“When we are no longer here, some strange—perhaps terrible—things will certainly happen, and I shall be sorry not to look on at these struggles of passion, so rare in France, and so dramatic!—You are very young to enter on so perilous a fight; I am interested in you. But for the deep disgust I feel for women, I would stay to help you to play the game; it is difficult; you may lose it; you have two remarkable women to deal with, and you are already too much in love with one to make use of the other.
“Béatrix must surely have some tenacity in her nature, and Camille has magnanimity. You, perhaps, like some fragile and brittle thing, will be dashed between the two rocks, swept away by the torrent of passion. Take care.”
Calyste’s amazement on hearing these words allowed Claude Vignon to finish his speech and leave the lad, who remained in the position of a traveler in the Alps to whom his guide has proved the depth of an abyss by dropping a stone in.
He had heard from Claude himself that Camille loved him, Calyste, at the moment when he knew that his love for Béatrix would end only with his life. There was something in the situation too much for such a guileless young soul. Crushed by immense regret that weighed upon him for the past, killed by the perplexities of the present, between Béatrix, whom he loved, and Camille, whom he no longer loved, when Claude said that she loved him, the poor youth was desperate; he sat undecided, lost in thought. He vainly sought to guess the reasons for which Félicité had rejected his devotion, to go to Paris and accept that of Claude Vignon.
Now and again Madame de Rochefide’s voice came to his ear, pure and clear, reviving the violent excitement from which he had fled in leaving the drawing-room. Several times he could hardly master himself so far as to restrain a fierce desire to seize her and snatch her away.—What would become of him? Could he ever come again to les Touches? Knowing that Camille loved him, how could he here worship Béatrix?—He could find no issue from his difficulties.
Gradually silence fell on the house. Without heeding it, he heard the shutting of doors. Then suddenly he counted the twelve strokes of midnight told by the clock in the next room, where the voices of Camille and Claude now roused him from the numbing contemplation of the future. A light shone there amid the darkness. Before he could show himself, he heard these dreadful words spoken by Vignon.
“You came back from Paris madly in love with Calyste,” he was saying to Félicité. “But you were appalled at the consequences of such a passion at your age; it would lead you into a gulf, a hell—to suicide perhaps. Love can exist only in the belief that it is eternal, and you could foresee, a few paces before you in life, a terrible parting—weariness and old age putting a dreadful end to a beautiful poem. You remember Adolphe, the disastrous termination of the loves of Madame de Staël and Benjamin Constant, who were, nevertheless, much better matched in age than you and Calyste.
“So, then, you took me, as men take fascines, to raise an entrenchment between yourself and the enemy. But while you tried to attach me to les Touches, was it not that you might spend your days in secret worship of your divinity? But to carry out such a scheme, at once unworthy and sublime, you should have chosen a common man, or a man so absorbed by lofty thought that he would be easily deceived. You fancied that I was simple, and as easy to cheat as a man of genius. I am, it would seem, no more than a clever man: I saw through you. When yesterday I sang the praises of women of your age, and explained to you why Calyste loved you, do you suppose that I thought all your ecstatic looks—brilliant, enchanting—were meant for me? Had I not already read your soul? The eyes, indeed, were fixed on mine, but the heart throbbed for Calyste.—You have never been loved, my poor Maupin; and you never will be now, after denying yourself the beautiful fruit which chance put in your way at the very gates of woman’s hell, which must close at the touch of the figure 50.”
“And why has love always avoided me?” she asked, in a broken voice. “You who know everything, tell me.”
“Why, you are unamiable,” said he; “you will not yield to love, you want it to yield to you. You can perhaps be led into the mischief and spirit of a schoolboy; but you have no youth of heart, your mind it too deep, you never were artless and you cannot begin now. Your charm lies in mystery; it is abstract, and not practical. And, again, your power repels very powerful natures; they dread a conflict. Your strength may attract young souls, which, like Calyste’s, love to feel protected; but, in the long run, it is fatiguing. You are superior, sublime! You must accept the disadvantages of these two qualities; they are wearisome.”
“What a verdict!” cried Camille. “Can I never be a woman? Am I a monster?”
“Possibly,” said Claude.
“We shall see,” cried the woman, stung to the quick.
“Good night, my dear. I leave tomorrow.—I owe you no grudge, Camille; I think you the greatest of women; but if I should consent to play the part any longer of a screen or a curtain,” said Claude, with
