Never for three years had I known her voice so thoroughly happy. It was the first time I heard those swallow-like notes, that childlike tone of which I have spoken.
I had brought a sportsman’s outfit for Jacques, and a work-box for Madeleine—which her mother always used; in short, I had made up for the shabbiness to which I had hitherto been condemned by my mother’s parsimony. The delight of the two children as they displayed their presents to each other seemed to annoy the Count who was always aggrieved if he were not the centre of attentions. I gave Madeleine a look of intelligence, and followed the Count, who wanted to talk about himself. He led me to the terrace; but we paused on the steps at each solemn fact he impressed upon me.
“My poor, dear Félix,” said he, “you find them all happy and in good health. It is I who give shadow to the picture. I have absorbed their maladies, and I can bless God for having inflicted them on me. I used not to know what ailed me; but I know now—I have a disease of the pylorus; I can digest nothing.”
“By what good luck have you become as learned as a professor of the College of Physicians?” said I, smiling. “Is your doctor so indiscreet as to tell you this?”
“Heaven preserve me from consulting doctors!” he exclaimed, with a look of repugnance that most imaginary invalids show at the thought of medical treatment.
Then I had to listen to a crazy harangue, in the course of which he was ridiculously confidential, complaining of his wife, his servants, his children, and his life, taking evident delight in repeating his remarks of every day to a friend who, not knowing them, might be startled by them, and who was obliged by politeness to seem interested. He must have been satisfied, for I listened with deep attention, trying to formulate this inconceivable character, and to guess what new torments he was inflicting on his wife, though she had not said so.
Henriette herself put an end to the monologue by coming out on to the steps. The Count saw her, shook his head, and added:
“You, Félix, listen to me; but no one here has any pity for me.”
And he went away as though aware that he would be in the way during my conversation with Henriette, or perhaps as a chivalrous attention to her, knowing that he would give her pleasure by leaving us together. His character was full of really inexplicable contradictions, for he was jealous, as all weak persons are; but his confidence in his wife’s saintliness knew no bounds; perhaps it was the irritation to his vanity caused by the superiority of her lofty virtue that gave rise to his constant antagonism to the Countess’ wishes, whom he loved to defy as children defy their mother and their masters. Jacques was at his lessons, Madeleine was dressing; thus I had an hour to walk alone with the Countess on the terrace.
“Well, dear angel,” said I, “so the chain is heavier than ever, the sands more scorching, the thorns more thickly set?”
“Be silent,” said she, guessing what thoughts had been suggested to me by the Count’s conversation. “You are here, and all is forgotten! I am not, I have not been unhappy.”
She danced a few light steps as if to flutter her white dress, to let the breezes play with her frills of snowy tulle, her loose sleeves, her bright ribbons, her cape, and the airy curls of her hair dressed à la Sévigné; I saw her for the first time really girlish and young, naturally gay, and as ready for sport as a child. I experienced both the tears of happiness and the delight a man feels in giving pleasure.
“Sweet flower of humanity,” cried I, “that my fancy caresses and my spirit kisses! Oh my Lily! still intact and erect on its stem, still white, proud, fragrant, and alone!”
“That is enough, monsieur,” she said, with a smile. “Talk to me about yourself, and tell me everything.”
And then, under the moving canopy of quivering leaves, we had a long conversation, full of endless parentheses, each subject dropped and taken up again, in which I initiated her into my whole life and all my occupations. I described my rooms in Paris, for she wanted to know everything, and I—joy then not fully appreciated!—I had nothing to conceal. As she thus read all my soul, and learned all the details of my life full of overwhelming toil, as she discerned the importance of my functions, in which, but for the strictest honesty, it would be so easy to cheat and grow rich, and which I exercised with such fidelity that the King, as I told her, nicknamed me Mademoiselle de Vandenesse, she clasped my hand and kissed it, leaving on it a tear of joy. This sudden inversion of our parts, this splendid praise, the swiftly expressed feeling, even more swiftly understood—“You are indeed the master I could have obeyed, the fulfilment of my dream!”—all the avowal expressed in this action, whose very humility was dignity, betraying love in a sphere far above the senses; this whirl of heavenly emotions fell on my heart and crushed me. I felt so small! I wished I could die at her feet.
“Oh!” I exclaimed, “you women will always outdo us in every way. How could you doubt me?—for you did doubt me just now, Henriette.”
“Not
