“What a speech!—Calyste, seeing it had saddened me, was doubly kind and tender to me.
“August.
“Alas! I was at the bottom of the pit and amusing myself, like the innocents in a melodrama, with plucking the flowers. Suddenly a horrible idea came galloping across my happiness like the horse in the German ballad. I fancied I could discern that Calyste’s love was fed by his reminiscences, that he was wreaking on me the storms I could revive in him, by reminding him of that horrible coquette Béatrix.—That unwholesome, cold, limp, tenacious nature—akin to the mollusk and the coral insect—dares to be called Béatrix!
“So already, dear mother, I am forced to have an eye on a suspicion when my heart is wholly Calyste’s, and is it not a terrible misfortune that the eye should get the better of the heart; that the suspicion, in short, has been justified?—And in this way:
“ ‘I love this place,’ I said to Calyste one morning, ‘for I owe my happiness to it—so I forgive you for sometimes mistaking me for another woman—’
“My loyal Breton colored, and I threw my arms round his neck; but I came away from les Touches, and shall never go back there.
“The depth of my hatred, which makes me long for the death of Madame de Rochefide—oh dear, a natural death, of course, from a cold or some accident—revealed to me the extent and vehemence of my love for Calyste. This woman has haunted my slumbers; I have seen her in my dreams.—Am I fated to meet her?—Yes, the novice in the Convent was right; les Touches is a fatal spot. Calyste renewed his impressions there, and they are stronger than the pleasures of our love.
“Find out, my dear mother, whether Madame de Rochefide is in Paris; for if so, I shall remain on our estates in Brittany. Poor Mademoiselle des Touches, who is now sorry that she dressed me like Béatrix on the day when our marriage contract was signed, to carry out her scheme—if she could now know how completely I am a substitute for our odious rival! What would she say! Why, it is prostitution! I am no longer myself! I am put to shame.—I am suffering from a mad desire to flee from Guérande and the sands of le Croisic.
“August 25.
“I am quite resolved to return to the ruins of le Guénic. Calyste, uneasy at seeing me so uneasy, is taking me thither. Either he does not know much of the world, or he guesses nothing; or, if he knows the reason of my flight, he does not love me. I am so afraid of discovering the hideous certainty if I seek it, that, like the children, I cover my eyes with my hands not to hear the explosion. Oh, mother! I am not loved with such love as I feel in my own heart. Calyste, to be sure, is charming; but what man short of a monster would not be, like Calyste, amiable and gracious, when he is given all the opening blossoms of the soul of a girl of twenty, brought up by you, pure as I am, and loving, and—as many women have told you—very pretty—”
“Le Guénic, September 18th.
“Has he forgotten her? This is the one thought which echoes like remorse in my soul. Dear mother, has every wife, like me, some such memory to contend with? Pure girls ought to marry none but innocent youths! And yet, that is an illusory Utopia; and it is better to have a rival in the past than in the future. Pity me, mamma, though at this moment I am happy; happy as a woman is who fears to lose her happiness and clings to it!—a way of killing it sometimes, says wise Clotilde.
“I perceive that for the last five months I have thought only of myself; that is, of Calyste. Tell my sister Clotilde that the dicta of her melancholy wisdom recur to me sometimes. She is happy in being faithful to the dead; she need fear no rival.
“A kiss to my dear Athénaïs; I see that Juste is madly in love with her. From what you say in your last letter, all he fears is that he may not win her. Cultivate that fear as a precious flower. Athénaïs will be mistress; I, who dreaded lest I should not win Calyste from himself, shall be the handmaid. A thousand loves, dearest mother. Indeed, if my fears should not prove vain, I shall have paid very dear for Camille Maupin’s fortune. Affectionate respects to my father.”
These letters fully explain the secret attitude of this husband and wife. Where Sabine saw a love-match, Calyste saw a mariage de convenance. And the joys of the honeymoon had not altogether fulfilled the requirements of the law as to community of goods.
During their stay in Brittany the work of restoring, arranging, and decorating the Hôtel du Guénic in Paris had been carried on by the famous architect Grindot, under the eye of Clotilde and the Duchesse and Duc de Grandlieu. Every step was taken to enable the young couple to return to Paris in December 1838; and Sabine was glad to settle in the Rue de Bourbon, less for the pleasure of being mistress of the house than to discover what her family thought of her married life. Calyste, handsome and indifferent, readily allowed himself to be guided in matters of fashion by Clotilde and his mother-in-law, who were gratified by his docility. He filled the place in the world to which his name, his fortune, and his connection entitled him. His wife’s success, regarded as she was as one of the most charming women of the year, the amusements of the best society, duties to be done, and the dissipations of a Paris season, somewhat recruited the happiness of the young couple by supplying excitement and interludes. The Duchess and Clotilde believed in Sabine’s happiness, ascribing Calyste’s cold manners to his English blood, and the young
