“Henriette still lives,” I said; “I still am loved! You wound me with too evident intention to break my heart; I may yet be happy.”
“There was but a shred of the woman left,” she said in terror, “and you at this moment have it in your grasp. God be praised! He gives me the strength to endure the martyrdom I have deserved.—Yes, I still love; I was near falling; the Englishwoman throws a light into the gulf.”
We got into the carriage, and the coachman waited for orders.
“Go by the avenue to the Chinon road, and come home by the Landes de Charlemagne and the Saché road.”
“What is today?” I asked too eagerly.
“Saturday.”
“Then do not drive that way, madame; on Saturday evenings the road is crowded with noisy bumpkins going to Tours, and we shall meet their carts.”
“Do as I say,” said the Countess to the coachman.
We knew each other too well, and every inflection of tone, endless as they were, to disguise the most trifling feeling. Henriette had understood everything.
“You did not think of the country bumpkins when you chose this evening,” said she, with a faint tinge of irony. “Lady Dudley is at Tours. Tell no falsehoods; she is waiting for you near here.—What day is it—bumpkins—carts!” she went on. “Did you ever make such remarks when we used to go out together?”
“They prove that I have forgotten all about Clochegourde,” I said simply.
“She is waiting for you?”
“Yes.”
“At what hour?”
“Between eleven and midnight.”
“Where?”
“On the Landes.”
“Do not deceive me.—Not under the walnut-tree?”
“On the Landes.”
“We will be there,” said she. “I shall see her.”
On hearing these words I regarded my fate as definitely settled. I determined to marry Lady Dudley and so put an end to the dreadful conflict which really threatened to exhaust my nerves, and to destroy by such constant friction the delicate pleasures which are like the bloom on a fruit. My savage silence wounded the Countess, whose magnanimity was not yet fully known to me.
“Do not be provoked with me, dear,” said she in her golden tones. “This is my penance. You will never find such love as lies here,” and she placed her hand on her heart. “Did I not confess to you that the Marchioness of Dudley has saved me? The stain is hers; I do not envy her. Mine is the glorious love of the angels!—Since you came I have traveled over a vast extent of country; I have pronounced judgment on life. Uplift the soul and you rend it; the higher you rise the less sympathy you find; instead of suffering in the valley you suffer in the air, like an eagle soaring up and bearing in his heart an arrow shot by some clumsy shepherd. I know now that heaven and earth are incompatible. Yes, and for those who can dwell in the celestial zone God alone is possible. Then our soul must be detached from all things earthly.
“We must love our friends as we love our children—for their sake, not for our own. We are ourselves the source of our woes and griefs. My heart will rise higher than the eagle soars; there is a love which will never fail me.
“As to living the life of this earth, it hinders us too much, by making the selfishness of the senses predominate over the spirituality of the angel that is in us. The joys we get from passion are horribly stormy, and paid for by enervating fears that break the springs of the soul.
“I have stood on the shore of the sea where these tempests roar, I have seen them too near; they have caught me in their clouds; the wave did not always break at my feet, I have felt its rough embrace freezing my heart; I must retire to the heights, I should perish on the strand of that vast ocean. In you, as in all who have brought me sorrow, I see a guardian of my virtue. My life has been mingled with anguish, happily in proportion to my strength, and has been there preserved pure from evil passions, finding no beguiling repose, but always ready for God.
“Our attachment was the insane attempt, the hopeless effort, of two guileless children who tried to satisfy at once their own hearts, man and God.—Folly, Félix!—Ah!” she asked, after a pause. “What does that woman call you?”
“Amédée,” said I. “Félix is another creature, who can never be known to anyone but you.”
“Henriette dies hard,” said she, with a faint, pious smile. “But she will die,” she went on, “in the first effort of the humble Christian, the proud mother, the woman whose virtues, tottering yesterday, are confirmed today.
“What can I say?—Yes, yes; my life has been uniform in its greatest as in its least circumstances. The heart to which the first rootlets of affection ought to have attached themselves—my mother’s heart—was closed to me, in spite of my persistently seeking a cranny into which I could steal. I was a girl, the last child after the death of three boys, and I vainly strove to fill their place in my parents’ affections; I could not heal the wound inflicted on the family pride. When, having got through that melancholy childhood, I knew my adorable aunt, death soon snatched her from me. Monsieur de Mortsauf, to whom I devoted my life, struck me persistently without respite—without knowing it, poor man! His love is full of the artless selfishness of our children’s love. He knows nothing of the pangs he causes me; he is always forgiven.
“My children, my darling children, flesh of my flesh in all their sufferings, soul of my soul in their characters, like me in nature, in their innocent joys—were not those children given to me to show how much strength and patience there is in mothers? Oh, yes, my children are my virtues! You know whether I have been scourged by them, through them, in spite
