“Unconfessed?” said I. “Her children have not been ill?”
“No,” said he, looking at me with meaning. “And since she has been so seriously ill. Monsieur de Mortsauf has left her in peace.—I can be of no further use; Monsieur Deslandes from Azay can do everything. There is no remedy, and her sufferings are terrible. Rich, young, handsome—and she is dying aged and pinched by hunger, for she will die of starvation. For the last forty days the stomach is closed as it were, and rejects every kind of food in whatever form it is given.”
Monsieur Origet pressed the hand I offered him; he had almost asked for it, by a respectful movement.
“Courage, monsieur,” said he, raising his eyes to heaven.
The words expressed compassion for the sorrow he supposed me to share equally with him; he had no suspicion of the poisoned dart they bore, like an arrow piercing my heart. I hastily got into my carriage again, promising the postilion a handsome reward if he made good haste.
In spite of my impatience, I fancied I had made the journey in only a few minutes, so much was I absorbed by the bitter reflections that crowded on my soul. “She is dying of grief—and yet her children are well! then I am the cause of her death!” My threatening conscience underwent one of those examinations which echo through life, and sometimes beyond it. How feeble, how impotent is human justice! It punishes none but visible crimes. Why death and disgrace to the assassin who kills with a single blow, who generally comes upon you in your sleep and leaves you to sleep forever, or who strikes you unexpectedly and spares you the agony of death? Why a happy life and the world’s respect for the murderer who pours venom drop by drop into the soul and undermines the body to destroy it? How many assassins go unpunished! What deference for superior lives! What an acquittal for the homicide caused by moral persecution!
Some unknown and avenging hand suddenly lifted the painted curtain that veils society. I saw a number of such victims, as well known to you as to me.—Madame de Beauséant, who had set out, dying, for Normandy a few days before my departure; the Duchesse de Langeais compromised! Lady Brandon gone to Touraine to die in the humble dwelling where Lady Dudley had just spent a fortnight—killed—by what terrible disaster you know. Our age is full of events of the kind. Who does not know the story of the poor young wife who poisoned herself, overcome by such jealousy as perhaps was killing Madame de Mortsauf? Who has not shuddered at the fate of the charming girl dying, like a flower cankered by a gadfly, after two years of married life, the victim of her guileless ignorance, the victim of a wretch, with whom Ronquerolles, Montriveau, and de Marsay shake hands because he helps them in their political schemes? Has not Madame d’Aiglemont been on the verge of the grave? Would she be alive now but for my brother’s care?
Science is the world’s accomplice in these crimes, for which there is no tribunal. No one, it would seem, ever dies of grief, or despair, or love, or hidden poverty, or hopes fruitlessly cherished, perpetually uprooted and replanted! The new nomenclature has ingenious words that account for everything: gastritis, pericarditis, the thousand feminine ailments of which the names are spoken in a whisper, are mere passports to the coffin on which hypocritical tears are shed, to be soon wiped away by the lawyer.
Is there behind all this woe some law of which we know nothing? Must the man who lives to a hundred ruthlessly strew the ground with the dead and see everything destroyed that he may live, just as the millionaire absorbs the efforts of a thousand minor industries? Is there a strong and venomous type of life which is fed on these sweet and gentle creatures? Good God! Was I then one of that race of tigers? Remorse clawed at my heart with burning fingers, and tears ran down my cheeks as I turned into the avenue to Clochegourde, on a damp October morning that brought the dead leaves down from the poplars planted under Henriette’s directions—that avenue where I had seen her wave her handkerchief as though to call me back.
Was she still alive? Might I yet feel her two white hands laid on my prostrate head? In that moment I paid the price of every pleasure Arabella had given me, and I thought them dearly bought! I swore never to see her again, and took an aversion for England. Though Lady Dudley is a distinct variety of the species, I involved every Englishwoman in the black cerecloth of my condemnation.
On entering the grounds I had another shock. I found Madeleine, Jacques, and the Abbé de Dominis all kneeling at the foot of a wooden cross that stood on the corner of a plot of ground which had been included in the park at the time when the gate was erected. Neither the Count nor the Countess had wished to remove it. I sprang out of the chaise, went up to them bathed in tears, my heart wrung at the sight of these two young things and the
