“Poor dear Calyste did not know, I suppose, that his friend Mademoiselle des Touches and you had been obliged to tell me all; for a girl cannot be dressed as I was on the day of the contract without being taught her part.
“I cannot but tell everything to so good a mother as you are. Well, then, I was deeply hurt at seeing that he had yielded far less to my request than to his own wish to talk about the unknown object of his passion. Will you blame me, dearest mother, for having wanted to know the extent of this sorrow, of the aching wound in his heart of which you had told me?
“Thus, within eight hours of having been blessed by the Curé of Saint-Thomas d’Aquin, your Sabine found herself in the rather false position of a young wife hearing from her husband’s own lips his confidences as to a cheated passion and the misdeeds of a rival. Yes, I was playing a part in the drama of a young wife, officially informed that she owed her marriage to the disdain of an old beauty!
“By this narrative I gained what I sought. ‘What?’ you will ask. Oh, my dear mother! on clocks and chimney-carvings I have often enough seen Loves leading each other on, hand-in-hand, to put the lesson into practice! Calyste ended the romance of his memories with the most vehement protestations that he had entirely got over what he called his madness. Every protest needs a signature. The happy hapless one took my hand, pressed it to his lips, and then held it for a long time. A declaration followed. This one seemed to me more suitable than the first to our position as man and wife, though our lips did not utter a single word. This happiness I owed to my spirited indignation against the bad taste of a woman so stupid as not to love my handsome and delightful Calyste.
“I am called away to play a game of cards, which I have not yet mastered. I will continue my letter tomorrow. That I should have to leave you just now to make the fifth at a game of mouche! Such a thing is impossible anywhere but in the depths of Brittany.
“May.
“I resume the tale of my Odyssey. By the third day your children had dropped the ceremonial vous and adopted the lover-like tu. My mother-in-law, delighted to see us happy, tried to fill your place, dearest mother; and, as is always the case with those who take a part with the idea of effacing past impressions, she is so delightful that she has been almost as much to me as you could be. She, no doubt, guessed how heroic my conduct was; at the beginning of our journey she hid her anxiety too carefully not to betray it by her excessive precaution.
“When I caught sight of the towers of Guérande I said in your son-in-law’s ear, ‘Have you quite forgotten her?’
“And my husband, now my angel, had perhaps never known the depth of an artless and genuine affection, for that little speech made him almost crazy with joy.
“Unluckily, my desire to make him forget Madame de Rochefide led me too far. How could I help it! I love him, and I am almost Portuguese, for I am like you rather than my father. Calyste accepted everything, as spoilt children do; he is above everything an only son. Between you and me, I will never let my daughter—if I ever should have a daughter—marry an only son. It is quite enough to have to manage one tyrant, and in an only son there are several. And so we exchanged parts; I played the devoted wife. There are dangers in self-devotion to gain an end; it is loss of dignity. So I have to announce the wreck in me of that semi-virtue; dignity is really no more than a screen set up by pride, behind which we may fume at our ease. How could I help myself, mamma; you were not here, and I looked into a gulf. If I had maintained my dignity, I should have known the chill pangs of a sort of brotherliness, which would certainly have become simple indifference. And what future would have lain before me?
“As a result of my devotion, I am Calyste’s slave. Shall I get out of that position? We shall see; for the present I like it. I love Calyste—I love him entirely with the frenzy of a mother who thinks everything right that her son can do, even when he punishes her a little.
“May 15.
“So far, dear mother, marriage has come to me in a most attractive form. I lavish all my tenderest affection on the handsomest of men, who was thrown over by a fool for the sake of a wretched singer—for the woman is evidently a fool, and a fool in cold blood, the worst sort of fool. I am charitable in my lawful passion, and heal his scars while inflicting eternal wounds on myself. Yes, for the more I love Calyste, the more I feel that I should die of grief if anything put an end to our present happiness. And I
