I spent some days in a room whose windows overlooked the tranquil and solitary coombe of which I have spoken; it is a deep ravine in the hills, overgrown with secular oaks, and down it a torrent rushes in heavy rains. The scene was suited to the severe and solemn meditations to which I gave myself up.
In the course of the day following that fatal night, I had seen how intrusive my presence at Clochegourde would be. The Count had given way to violent feelings at Henriette’s death; still, the dreadful event was expected, and in the depths of his heart there was a prepared calmness verging on indifference. I had more than once seen this, and when the Countess had given me the letter I dared not open, when she spoke of her affection for me, this man, suspicious as he was, had not given me the fulminating glance I had expected. He had ascribed his wife’s words to the excessive delicacy of her conscience, which he knew to be so pure.
This selfish insensibility was but natural. The souls of these two beings had been no more wedded than their bodies, they had never had that incessant intimacy which renews feeling; they had no communion of griefs or joys, those close ties which, when they are broken, leave us sore at so many points, because they are one with every fibre, because they are rooted in every fold of the heart, while soothing the soul which sanctions every such tie.
Madeleine’s hostility closed Clochegourde to me. This stern young thing was not inclined to come to terms with her aversion, over her mother’s grave; and I should have been dreadfully uncomfortable between the Count, who would have talked of himself, and the mistress of the house, who would have made no secret of her invincible dislike. And to live on such terms there—where of old the very flowers had caressed me, where the terrace steps were eloquent, where all my memories lent poetry to the balconies, the parapets, the balustrades and terraces, to the trees, and to every point of view; to be hated where all had been love! I could not endure the thought. So my mind was made up from the first. This then, alas! was the end of the strongest love that ever dwelt in the heart of man. In the eyes of strangers my conduct would seem blameworthy, but it had the sanction of my conscience.
This is the outcome of the finest sentiments, the greatest dramas of youth. We all set forth one fine morning, as I had started from Tours for Clochegourde, annexing the world, our heart craving for love; then, when our treasure has been through the crucible, when we have mixed with men, and known events, it all seems unaccountably small, we find so little gold among the ashes. Such is life—life in its reality!—a great deal of aspiration, a small result.
I meditated on myself at great length, wondering what I could do after a blow that had cut down all my flowers.—I determined to rush into politics and science, by the tortuous paths of ambition, to cut women out of my life entirely, and be a statesman—cold, passionless, faithful to the saint I had loved. My thoughts went far away, out of sight, while my eyes were fixed on the glorious background of golden oaks with their sombre heads and feet of bronze.—I asked myself whether Henriette’s virtue had not been mere ignorance, whether I were really guilty of her death. I struggled against the burden of remorse. At last, one limpid autumn day, under one of heaven’s latest smiles, so lovely in Touraine, I read the letter which, by her instructions, I was not to open before her death—and I read as follows:—
Madame de Mortsauf to the Vicomte Félix de Vandenesse.
“Félix, friend too much beloved, I must now open my heart to you, less to tell you how well I love you than to show you the extent of your obligations, by revealing the depth and severity of the wounds you have made in it. At this moment, when I am dropping, exhausted by the fatigues of the journey, worn out by the strokes I have received in the fight, the woman, happily, is dead, the mother alone survives. You will see, my dear, how you were the first cause of my woes. Though I afterwards submitted, not unwillingly, to your blows, I am now dying of a last wound inflicted by you; but there is exquisite delight in feeling oneself crushed by the man one loves.
“Before long my sufferings will, no doubt, rob me of my strength, so I take advantage of the last gleam of intelligence to implore you, once more, to fill the place towards my children of the heart you have robbed them of. If I loved you less, I should lay this charge on you authoritatively, but I would rather leave you to assume it out of saintly repentance, and also as a perpetuation of your love for me. Has not our love been always mingled with repentant reflections and expiatory fears? And we love each other still, I know it.
“Your fault is fatal, not so much through your own act as through the importance I have given it in my own heart. Did I not tell you that I was jealous—jealous unto death? Well, I am dying. Yet, be comforted. We have satisfied human law. The Church, through one of its purest speakers, has assured me that God will show mercy to those who have sacrificed their natural weakness to the
