own mistress, I tremble before that boy as the Abencerrage trembled before me. To put it plainly, I love more than I am loved; I am afraid of everything, I have the most ridiculous terrors, I fear he will leave me, I tremble to think of turning ugly and old when Gaston is still young and handsome, I tremble to think I may not please him enough! Nonetheless, I think myself sufficiently talented, devoted, and clever not only to maintain but to increase that love, far from Parisian society, in isolation. Should I fail, should the magnificent poem of that secret love come to an end—what am I saying, an end?—should Gaston one day love me less than the day before, and should I see it, Renée, know that it is not him but myself I will blame. The fault will be mine, not his. I know myself: I am more a lover than a mother. I must tell you, then, in advance: if his love waned I would die, even if I had children. Before I make this bargain with myself, dear Renée, I therefore beseech you, should that calamity come, to serve as a mother to my offspring, for I will have bequeathed them to you. Your devotion to duty, your exceptional goodness, your love of children, your affection for me, everything I know of you will make my death less bitter, I dare not say sweet. That pact I have made with myself adds something fearsome to the solemnity of this marriage; for that reason, I want no witnesses who know me, and my wedding will be celebrated in secret. In that way I may tremble at my ease, not seeing the concern in your sweet eyes, and I alone will know that as I sign this second certificate of marriage I may well be signing my death warrant.

  I will never reconsider this agreement made between myself and the me I will become; I tell you of it so that you might know the full extent of your duties. I marry with my property in my own name; while I know I am rich enough that we may live at our ease, Gaston has no idea of my fortune. In twenty-four hours I will divide it as I see fit. As I do not want him humiliated, I have established an annuity of twelve thousand francs in his name; he will find that sum in his desk the day before our wedding. Should he refuse it, I will call everything off. Only by threatening not to marry him did I acquire the right to pay off his debts. Writing these confessions has wearied me; in two days I will tell you more, for tomorrow I must go to the country.

  October 20

  Here are a few of the measures I have taken to hide our happiness away, for I wish to deny jealousy any chance to raise its head. I remind myself of that beautiful Italian princess who ran off like a lioness to devour her love in some Swiss city, after pouncing like a lioness on her prey.[4] I tell you of these preparations so as to ask of you another favor, which is to never come and see us unless I have summoned you myself and to respect the solitude in which I wish to live.

  Two years ago I arranged to purchase some twenty arpents of pastureland, along with a stretch of woods and a fine orchard, on the road to Versailles, overlooking the ponds of Ville-d’Avray. At the far end of the fields, the earth has been moved in such a way as to create a three-arpent pond, with a gracefully shaped island in the middle. Delightful little brooks flow from the two wooded hills that enclose this little valley; my architect has cunningly guided them through my garden and into the ponds on the king’s grounds, which can be seen through the trees. This little park, wonderfully laid out by my architect, is surrounded by hedges, walls, or ditches, depending on the terrain, never spoiling the view. Halfway up the hill, flanked by the wood of La Ronce, deliciously exposed to the sun and facing a meadow that slopes down to the pond, I now have a chalet, identical from the outside to the one travelers admire on the road from Sion to Brig, which so charmed me on my way home from Italy. Inside, its elegance rivals the most illustrious of such houses. A hundred paces from that rustic abode, a charming house with the look of a garden pavilion communicates with the chalet by a tunnel, concealing the kitchen, stables, storage sheds, and other outbuildings. Of all those brick constructions, the eye sees only a single, harmonious façade, surrounded by flower beds. The gardeners’ house is another pavilion, masking the entrance to the orchards and vegetable gardens.

  The door to my grounds, concealed in the outer wall on the wooded side, is nearly impossible to find. The plantings are already tall; within two or three years they will completely conceal the houses. Passersby will discover our nest only on seeing the smoking chimneys from the hilltops, or in the winter when the leaves have fallen.

  My chalet is set in the middle of a landscape copied from what is known as the King’s Garden in Versailles,[5] but with a view of my pond and my island. On all sides the hills proudly display of verdure, their fine trees so carefully maintained by your new Civil List.[6] My gardeners have orders to cultivate only scented flowers around me, flowers by the thousands, making a perfumed emerald of this patch of land. The chalet, ornamented by a Virginia creeper that runs over the roof, is literally wrapped in climbing plants, hops, clematis, jasmine, azalea, and cup and saucer vine. Anyone who makes out our windows may boast of fine eyesight indeed!

  That chalet, my dear, is a fine, beautiful house, with a heater and all the comforts modern architecture has devised, which can make a palace of a hundred square feet. There are rooms for Gaston and rooms for me. On the ground floor is an antechamber, a parlor, and a dining room. Above us are three bedrooms destined for the nursery. I have five beautiful horses, a little light coupé, and a two-horse cabriolet, for Paris is forty minutes away, and whenever we wish to go and hear an opera or see a new play, we can leave after dinner and be back that very evening. The road is lovely, shaded by our hedge. My servants—my cook, my coachman, the stableman, the gardeners, my chambermaid—are entirely trustworthy people, whom I have spent the past six months seeking out; they will be overseen by my old Philippe. Although I have no doubt of their devotion and discretion, I have bound them by their self-interest: their wages are small, but increase each year by what we give them on New Year’s Day. They know that any misstep, any doubt about their discretion, will cost them dearly. Lovers never push their servants too far; they are indulgent by nature, and so I can rely without fear on our staff.

  Everything that was valuable, pretty, and elegant in my house on the rue du Bac has been moved to the chalet. The Rembrandt, neither more nor less than a daub, is displayed on the stairway; the Hobbema is in his rooms, facing the Rubens; the Titian, sent to me from Madrid by my sister-in-law, Maria, adorns the boudoir; the beautiful furniture found by Felipe is prettily arranged in the parlor, which my architect has decorated in the most charming way. Everything in the chalet is wonderfully simple, with the kind of simplicity that costs a hundred thousand francs. Built over cellars of millstones laid on concrete, our ground floor, scarcely visible beneath the flowers and bushes, is deliciously cool but never damp. And finally, a fleet of white swans glides over the pond.

  Oh, Renée! There is in that valley a silence that could charm the dead. You are awakened by birdsong or the rustle of poplars in the breeze. As he was digging the foundations for the wall on the wooded side, my architect discovered a little spring, which now feeds a stream that runs down from the hill and then over silvery sand to the pond, between two cress-covered banks: I don’t know that such a thing could be bought for any sum of money. Might Gaston come to hate that too-perfect bliss? Everything is so beautiful that I tremble; worms burrow into the finest fruits, the most magnificent flowers are devoured by insects. Is it not always the pride of the forest that is eaten by the horrible brown larva, voracious as death itself? I know all too well that a jealous, invisible force attacks the most perfect felicities. Indeed, you wrote me just that long ago, and your words proved prophetic.

  The day before yesterday I went to see if my latest whims had been understood. I felt tears in my eyes, and to my architect’s great surprise I wrote on his invoice “Pay in full.”

  “Your accountant will n
ever allow it, madame,” he said. “The bill is for three hundred thousand francs.” Beneath my words I added “Without argument!” in the manner of a true Chaulieu of the seventeenth century.

  “However, monsieur,” I said to him, “I place one condition on my gratitude: you must never tell anyone of these buildings and this park. No one is to know the owner’s name. Promise me upon your honor to observe that codicil to my payment.”

  Do you now understand my sudden disappearances, my secret comings and goings? And all those beautiful things everyone thought had been sold, do you now see where they are? Have you grasped the imperious reason behind the change in my fortune? My dear, love is serious business, and if you want to love properly you must have no other. I need never trouble myself over money again; I have made life an easy and peaceable thing, and just this once I have played the role of mistress of the house so that I will never have to play it again, save for ten minutes each morning with my old butler, Philippe. I have fully observed life and its dangerous turns; death one day taught me its terrible lesson, and I mean to put it to good use. My sole occupation will be to please and to love him, to create variety in what ordinary people find so monotonous.

  Gaston knows nothing for the moment. Like me, he has taken up lodging in Ville-d’Avray, at my request; tomorrow we leave for the chalet. Our life there will cost little, but if I told you the sum I have devoted to my wardrobe, you would say, quite rightly: She is mad! I want to adorn myself for him every day, just as women adorn themselves for society. My country attire for one year will cost twenty-four thousand francs, and my daywear is not the costliest part. He can go about in a smock if he likes! Do not conclude from all this that I mean to make a duel of my new life and exhaust myself in calculations to keep his love alive; I simply want nothing to reproach myself for. I have thirteen years left to be a fine-looking woman, and I want to be loved on the last day of the thirteenth year even more than the day after my mysterious wedding. This time I will be ever humble, ever grateful, never a stinging word; I am making of myself a servant, since mastery destroyed me the first time. Oh Renée, if Gaston has like me understood the boundlessness of love, I know that my life will be happy forever. The nature around the chalet is very beautiful, the woods are beguiling. With every step the fresh countryside and woodland prospects please the soul and awaken charming ideas. Those woods are full of love. Let us hope I haven’t simply built myself a magnificent pyre! The day after tomorrow, I will be Madame Gaston. Dear God, I wonder if it is quite Christian to love a man so. “It’s legal, at any rate,” I was told by our accountant, who will be one of my witnesses, and who, finally understanding my reasons for liquidating my fortune, cried, “This is costing me a client!” For your part, my fine doe—I dare no longer say “my dear doe”—you may say, “This is costing me a sister.”