“When Hagar cried in the desert an angel made a fount of pure water spring for that too well-beloved slave. But when the limpid brook to which you desired to lead me—do you remember?—flowed round Clochegourde, for me it ran with bitter waters. Yes, you have brought incredible suffering on me. God will no doubt forgive one who has known affection only through suffering.
“Still, though the acutest anguish I have known has been brought upon me by you, perhaps I deserved it. God is not unjust. Yes, Félix, a kiss given by stealth is perhaps a crime; and perhaps I have paid thus dearly for the steps I have taken to get ahead of my husband and children when walking out in the evening, so as to be alone with memories and thoughts which were not given to them, since, while walking on in front, my soul was wedded to another! When the inmost self shrinks and shrivels, to fill only the spot offered to an embrace, that is perhaps a heinous crime! When a wife stoops that her husband’s kiss may fall on her hair, so as to be entirely neutral, it is a crime! It is a crime to count on a future built up on death, a crime to dream of a future of motherhood without terrors, of beautiful children playing in the evening with a father worshiped by all, under the softened gaze of a happy mother. Ah, I have sinned, I have sinned greatly! I have even found pleasure in the penance inflicted by the Church, which insufficiently atoned for these faults to which the priest was surely too indulgent. But God, no doubt, has set retribution in the very heart of the sin itself, by making him for whom it was committed the instrument of His vengeance! Giving you my hair—was not that a promise? Why did I love to wear white? I fancied myself more like your Lily; did not you see me for the first time in a white dress? Alas! And I have loved my children the less, for every ardent affection is stolen from those that are due. So you see, Félix, all suffering has a meaning.—Strike me, strike me harder than Monsieur de Mortsauf and my children could.
“That woman is an instrument of God’s wrath; I can meet her without hatred. I will smile on her; I must love her or I am neither a Christian, a wife, nor a mother. If, as you say, I have helped to preserve your heart from the contact of what might have spoiled it, the Englishwoman cannot hate me. A woman must love the mother of the man she loves; and I am your mother.
“What did I look for in your heart? The place left empty by Madame de Vandenesse. Oh, yes; for you have always complained of my coldness! Yes, I am indeed no more than your mother. Forgive me for all I said to you when you arrived, for a mother ought to rejoice to know that her son is so much loved.”
She leaned her head on my bosom and repeated:
“Forgive, forgive!”
The accent of her voice was new to me. It was not her girlish voice with its gleeful intonation; nor her wifely voice with its imperative fall; nor the sighing of a grieving mother. It was a heartrending voice, a new tone for new sorrows.
“As for you, Félix,” she went on, with more animation, “you are the friend who can do no wrong. You have lost nothing in my heart; do not blame yourself, feel not the slightest remorse. Was it not the height of selfishness to ask you to sacrifice to an impossible future the most stupendous pleasure, since a woman can abandon her children for its sake, abdicate her rank, and renounce eternity! How often have I seen you my superior! You were lofty and noble, I was mean and sinful!
“Well, well, all is said. I can never be anything to you but a faraway light, high up, sparkling, cold, but unchanging. Only, Félix, do not let me be alone in loving the brother I have chosen. Love me too. A sister’s love has no bitter morrow, no perverse moods. You need never be untrue to the indulgent soul that will live in your beautiful life, will never fail to weep over your sorrows, and be glad over your joys, that will love the women who make you happy, and be indignant if you are betrayed. I have never had a brother to love so. Be magnanimous enough to cast off all pride, and solve all the difficulties of our attachment, hitherto so ill-defined and stormy, by this sweet and holy affection. I can still live on those terms. I will be the first to shake hands with Lady Dudley.”
She shed no tears, alas, as she spoke these words full of bitter experience, while, by snatching away the last veil that hid her soul and her sufferings from me, they showed me by how many links she was bound to me, and what strong chains I had broken through.
We were in such a delirium of agitation that we did not observe that it was raining in torrents.
“Will Madame la Comtesse take shelter here for a few minutes?” said the coachman, pointing to the principal inn of Ballan.
She nodded consent, and we sat for about half an hour under the archway of the entrance, to the great astonishment of the people of the inn, who wondered why Madame de Mortsauf was driving about the country at eleven o’clock at night.
Was she going to Tours? Or on her way back?
When the storm was over, and the rain had settled into what is called in Touraine a brouée, a heavy mist which did not hinder the moon from silvering the upper strata as they were swept swiftly past by the higher currents of
