“Madame,” said I, “you will forgive me for coming to you in so cavalier a manner, when I tell you that I have this instant arrived from Touraine, and that Lady Brandon gave me a message for you which allows of no delay. I feared I might find that you had started for Lancashire; but since you are not leaving Paris, I await your orders at the hour when you will condescend to receive me.”
She bowed, and I left the room.
From that day I have never seen her excepting in company, where we exchange friendly bows, with sometimes a repartee. I rally her about the inconsolable women of Lancashire, and she retorts about the Frenchwomen who do credit to their broken hearts by attacks of dyspepsia. Thanks to her good offices I have a mortal foe in De Marsay, whom she makes much of; and I, in return, say she has married father and son.
Thus my disaster was complete.
I took up the plan of life I had decided on during my retirement at Saché. I threw myself into hard work, I took up science, literature, and politics. On the accession of Charles X, who abolished the post I had filled under the late King, I made diplomacy my career. From that hour I vowed never to pay any attention to a woman, however beautiful, witty, or affectionate she might be. This conduct was a wonderful success. I gained incredible peace of mind, great powers of work, and I learned that women waste men’s lives and think they have indemnified them by a few gracious words.
However, all my fine resolutions have come to nothing—you know how and why.
Dearest Natalie, in relating my whole life without reserve or concealment, as I should to myself, in confessing to you feelings in which you had no part, I may perhaps have vexed some tender spot of your jealous and sensitive heart. But what would infuriate a vulgar woman will be, to you, I am sure, a fresh reason for loving me. The noblest women have a sublime part to play towards suffering and aching souls, that of the Sister of Mercy who dresses their wounds, of the mother who forgives her children. Nor are artists and poets the only sufferers. Men who live for their country, for the future of nations, as they widen the circle of their passions and their thoughts, often find themselves in cruel solitude. They long to feel that by their side is some pure and devoted love. Believe me, they will know its greatness and its value.
Tomorrow I shall know whether I have made a mistake in loving you.
To Monsieur le Comte Félix de Vandenesse.
“Dear Count, you received as you tell me, a letter from poor Madame de Mortsauf which has been of some use in guiding you through the world, a letter to which you owe your high fortunes. Allow me to finish your education.
“I implore you to divest yourself of an odious habit. Do not imitate certain widows who are always talking of their first husband and throwing the virtues of the dear departed in the teeth of the second. I, dear Count, am a Frenchwoman; I should wish to marry the whole of the man I love; now I really cannot marry Madame de Mortsauf.
“After reading your narrative with the attention it deserves—and you know what interest I feel in you—it strikes me that you must have bored Lady Dudley very considerably by holding up to her Madame de Mortsauf’s perfections, while deeply wounding the Countess by expatiating on the various resources of English lovemaking. You have now failed in tact towards me, a poor creature who can boast of no merit but that of having attracted your liking; you have implied that I do not love you as much as either Henriette or Arabella. I confess my deficiencies. I know them; but why make me feel them so cruelly?
“Shall I tell you whom I pity?—the fourth woman you may love. She will inevitably be required to hold her own against three predecessors; so, in your interest as much as in hers, I must warn you against the perils of your memory.
“I renounce the laborious honor of loving you, I should require too many Catholic or Anglican virtues, and I have no taste for fighting ghosts. The virtues of the Virgin of Clochegourde would reduce the most self-confident woman to despair; and your dashing horsewoman discourages the boldest dreams of happiness. Do what she may, no woman can hope to give you satisfaction in proportion to her ambition. Neither heart nor senses can ever triumph over your reminiscences. You have forgotten that we often ride out together. I have not succeeded in warming up the sun that was chilled by your Henriette’s decease; you would shiver by my side.
“My friend—for you will always be my friend—beware of repeating these confidences which strip your disenchantment bare, dishearten love, and compel a woman to doubt her powers. Love, my dear friend, lives on mutual trustfulness. The woman who, before she says a word or mounts her horse, stops to ask herself whether a heavenly Henriette did not speak better, or a horsewoman like Arabella did not display more grace, that woman, take my word for it, will have a trembling tongue and knees.
“You made me wish that I might receive some of your intoxicating nosegays—but you say you will make no more. Thus it is with a hundred things you no longer dare do, with thoughts and enjoyments which can never again be yours. No woman, be very sure, would choose to dwell in your heart
