The Lily of the Valley

this a pony was bought for Jacques; his father, a capital horseman, wished to inure him very gradually to the fatiguing exercise of riding. The boy had a neat little outfit that he had bought with the price of his walnuts. The morning when he had his first lesson, riding with his father, and followed by Madeleine’s shouts of glee as she danced on the lawn round which Jacques was trotting, was to the Countess her first high festival as a mother. Jacques’ little collar had been worked by her hands; he had a little sky-blue cloth coat, with a varnished leather belt round the waist, white tucked trousers, and a Scotch bonnet over his thick fair curls; he really was charming to look upon. All the servants of the household came out to share the family joy, and the little heir smiled as he passed his mother, without a sign of fear.

This first act of manliness in the child who had so often been at death’s door, the hope of a happier future of which this ride seemed the promise, making him look so bright, so handsome, so healthy⁠—what a delightful reward! Then the father’s joy, looking young again, and smiling for the first time in many weeks, the satisfaction that shone in the eyes of the assembled servants, the glee of the old Lenoncourt huntsman, who had come over from Tours, and who, seeing how well the child held his bridle, called out, “Bravo, Monsieur le Vicomte!”⁠—all this was too much for Madame de Mortsauf, and she melted into tears. She, who was so calm in distress, was too weak to control her joy as she admired her boy riding round and round on the path where she had so often mourned him by anticipation as she carried him to and fro in the sun.

She leaned on my arm without reserve, and said:

“I feel as if I had never been unhappy.⁠—Stay with us today.”

The lesson ended, Jacques flew into his mother’s arms, and she clutched him to her bosom with the vehemence that comes of excessive delight, kissing and fondling him again and again. Madeleine and I went off to make two splendid nosegays to dress the dinner-table in honor of the young horseman.

When we returned to the drawing-room, the Countess said to me:

“The fifteenth of October is indeed a high day! Jacques has had his first riding lesson, and I have set the last stitch in my piece of work.”

“Well, then, Blanche,” said the Count, laughing, “I will pay you for it.”

He offered her his arm and led her into the inner courtyard, where she found a carriage, a present from her father, for which the Count had bought a pair of horses in England; they had arrived with those sent to the Duc de Lenoncourt. The old huntsman had arranged all this in the courtyard during the riding lesson. We got into the carriage, and went off to see the line cleared for the avenue that was to lead directly into the Chinon road, and that was cut straight through the new property acquired by the Count. On our return, the Countess said to me, with deep melancholy:

“I am too happy; happiness is to me like an illness, it overpowers me, and I fear lest it should vanish like a dream.”

I was too desperately in love not to be jealous, and I had nothing to give her! In my fury I tried to think of some way of dying for her.

She asked me what thoughts had clouded my eyes, and I told her frankly; she was more touched than by any gifts, and poured balm on my spirit when, taking me out on the terrace steps, she whispered to me:

“Love me as my aunt loved me⁠—is not that to give your life for me? And if I take it so, is it not to lay me under an obligation every hour of the day?”

“It was high time I should finish my piece of work,” she went on, as we returned to the drawing-room, and I kissed her hand as a renewal of my allegiance. “You perhaps do not know, Félix, why I set myself that long task.⁠—Men find a remedy against their troubles in the occupations of life; the bustle of business diverts their minds; but we women have no support in ourselves to help us to endure. In order to be able to smile at my children and my husband when I was possessed by gloomy ideas, I felt the need of keeping my grief in check by physical exertion. I thus avoided the collapse that follows any great effort of resolve, as well as the lightning strokes of excitement. The action of lifting my arm in measured time lulled my brain and acted on my spirit when the storm was raging, giving it the rest of ebb and flow, and regulating its emotions. I told my secrets to the stitches, do you see?⁠—Well, as I worked the last chair, I was thinking too much of you! Yes, my friend, far too much. What you put into your nosegays I imparted to my patterns.”

The dinner was a cheerful one. Jacques, like all children to whom we show kindness, jumped upon me and threw his arms round my neck when he saw the flowers I had picked him by way of a crown. His mother pretended to be angry at this infidelity to her, and the dear child gave her the posy she affected to covet, you know how sweetly.

In the evening we played backgammon, I against Monsieur and Madame de Mortsauf, and the Count was charming. Finally, at nightfall, they walked with me as far as the turning to Frapesle, in one of those placid evenings when the harmony of nature gives added depth to our feelings in proportion as it soothes their vividness.

It had been a day by itself to this hapless woman, a spark of light that often shone caressingly on her memory