“What is it, my child?” said Claude Vignon, who had slipped silently into the bedroom after Calyste, and now took him by the hand. “You love; you think you are disdained; but it is not so. The field will be free to you in a few days and you will reign — beloved by more than one.”
“Loved!” cried Calyste, springing up, and beckoning Claude into the library, “Who loves me here?”
“Camille,” replied Claude.
“Camille loves me? And you! — what of you?”
“I?” answered Claude, “I—” He stopped; sat down on a sofa and rested his head with weary sadness on a cushion. “I am tired of life, but I have not the courage to quit it,” he went on, after a short silence. “I wish I were mistaken in what I have just told you; but for the last few days more than one vivid light has come into my mind. I did not wander about the marshes for my pleasure; no, upon my soul I did not! The bitterness of my words when I returned and found you with Camille were the result of wounded feeling. I intend to have an explanation with her soon. Two minds as clear-sighted as hers and mine cannot deceive each other. Between two such professional duellists the combat cannot last long. Therefore I may as well tell you now that I shall leave Les Touches; yes, tomorrow perhaps, with Conti. After we are gone strange things will happen here. I shall regret not witnessing conflicts of passion of a kind so rare in France, and so dramatic. You are very young to enter such dangerous lists; you interest me; were it not for the profound disgust I feel for women, I would stay and help you play this game. It is difficult; you may lose it; you have to do with two extraordinary women, and you feel too much for one to use the other judiciously. Beatrix is dogged by nature; Camille has grandeur. Probably you will be wrecked between those reefs, drawn upon them by the waves of passion. Beware!”
Calyste’s stupefaction on hearing these words enabled Claude to say them without interruption and leave the young Breton, who remained like a traveller among the Alps to whom a guide has shown the depth of some abyss by flinging a stone into it. To hear from the lips of Claude himself that Camille loved him, at the very moment when he felt that he loved Beatrix for life, was a weight too heavy for his untried soul to bear. Goaded by an immense regret which now filled all the past, overwhelmed with a sight of his position between Beatrix whom he loved and Camille whom he had ceased to love, the poor boy sat despairing and undecided, lost in thought. He sought in vain for the reasons which had made Felicite reject his love and bring Claude Vignon from Paris to oppose it. Every now and then the voice of Beatrix came fresh and pure to his ears from the little salon; a savage desire to rush in and carry her off seized him at such moments. What would become of him? What must he do? Could he come to Les Touches? If Camille loved him how could he come there to adore Beatrix? He saw no solution to these difficulties.
Insensibly to him silence now reigned in the house; he heard, but without noticing, the opening and shutting of doors. Then suddenly midnight sounded on the clock of the adjoining bedroom, and the voices of Claude and Camille roused him fully from his torpid contemplation of the future. Before he could rise and show himself, he heard the following terrible words in the voice of Claude Vignon.
“You came to Paris last year desperately in love with Calyste,” Claude was saying to Felicite, “but you were horrified at the thought of the consequences of such a passion at your age; it would lead you to a gulf, to hell, to suicide perhaps. Love cannot exist unless it thinks itself eternal, and you saw not far before you a horrible parting; old age you knew would end the glorious poem soon. You thought of ‘Adolphe,’ that dreadful finale of the loves of Madame de Stael and Benjamin Constant, who, however, were nearer of an age than you and Calyste. Then you took me, as soldiers use fascines to build entrenchments between the enemy and themselves. You brought me to Les Touches to mask your real feelings and leave you safe to follow your own secret adoration. The scheme was grand and ignoble both; but to carry it out you should have chosen either a common man or one so preoccupied by noble thoughts that you could easily deceive him. You thought me simple and easy to mislead as a man of genius. I am not a man of genius, I am a man of talent, and as such I have divined you. When I made that eulogy yesterday on women of your age, explaining to you why Calyste had loved you, do you suppose I took to myself your ravished, fascinated, fazzling glance? Had I not read into your soul? The eyes were turned on me, but the heart was throbbing for Calyste. You have never been loved, my poor Maupin, and you never will be after rejecting the beautiful fruit which chance has offered to you at the portals of that hell of woman, the lock of which is the numeral 50!”
“Why has love fled me?” she said in a low voice. “Tell me, you who know all.”
“Because you are not lovable,” he answered. “You do not bend to love; love must bend to you. You may perhaps have yielded to some follies of youth, but there was no youth in your heart; your mind has too much depth; you have never been naive and artless, and you cannot begin to be so now. Your charm comes from mystery; it is abstract, not active. Your strength repulses men of strength who fear a struggle. Your power may please young souls, like that of Calyste, which like to be protected; though, even them it wearies in the long run. You are grand, and you are sublime; bear with the consequence of those two qualities — they fatigue.”
“What a sentence!” cried Camille. “Am I not a woman? Do you think me an anomaly?”
“Possibly,” said Claude.
“We will see!” said the woman, stung to the quick.
“Farewell, my dear Camille; I leave tomorrow. I am not angry with you, my dear; I think you the greatest of women, but if I continued to serve you as a screen, or a shield,” said Claude, with two significant inflections of his voice, “you would despise me. We can part now without pain or remorse; we have neither happiness to regret nor hopes betrayed. To you, as with some few but rare men of genius, love is not what Nature made it — an imperious need, to the satisfaction of which she attaches great and passing joys, which die. You see love such as Christianity has created it — an ideal kingdom, full of noble sentiments, of grand weaknesses, poesies, spiritual sensations, devotions of moral fragrance, entrancing harmonies, placed high above all vulgar coarseness, to which two creatures as one angel fly on the wings of pleasure. This is what I hoped to share; I thought I held in you a key to that door, closed to so many, by which we may advance toward the infinite. You were there already. In this you have misled me. I return to my misery — to my vast prison of Paris. Such a deception as this, had it come to me earlier in life, would have made me flee from existence; today it puts into my soul a disenchantment which will plunge me forever into an awful solitude. I am without the faith which helped the Fathers to people theirs with sacred images. It is to this, my dear Camille, to this that the superiority of our mind has brought us; we may, both of us, sing that dreadful hymn which a poet has put into the mouth of Moses speaking to the Almighty: ‘Lord God, Thou hast made me powerful and solitary.’”
At this moment Calyste appeared.
“I ought not to leave you ignorant that I am here,” he said.
Mademoiselle des Touches showed the utmost fear; a sudden flush colored her impassible face with tints of fire. During this strange scene she was more beautiful than at any other moment of her life.
“We thought you gone, Calyste,” said Claude. “But this involuntary discretion on both sides will do no harm; perhaps, indeed, you may be more at your ease at Les Touches by knowing Felicite as she is. Her silence shows me I am not mistaken as to the part she meant me to play. As I told you before, she loves you, but it is for yourself, not for herself — a sentiment that few women are able to conceive and practise; few among them know the voluptuous pleasure of sufferings born of longing — that is one of the magnificent passions reserved for man. But she is in some sense a man,” he added, sardonically. “Your love for Beatrix will make her suffer and make her happy too.”
Tears were in the eyes of Mademoiselle des Touches, who was unable to look either at the terrible Vignon or the ingenuous Calyste. She was frightened at being understood; she had supposed to impossible for a man, however keen his perception, to perceive a delicacy so self-immolating, a heroism so lofty as her own. Her evident humiliation at this unveiling of her grandeur made Calyste share the emotion of the woman he had held so high, and now beheld so stricken down. He threw himself, from an irresistible impulse, at her feet, and kissed her hands, laying his face, covered with tears, upon them.
“Claude,” she said, “do not abandon me, or what will become of me?”
“What have you to fear?” replied the critic. “Calyste has fallen in love at first sight with the marquise; you cannot find a better barrier between you than that. This passion of his is worth more to you than I. Yesterday there might have been some danger for you and for him; today you can take a maternal interest in him,” he said, with a mocking smile, “and be proud of his triumphs.”
Mademoiselle des Touches looked at Calyste, who had raised his head abruptly at these words. Claude Vignon enjoyed, for his sole vengeance, the sight of their confusion.
“You yourself have driven him to Madame de Rochefide,” continued Claude, “and he is now under the spell. You have dug your own grave. Had you confided in me, you would have escaped the sufferings that await you.”
“Sufferings!” cried Camille Maupin, taking Calyste’s head in her hands, and kissing his hair, on which her tears fell plentifully. “No, Calyste; forget what you have heard; I count for nothing in all this.”
She rose and stood erect before the two men, subduing both with the lightning of her eyes, from which her soul shone out.
“While Claude was speaking,” she said, “I conceived the beauty and the grandeur of love without hope; it is the sentiment that brings us nearest God. Do not love me, Calyste; but I will love you as no woman will!”
It was the cry of a wounded eagle seeking its eyrie. Claude himself knelt down, took Camille’s hand, and kissed it.
“Leave us now, Calyste,” she said, “it is late, and your mother will be uneasy.”
Calyste returned to Guerande with lagging steps, turning again and again, to see the light from the windows of the room in which was Beatrix. He was surprised himself to find how little pity he felt for Camille. But presently he felt once more the agitations of that scene, the tears she had left upon his hair; he suffered with her suffering; he fancied he heard the moans of that noble woman, so beloved, so desired but a few short days before.
When he opened the door of his paternal home, where total silence reigned, he saw his mother through the window, as she sat sewing by the light of the curiously constructed lamp while she awaited him. Tears moistened the lad’s eyes as he looked at her.
“What has happened?” cried Fanny, seeing his emotion, which filled her with horrible anxiety.
For all answer, Calyste took his mother in his arms, and kissed her on her cheeks, her forehead and hair, with one of those passionate effusions of feeling that comfort mothers, and fill them with the subtle flames of the life they have given.
“It is you I love, you!” cried Calyste — “you, who live for me; you, whom I long to render happy!”
“But you are not yourself, my child,” said the baroness, looking at him attentively. “What has happened to you?”
“Camille loves me, but I love her no longer,” he answered.
The next day, Calyste told Gasselin to watch the road to Saint–Nazaire, and let him know if the carriage of Mademoiselle des Touches passed over it. Gasselin brought word that the carriage had passed.
“How many persons were in it?” asked Calyste.
“Four — two ladies and two gentlemen.”
“Then saddle my horse and my father’s.”
Gasselin departed.
“My, nephew, what mischief is in you now?” said his Aunt Zephirine.
“Let the boy amuse himself, sister,” cried the baron. “Yesterday he was dull as an owl; today he is gay as a lark.”
“Did you tell him that our dear Charlotte was to arrive today?” said Zephirine, turning to her sister-inlaw.
“No,” replied the baroness.
“I thought perhaps he was going to meet her,” said Mademoiselle du Guenic, slyly.
“If Charlotte is to stay three months with her aunt, he will have plenty of opportunities to see her,” said his mother.
“Mademoiselle de Pen–Hoel wants me to marry Charlotte, to save me from perdition,” said Calyste, laughing. “I was on the mall when she and the Chevalier du Halga were talking about it. She can’t see that it would be greater perdition for me to marry at my age —”
“It is written above,” said the old maid, interrupting Calyste, “that I shall not die tranquil or happy. I wanted to see our family continued, and some, at least, of the estates brought back; but it is not to be. What can you, my fine nephew, put in the scale against such duties? Is it that actress at Les Touches?”
“What?” said the baron; “how can Mademoiselle des Touches hinder Calyste’s marriage, when it becomes necessary for us to make it? I shall go and see her.”
“I assure you, father,” said Calyste, “that Felicite will never be an obstacle to my marriage.”
Gasselin appeared with the horses.
“Where are you going, chevalier?” said his father.
“To Saint–Nazaire.”
“Ha, ha! and when is the marriage to be?” said the baron, believing that Calyste was really in a hurry to see Charlotte de Kergarouet. “It is high time I was a grandfather. Spare the horses,” he continued, as he went on the portico with Fanny to see Calyste mount; “remember that they have more than thirty miles to go.”
Calyste started with a tender farewell to his mother.
“Dear treasure!” she said, as she saw him lower his head to ride through the gateway.
“God keep him!” replied the baron; “for we cannot replace him.”
The words made the baroness shudder.
“My nephew does not love Charlotte enough to ride to Saint–Nazaire after her,” said the old blind woman to Mariotte, who was clearing the breakfast-table.
“No; but a fine lady, a marquise, has come to Les Touches, and I’ll warrant he’s after her; that’s the way at his age,” said Mariotte.
“They’ll kill him,” said Mademoiselle du Guenic.
“That won’t kill him, mademoiselle; quite the contrary,” replied Mariotte, who seemed to be pleased with Calyste’s behavior.
The young fellow started at a great pace, until Gasselin asked him if he was trying to catch the boat, which, of course, was not at all his desire. He had no wish to see either Conti or Claude again; but he did expect to be invited to drive back with the ladies, leaving Gasselin to lead his horse. He was gay as a bird, thinking to himself —
“She has just passed here; her eyes saw those trees! — What a lovely road!” he said to Gasselin.
“Ah! monsieur, Brittany is the most beautiful country in all the world,” replied the Breton. “Where could you find such flowers in the hedges, and nice cool roads that wind about like these?”
“Nowhere, Gasselin.”
“Tiens! here comes the coach from Nazaire,” cried Gasselin presently.
“Mademoiselle de Pen–Hoel and her niece will be in it. Let us hide,” said Calyste.
“Hide! are you crazy, monsieur? Why, we are on the moor!”
The coach, which was coming up the sandy hill above Saint–Nazaire, was full, and, much to the astonishment of Calyste, there were no signs of Charlotte.
“We had to leave Mademoiselle de Pen–Hoel, her sister and niece; they are dreadfully worried; but all my seats were engaged by the custom-house,” said the conductor to Gasselin.
“I am lost!” thought Calyste; “they will meet me down there.”
When Calyste reached the little esplanade which surrounds the church of Saint–Nazaire, and from which is seen Paimboeuf and the magnificent Mouths of the Loire as they struggle with the sea, he found Camille and the marquise waving their handkerchiefs as a last adieu to two passengers on the deck of the departing steamer. Beatrix was charming as she stood there, her features softened by the shadow of a rice-straw hat, on which were tufts and knots of scarlet ribbon. She wore a muslin gown with a pattern of flowers, and was leaning with one well-gloved hand on a slender parasol. Nothing is finer to the eyes than a woman poised on a rock like a statue on its pedestal. Conti could see Calyste from the vessel as he approached Camille.
“I thought,” said the young man, “that you would probably come back alone.”
“You have done right, Calyste,” she replied, pressing his hand.
Beatrix turned round, saw her young lover, and gave him the most imperious look in her repertory. A smile, which the marquise detected on the eloquent lips of Mademoiselle des Touches, made her aware of the vulgarity of such conduct, worthy only of a bourgeoise. She then said to Calyste, smiling —
“Are you not guilty of a slight impertinence in supposing that I should bore Camille, if left alone with her?”
“My dear, one man to two widows is none too much,” said Mademoiselle des Touches, taking Calyste’s arm, and leaving Beatrix to watch the vessel till it disappeared.
At this moment Calyste heard the approaching voices of Mademoiselle de Pen–Hoel, the Vicomtesse de Kergarouet, Charlotte, and Gasselin, who were all talking at once, like so many magpies. The old maid was questioning Gasselin as to ............