“Listen, dear Henriette, I have only a week more to stay here, and I want—”
“What, you are leaving us?” said she, interrupting me.
“Well, I must know what my father has decided on for me. It is nearly three months—”
“I have not counted the days,” she cried, with the vehemence of agitation. Then she controlled herself, and added, “Let us take a walk; we will go to Frapesle.”
She called the Count and the children, and sent for a shawl; then, when all were ready, she, so deliberate and so calm, had a fit of activity worthy of a Parisian, and we set out for Frapesle in a body, to pay a visit which the Countess did not owe.
She made an effort to talk to Madame de Chessel, who, fortunately, was prolix in her replies. The Count and Monsieur de Chessel discussed business. I was afraid lest Monsieur de Mortsauf should boast of his carriage and horses, but he did not fail in good taste.
His neighbor inquired as to the work he was doing at la Cassine and la Rhétorière. As I heard the question, I glanced at the Count, fancying he would avoid talking of a subject so full of painful memories and so bitter for him; but he demonstrated the importance of improving the methods of agriculture in the district, of building good farmhouses on healthy, well-drained spots; in short, he audaciously appropriated his wife’s ideas. I gazed at the Countess and reddened. This want of delicacy in a man who, under certain circumstances, had so much, this oblivion of that direful scene, this adoption of ideas against which he had rebelled so violently, this belief in himself petrified me.
When Monsieur de Chessel asked him:
“And do you think you will recover the outlay?”
“And more!” he exclaimed positively.
Such vagaries can only be explained by the word insanity. Henriette, heavenly soul, was beaming. Was not the Count showing himself to be a man of sense, a good manager, an admirable farmer? She stroked Jacques’ hair in rapture, delighted for herself and delighted for her boy. What an odious comedy, what a sardonic farce!
At a later time, when the curtain of social life was raised for me, how many Mortsaufs I saw, minus the flashes of chivalry and the religious faith of this man. What strange and cynical Power is that which constantly mates the madman with an angel, the man of genuine and poetic feelings with a mean woman, a little man with a tall wife, a hideous dwarf with a superb and beautiful creature; which gives the lovely Juana a Captain Diard—whose adventures at Bordeaux you already know; pairs Madame de Beauséant with a d’Ajuda, Madame d’Aiglemont with her husband, the Marquis d’Espard with his wife! I have, I confess, long sought the solution of this riddle. I have investigated many mysteries, I have discovered the reasons for many natural laws, the interpretation of a few sacred hieroglyphics, but of this I know nothing; I am still studying it as if it were some Indian puzzle figure, of which the Brahmins have kept the symbolical purpose secret. Here the Spirit of Evil is too flagrantly the master, and I dare not accuse God. Irremediable disaster! who takes pleasure in plotting you? Can it be that Henriette and her unrecognized philosopher were right? Does their mysticism contain the general purport of the human race?
The last days I spent in this district were those of leafless autumn, darkened with clouds which sometimes hid the sky of Touraine, habitually clear and mild at that fine season of the year. On the day before I left, Madame de Mortsauf took me out on the terrace before dinner.
“My dear Félix,” said she, after taking a turn in silence under the bare trees, “you are going into the world, and I shall follow you there in thought. Those who have suffered much have lived long. Never suppose that lonely spirits know nothing of the world; they see and judge it. If I am to live in my friend’s life, I do not wish to be uneasy, either in his heart or in his conscience. In the heat of the fray it is sometimes very difficult to remember all the rules, so let me give you some motherly advice, as to a son.
“On the day when you leave, dear child, I will give you a long letter in which you will read my thoughts as a woman on the world, on men, on the way to meet difficulties in that great seething of interests. Promise me not to read it till you are in Paris. This entreaty is the expression of one of the sentimental fancies which are the secret of a woman’s heart; I do not think it is possible to understand it, but perhaps we should be sorry if it were understood. Leave me these little paths where a woman loves to wander alone.”
“I promise,” said I, kissing her hands.
“Ah!” said she, “but I have another pledge to ask of you; but you must promise beforehand to take it.”
“Oh, certainly!” said I, thinking it was some vow of fidelity.
“It has nothing to do with me,” she said, with a bitter smile. “Félix, never gamble in any house whatever; I make no exception.”
“I will never play,” said I.
“That is well,” said she. “I have found you a better use to make of the time you would spend at cards. You will see that while others are certain to lose sooner or later, you will always win.”
“How?”
“The letter will tell you,” she replied gaily, in a way to deprive her injunctions of the serious character which are given to those of our grandmothers.
The Countess talked to me for about an hour, and proved the depth of her
