“I forbid you to cast any of your three-barbed witticisms at Madame de Mortsauf,” I replied.
“And does it offend your Grace when I remark on the perfect health enjoyed by one so dear to your precious heart? French women, it is said, hate even their lovers’ dogs; but in England we love everything that is dear to our sovereign lord, we hate what they hate, for we live in their very skin. Allow me then to be as fond of that lady as you are. Only, dear boy,” said she, throwing her arms round me, all wet from the rain, “if you were faithless to me, I should neither stand up, nor lie down, nor ride in a carriage with menservants; neither drive through the Landes de Charlemagne, nor over the heaths of any country in the world, nor be in my bed, nor under the roof of my fathers. I should be no more.
“I was born in Lancashire, where women can die of love. To have owned you, and give you up? I will give you up to no power in the world, not even to death, for I would go with you!”
She took me into her room, where comfort already made its presence felt.
“Love her, my dear,” said I warmly, “for she loves you, and not ironically but sincerely.”
“Sincerely, child?” she said, unfastening her riding-habit.
With a lover’s vanity, I tried to make this arrogant creature understand the sublimity of Henriette’s character. While the maid, who did not know a word of French, was dressing her hair, I tried to describe Madame de Mortsauf, sketching her life, and repeating the generous thoughts suggested to her by a crisis in which all women are petty and spiteful. Though Arabella affected to pay not the slightest attention, she did not lose a word.
“I am delighted,” said she when we were alone, “to know of your taste for this style of Christian conversation; there is on my estate a curate who has not his match in composing sermons, our laborers can understand them, so well is his prose adapted to his audience. I will write tomorrow to my father to dispatch this worthy by steamer, and you shall find him in Paris. When once you have heard him, you will never want to listen to anyone else, all the more so because he too enjoys perfect health. His moralizing will give you none of those shocks that end in tears; it flows without turmoil, like a limpid brook, and secures delightful slumbers. Every evening, if you like, you can satisfy your craving for sermons while digesting your dinner.
“English moralizing, my dear boy, is as superior to that of Tours as our cutlery, our plate, and our horses are superior to your knives and your animals. Do me the favor of hearing my curate—promise me. I am but a woman, my dearest; I know how to love, how to die for you, if you like; but I have not studied at Eton, nor at Oxford, nor at Edinburgh; I am neither Doctor nor Reverend; I cannot moralize for you, I am quite unfit for it, and should be to the last degree clumsy if I attempted it.
“I do not complain of your taste; you might have far more degraded tastes than this, and I would try to accommodate myself to them; for I intend that you should find with me everything you like best—the pleasures of love, the pleasures of the table, the pleasures of churchgoing—good claret and the Christian virtues. Would you like to see me in a hairshirt this evening? That woman is happy indeed to be able to supply you with moralities! In what university do French women take their degree? Poor me! I have nothing to give you but myself, I am only a slave—”
“Then why did you fly when I wanted to bring you together?”
“Are you mad, my Dee? I would travel from Paris to Rome disguised as your footman, I would do the most preposterous things for you; but how could I stop to talk on the highroad to a woman who has not been introduced to me, and who was ready with a sermon under three heads? I can talk to peasants. I would ask a workman to share his loaf with me if I were hungry, I would give him a few guineas, and it would be all in order; but as to stopping a chaise, as highwaymen do in England—that is not included in my code of honor.
“My poor boy, all you know is how to love; and you do not know how to live? Besides, my angel, I am not yet made exactly in your image. I have no taste for moralities. However, to please you, I am capable of the greatest efforts. Come, say no more, I will set to work, I will try to preach. I will never allow myself to caress you without throwing in a text from the Bible.”
She exerted all her power—used it, abused it, till she saw in my eyes the ardent look that always came into them when she began her enchantments. She triumphed completely, and I submissively agreed to set above the vain subtleties of the Catholic Church the magnanimity of the woman who wrecks herself, renounces all future hope, and makes love her sole virtue.
“Does she love herself better than she loves you?” said she. “Does she prefer to you something which is not you? How can a woman attach any importance to anything in herself beyond that with which you honor it? No woman, however great a moralist she may be, can be the equal of a man. Walk over us, kill us, never let us encumber your life. Our part is to die, yours to live great and supreme. In your hand is the poniard; we have only to love and forgive.
