Though curious to know the truth as to my appearance there, she did not look at either of us; her eyes were fixed on the river; but from the way she listened, it might have been supposed that she had the faculty of the blind, and knew all the agitations of my soul by the least accent of speech. And this was the fact.
Monsieur de Chessel mentioned my name and sketched my biography. I had come to Tours some few months since with my parents, who had brought me home when the war threatened Paris. She saw in me a son of Touraine, to whom the province was unknown, a young man exhausted by excessive work, sent to Frapesle to rest and amuse myself, and to whom he had shown his estate, as it was my first visit. I had told him, only on reaching the bottom of the hill, that I had walked from Tours that morning; and fearing overfatigue, as my health was feeble, he had ventured to call at Clochegourde, thinking she would allow me to rest there. Monsieur de Chessel spoke the exact truth. But a genuinely happy chance seems so elaborate an invention, that Madame de Mortsauf was still distrustful; she looked at me with eyes so cold and stern, that I lowered mine, as much from a vague sense of humiliation as to hide the tears I withheld from falling. The haughty lady saw that my brow was moist with sweat; perhaps, too, she guessed the tears, for she offered me any refreshment I might need with a comforting kindness which restored my powers of speech.
I blushed like a girl caught in the wrong, and in a voice quavering like an old man’s, I replied with thanks, but declining anything.
“All I wish,” I said, raising my eyes, which met hers for the second time, but for an instant as short as a lightning-flash, “is that you will allow me to remain here; I am so stiff with fatigue that I cannot walk.”
“How can you doubt the hospitality of our lovely province?” said she. “You will perhaps give us the pleasure of seeing you at dinner at Clochegourde?” she added to her neighbor.
I flashed a look at my friend, a look so full of entreaty, that he beat about the bush a little to accept this invitation, which, by its form, required a refusal.
Though knowledge of the world enabled Monsieur de Chessel to distinguish so subtle a shade, an inexperienced youth believes so firmly in the identity of word and thought in a handsome woman, that I was immensely surprised when, as we went home in the evening, my host said to me:
“I stayed because you were dying to do so; but if you cannot patch matters up, I may be in a scrape with my neighbors.”
This “if you cannot patch matters up” gave me matter for thought. If Madame de Mortsauf liked me, she could not be annoyed with the man who had introduced me to her. So Monsieur de Chessel thought I might be able to interest her—was not this enough to give me the power? This solution confirmed my hopes at a moment when I needed such support.
“That is hardly possible,” replied Monsieur de Chessel, “my wife expects us.”
“She has you every day,” replied the Countess, “and we can send her a message. Is she alone?”
“She has the Abbé de Quélus with her.”
“Very well then,” said she, rising to ring the bell, “you will dine with us.”
This time Monsieur de Chessel thought her sincere, and gave me a look of congratulation.
As soon as I was certain of spending a whole evening under this roof, I felt as if eternity were mine. To many an unhappy wretch tomorrow is a word devoid of meaning, and at this moment I was one of those who have no belief in tomorrow; when I had a few hours to call my own, I crowded a lifetime of rapture into them.
Madame de Mortsauf then began to talk of the country, of the crops, of the vines—subjects to which I was a stranger. In the mistress of a house this behavior argues want of breeding, or else contempt for the person she thus shuts out of the conversation, but in the Countess it was simply embarrassment. Though at first I fancied she was affecting to regard me as a boy, and envied the privilege of thirty years, which allowed Monsieur de Chessel to entertain his fair neighbor with such serious matters, of which I understood nothing, and though I tormented myself by thinking that everything was done for him; within a few months I knew all that a woman’s silence can mean, and how many thoughts are disguised by desultory conversation.
I at once tried to sit at my ease in my chair; then I perceived the advantage of my position, and gave myself up to the delight of hearing the Countess’ voice. The breath of her soul lurked behind the procession of syllables, as sound is divided in the notes of a keyed flute; it died undulating on the ear, whence it seemed to drive the blood. Her way of pronouncing words ending i was like the song of birds; her pronunciation of ch was like a caress; and the way in which she spoke the letter t betrayed a despotic heart. She unconsciously expanded the meaning of words, and led your spirit away into a supernatural world. How often have I permitted a discussion to go on which I might have ended; how often have I allowed myself to be unjustly blamed, merely to hear that music of the human voice, to breathe the air that came from her lips so full of her soul, to clasp that spoken light with as much
