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Charles de Bernard >> Gerfaut, v1
The stranger parted the branches before him to get a better view; at the
same instant he was blinded by a terrible flash which lighted the whole
valley and was immediately followed by a terrific crash. When he opened
his eyes the chateau which he believed to be at the bottom of the river
stood still upright, solemn, and firm as before; but the lady in the
rose-colored gown had disappeared.
CHAPTER II
THE CASTLE OF BERGENHEIM
The appearance of the room into which the lady had precipitately entered,
when startled by the thunder, corresponded with the edifice to which it
belonged. It was a very large room, longer than it was wide, and lighted
by three windows, the middle one of which opened from top to bottom like
a door and led out upon the balcony. The woodwork and ceiling were in
chestnut, which time had polished and a skilful hand had ornamented with
a profusion of allegorical figures. The beauty of this work of art was
almost entirely concealed by a very remarkable decoration which covered
every side of the room, consisting of one of the most glorious
collections of family portraits which a country chateau of the nineteenth
century could offer.
The first of these portraits hung opposite the windows at the right of
the entrance door and was that of a chevalier in full armor, whose teeth
gleamed from under his long moustache like those of an untamed tiger.
Beginning with this formidable figure, which bore the date 1247, forty
others of about the same dimensions were placed in order according to
their dates. It seemed as if each period had left its mark upon those of
the personages it had seen live and die, and had left something of its
own character there.
There were more gallant cavaliers cut after the same pattern as the
first. Their stern, harsh faces, red beards, and broad, square military
shoulders told that by swordthrusts and broken lances they had founded
the nobility of their race. An heroic preface to this family biography!
A rough and warlike page of the Middle Ages! After these proud men-of-
arms came several figures of a less ferocious aspect, but not so
imposing. In these portraits of the fifteenth century beards had
disappeared with the sword. In those wearing caps and velvet toques,
silk robes and heavy gold chains supporting a badge of the same metal,
one recognized lords in full and tranquil possession of the fiefs won by
their fathers, landowners who had degenerated a little and preferred
mountain life in a manor to the chances of a more hazardous existence.
These pacific gentlemen were, for the most part, painted with the left
hand gloved and resting upon the hip; the right one was bare, a sort of
token of disarmament which one might take for a painter's epigram.
Some of them had allowed their favorite dogs to share the honors of the
picture. All in this group indicated that this branch of the family had
many points of resemblance with the more illustrious faces. It was the
period of idle kings.
A half dozen solemn personages with gold-braided hats and long red robes
bordered with ermine, and wearing starched ruffles, occupied one corner
of the parlor near the windows. These worthy advisers of the Dukes of
Lorraine explained the way in which the masters of the chateau had
awakened from the torpor in which they had been plunged for several
generations, in order to participate in the affairs of their country and
enter a more active sphere.
Here the portraits assumed the proportions of history. Did not this
branch, descended from warlike stock, seem like a fragment taken from the
European annals? Was it not a symbolical image of the progress of
civilization, of regular legislation struggling against barbaric customs?
Thanks to these respectable counsellors and judges, one might reverse the
motto: 'Non solum toga', in favor of their race. But it did not seem as
if these bearded ancestors looked with much gratitude upon this
parliamentary flower added to their feudal crest. They appeared to look
down from the height of their worm-eaten frames upon their enrobed
descendants with that disdainful smile with which the peers of France
used to greet men of law the first time they were called to sit by their
side, after being for so long a time at their feet.
In the space between the windows and upon the remaining woodwork was a
crowd of military men, with here and there an Abbe with cross and mitre,
a Commander of Malta, and a solemn Canon, sterile branches of this
genealogical tree. Several among the military ones wore sashes and
plumes of the colors of Lorraine; others, even before the union of this
province to France, had served the latter country; there were lieutenant-
colonels of infantry and cavalry; some dressed in blue coats lined with
buff serge and little round patches of black plush, which served as the
uniform for the dragoons of the Lorraine legion.
Last of all was a young man with an agreeable face, who smiled
superciliously from under a vast wig of powdered hair; a rose was in the
buttonhole of his green cloth pelisse with orange facings, a red
sabrecache hung against his boots a little lower than the hilt of his
sabre. The costume represented a sprightly officer of the Royal Nassau
hussars. The portrait was hung on the left of the entrance door and only
separated by it from his great-grandfather of 1247, whom he might have
assisted, had these venerable portraits taken some night a fancy to
descend from their frames to execute a dance such as Hoffmann dreamed.
These two persons were the alpha and the omega of this genealogical tree,
the two extreme links of the chain-one, the root buried in the sands of
time; the other, the branch which had blossomed at the top. Fate had
created a tragical resemblance between these two lives, separated by more
than five centuries. The chevalier in coat-of-mail had been killed in
the battle of the Mansourah during the first crusade of St. Louis. The
young man with the supercilious smile had mounted the scaffold during the
Reign of Terror, holding between his lips a rose, his usual decoration
for his coat. The history of the French nobility was embodied in these
two men, born in blood, who had died in blood.
Large gilded frames of Gothic style surrounded all these portraits. At
the right, on the bottom of each picture was painted a little escutcheon
having for its crest a baronial coronet and for supports two wild men
armed with clubs. The field was red; with its three bulls' heads in
silver, it announced to people well versed in heraldic art that they had
before them the lineaments of noble and powerful lords, squires of
Reisnach-Bergenheim, lords of Reisnach in Suabia, barons of the Holy
Empire, lords of Sapois, Labresse, Gerbamont, etc., counts of Bergenheim,
the latter title granted them by Louis XV, chevaliers of Lorraine, etc.,
etc., etc.
This ostentatious enumeration was not needed in order to recognize the
kindred of all these noble personages. Had they been mingled with other
portraits, a careful observer would have promptly distinguished and
reunited them, so pronounced were the family features common to them all.
The furniture of the room was not unworthy of these proud defunct ones.
High-backed chairs and enormous armchairs, dating from the time of Louis
XIII; more modern sofas, which had been made to harmonize with the older
furniture, filled the room. They were covered with flowered tapestry in
thousands of shades, which must have busied the white hands of the ladies
of the house for two or three generations past.
The row of portraits was interrupted on one side by a large fireplace of
grayish granite, which was too high for one to hang a mirror above or to
place ornaments upon its mantel. Opposite was an ebony console inlaid
with ivory, upon which was placed one of those elegant clocks whose
delicate and original chased work has not been eclipsed by any modern
workmanship. Two large Japanese vases accompanied it; the whole was
reflected in an antique mirror which hung above the console; its edges
were bevelled, doubtless in order to cause one to admire the thickness of
the glass.
It would be impossible to imagine a stronger contrast than that of this
Gothic room with the lady in the rose-colored gown who had just entered
it so precipitately. The fire upon the hearth threw a warm light over
the old portraits, and it was heightened by the heavy, red damask
curtains which hung by the windows. The light sometimes softened,
sometimes revivified by some sudden flash of the flames, glanced over the
scowling faces and red beards, enlivening the eyes and giving a
supernatural animation to those lifeless canvases. One would have said
that the cold, grave faces looked with curiosity at the young woman with
graceful movements and cool garments, whom Aladdin's genii seemed to have
transported from the most elegant boudoir on the Chaussee d'Antin, and
thrown, still frightened, into the midst of this strange assembly.
"You are crazy, Clemence, to leave that window open!" said at this
moment an old voice issuing from an armchair placed in a corner near the
fireplace.
The person who broke the charm of this silent scene was a woman of sixty
or seventy years of age, according to the gallantry of the calculator.
It was easy to judge that she was tall and thin as she lay, rather than
sat, in her chair with its back lowered down. She was dressed in a
yellowish-brown gown. A false front as black as jet, surmounted by a cap
with poppy-colored ribbons, framed her face. She had sharp, withered
features, and the brilliancy of her primitive freshness had been
converted into a blotched and pimpled complexion which affected above all
her nose and cheek-bones, but whose ardor had been dimmed only a trifle
by age. There was something about the whole face as crabbed, sour, and
unkind as if she had daily bathed it in vinegar. One could read old maid
in every feature! Besides, a slight observation of her ways would have
destroyed all lingering doubt in this respect.
A large, coffee-colored pug-dog was lying before the fire. This
interesting animal served as a footstool for his mistress, stretched in
her easy-chair, and recalled to mind the lions which sleep at the foot of
chevaliers in their Gothic tombs. As a pug-dog and an old maid pertain
to each other, it was only necessary, in order to divine this venerable
lady's state, to read the name upon the golden circlet which served as a
collar for the dog: "Constance belongs to Mademoiselle de Corandeuil."
Before the younger lady, who was leaning upon the back of a chair,
seeming to breathe with difficulty, had time to reply, she received a
second injunction.
"But, aunt," said she, at last, "it was a horrible crash! Did you not
hear it?"
"I am not so deaf as that yet," replied the old maid. "Shut that window;
do you not know that currents of air attract lightning?"
Clemence obeyed, dropping the curtain to shut out the flashes of
lightning which continued to dart through the heavens; she then
approached the fireplace.
"Since you are so afraid of lightning," said her aunt; "which, by the
way, is perfectly ridiculous in a Corandeuil, what induced you to go out
upon the balcony? The sleeve of your gown is wet. That is the way one
gets cold; afterward, there is nothing but an endless array of syrups and
drugs. You ought to change your gown and put on something warmer. Who
would ever think of dressing like that in such weather as this?"
"I assure you, aunt, it is not cold. It is because you have a habit of
always being near the fire--"
"Ah! habit! when you are my age you will not hint at such a thing. Now,
everything goes wonderfully well; you never listen to my advice--you go
out in the wind and rain with that flighty Aline and your husband, who
has no more sense than his sister; you will pay for it later. Open the
curtains, I pray; the storm is over, and I wish to read the Gazette."
The young woman obeyed a second time and stood with her forehead pressed
against the glass. The distant rumbling of the thunder announced the end
of the storm; but a few flashes still traversed the horizon.
"Aunt," said she, after a moment's silence, "come and look at the
Montigny rocks; when the lightning strikes them they look like a file of
silver columns or a procession of ghosts."
"What a romantic speech," growled the old lady, never taking her eyes
from her paper.
"I assure you I am not romantic the least in the world," replied
Clemence. "I simply find the storm a distraction, and here, you know,
there is no great choice of pleasures."
"Then you find it dull?"
"Oh, aunt, horribly so!" At these words, pronounced with a heartfelt
accent, the young woman dropped into an armchair.
Mademoiselle de Corandeuil took off her eye-glasses, put the paper upon
the table and gazed for several moments at her pretty niece's face, which
was tinged with a look of deep melancholy. She then straightened herself
up in her chair, and, leaning forward, asked in a low tone:
"Have you had any trouble with your husband?"
"If so, I should not be so bored," replied Clemence, in a gay tone, which
she repented immediately, for she continued more calmly:
"No, aunt; Christian is kind, very kind; he is very much attached to me,
and full of good-humor and attentions. You have seen how he has allowed
me to arrange my apartments to suit myself, even taking down the
partition and enlarging the windows; and yet, you know how much he clings
to everything that is old about the house. He tries to do everything for
my pleasure. Did he not go to Strasbourg the other day to buy a pony for
me, because I thought Titania was too skittish? It would be impossible
to show greater kindness."
"Your husband," suddenly interrupted Mademoiselle de Corandeuil, for she
held the praise of others in sovereign displeasure, "is a Bergenheim like
all the Bergenheims present, past, and future, including your little
sister-in-law, who appears more as if she had been brought up with boys
than at the 'Sacred Heart.' He is a worthy son of his father there,"
said she, pointing to one of the portraits near the young Royal-Nassau
officer; "and he was the most brutal, unbearable, and detestable of all
the dragoons in Lorraine; so much so that he got into three quarrels at
Nancy in one month, and at Metz, over a game of checkers, he killed the
poor Vicomte de Megrigny, who was worth a hundred of him and danced so
well! Some one described Bergenheim as being 'proud as a peacock, as
stubborn as a mule, and as furious as a lion!' Ugly race! ugly race!
What I say to you now, Clemence, is to excuse your husband's faults, for
it would be time lost to try to correct them. However, all men are
alike; and since you are Madame de Bergenheim, you must accept your fate
and bear it as well as possible. And then, if you have your troubles,
you still have your good aunt to whom you can confide them and who will
not allow you to be tyrannized over. I will speak to your husband."
Clemence saw, from the first words of this tirade, that she must arm
herself with resignation; for anything which concerned the Bergenheims
aroused one of the hobbies which the old maid rode with a most complacent
spite; so she settled herself back in her chair like a person who would
at least be comfortable while she listened to a tiresome discourse, and
busied herself during this lecture caressing with the tip of a very
shapely foot the top of one of the andirons.
"But, aunt," said she at last, when the tirade was over, and she gave a
rather drawling expression to her voice, "I can not understand why you
have taken this idea into your head that Christian renders me unhappy.
I repeat it, it is impossible that one should be kinder to me than he,
and, on my side, I have the greatest respect and friendship for him."
"Very well, if he is such a pearl of husbands, if you live so much like
turtle-doves-and, to tell the truth, I do not believe a word of it--what
causes this ennui of which you complain and which has been perfectly
noticeable for some time? When I say ennui, it is more than that; it is
sadness, it is grief? You grow thinner every day; you are as pale as a
ghost; just at this moment, your complexion is gone; you will end by
being a regular fright. They say that it is the fashion to be pale
nowadays; a silly notion, indeed, but it will not last, for complexion
makes the woman."
The old lady said this like a person who had her reasons for not liking
pale complexions, and who gladly took pimples for roses.
Madame de Bergenheim bowed her head as if to acquiesce in this decision,
and then resumed in her drawling voice:
"I know that I am very unreasonable, and I am often vexed with myself for
having so little control over my feelings, but it is beyond my strength.
I have a tired sensation, a disgust for everything, something which I can
not overcome. It is an inexplicable physical and moral languor,
for which, for this reason, I see no remedy. I am weary and I suffer;
I am sure it will end in my being ill. Sometimes I wish I were dead.
However, I have really no reason to be unhappy. I suppose I am happy--
I ought to be happy."
"Truly, I can not understand in the least the women of today. Formerly,
upon exciting occasions, we had a good nervous attack and all was over;
the crisis passed, we became amiable again, put on rouge and went to a
ball. Now it is languor, ennui, stomach troubles--all imagination and
humbug! The men are just as bad, and they call it spleen! Spleen!
a new discovery, an English importation! Fine things come to us from
England; to begin with, the constitutional government! All this is
perfectly ridiculous. As for you, Clemence, you ought to put an end to
such childishness. Two months ago, in Paris, you did not have any of the
rest that you enjoy here. I had serious reasons for wishing to delay my
departure; my apartment to refurnish, my neuralgia which still troubles
me--and Constance, who had just been in the hands of the doctor, was
hardly in a condition to travel, poor creature! You would listen to
nothing; we had to submit to your caprices, and now--"
"But, aunt, you admitted yourself that it was the proper thing for me to
do, to join my husband. Was it not enough, and too much, to have left
him to pass the entire winter alone here while I was dancing in Paris?"
"It was very proper, of course, and I do not blame you. But why does the
very thing you so much desired two months ago bore you so terribly now?
In Paris you talked all the time of Bergenheim, longed only for
Bergenheim, you had duties to fulfil, you wished to be with your husband;
you bothered and wore me out with your conjugal love. When back at
Bergenheim, you dream and sigh for Paris. Do not shake your head; I am
an old aunt to whom you pay no heed, but who sees clearly yet. Will you
do me the favor to tell me what it is that you regret in Paris at this
time of the year, when there are no balls or parties, and not one human
being worth visiting, for all the people you know are in the country? Is
it because--"
Mademoiselle de Corandeuil did not finish her sentence, but she put a
severity into these three words which seemed to condense all the
quintessence of prudery that a celibacy of sixty years could coagulate in
an old maid's heart.
Clemence raised her eyes to her aunt's face as if to demand an
explanation.
It was such a calm, steady glance that the latter could not help being
impressed by it.
"Well," said she, softening her voice, "there is no necessity for putting
on such queenly airs; we are here alone, and you know that I am a kind
aunt to you. Now, then, speak freely--have you left anything or any
person in Paris, the remembrance of which makes your sojourn here more
tiresome than it really is? Any of your adorers of the winter?"
"What an idea, aunt! Did I have any adorers?" exclaimed Madame de
Bergenheim, quickly, as if trying to conceal by a smile the rosy flush
that mounted to her cheeks.
"And what if you should have some, child?" continued the old maid, to
whom curiosity lent an unaccustomed coaxing accent to her voice, "where
would be the harm? Is it forbidden to please? When one is of good
birth, must one not live in society and hold one's position there? One
need not bury one's self in a desert at twenty-three years of age, and
you really are charming enough to inspire love; you understand, I do not
say, to experience it; but when one is young and pretty conquests are
made almost unwittingly. You are not the first of the family to whom
that has happened; you are a Corandeuil. Now, then, my good Clemence,
what troubled heart is pining for you in Paris? Is it Monsieur de
Mauleon?"
"Monsieur de Mauleon!" exclaimed the young woman, bursting into
laughter; "he, a heart! and a troubled one, too! Oh, aunt, you do him
honor! Monsieur de Mauleon, who is past forty-five years old and wears
stays! an audacious man who squeezes his partners' hands in the dance and
looks at them with passionate glances! Oh! Monsieur de Mauleon!"
Mademoiselle de Corandeuil sanctioned by a slight grimace of her thin
lips her niece's burst of gayety, when, with one hand upon her heart, she
rolled her sparkling eyes in imitation of the languishing air of her
unfortunate adorer.
"Perhaps it is Monsieur d'Arzenac?"
"Monsieur d'Arzenac is certainly very nice; he has perfect manners; it
may be that he did not disdain to chat with me; on my side, I found his
conversation very entertaining; but you may rest assured that he did not
think of me nor I of him. Besides, you know that he is engaged to marry
Mademoiselle de la Neuville."
"Monsieur de Gerfaut?" continued Mademoiselle de Corandeuil, with the
persistency with which aged people follow an idea, and as if determined
to pass in review all the young men of their acquaintance until she had
discovered her niece's secret.
The latter was silent a moment before replying.
"How can you think of such a thing, aunt?" said she at last, "a man with
such a bad reputation, who writes books that one hardly dares read, and
plays that it's almost a sin to witness! Did you not hear Madame de
Pontivers say that a young woman who cared for her reputation would
permit his visits very rarely?"
"Madame de Pontivers is a prude, whom I can not endure, with her show of
little, grimaces and her pretentious, outrageous mock-modesty. Did she
not take it into her head this winter to constitute me her chaperon?
I gave her to understand that a widow forty years old was quite old
enough to go about alone! She has a mania for fearing that she may be
compromised. The idea of turning up her nose at Monsieur de Gerfaut!
What presumption! He certainly is too clever ever to solicit the honor
of being bored to death in her house; for he is clever, very clever. I
never could understand your dislike for him, nor your haughty manner of
treating him; especially, during the latter part of our stay in Paris."
"One is not mistress of one's dislikes or affections, aunt. But to reply
to your questions, I will say that you may rest assured that none of
these gentlemen, nor any of those whom you might name, has the slightest
effect upon my state of mind. I am bored because it probably is my
nature to need distractions, and there are none in this deserted place.
It is an involuntary disagreeableness, for which I reproach myself and
which I hope will pass away. Rest assured, that the root of the evil
does not lie in my heart."
Mademoiselle de Corandeuil understood by the cold and rather dry tone in
which these words were spoken that her niece wished to keep her secret,
if she had one; she could not prevent a gesture of anger as she saw her
advances thus repelled, but felt that she was no wiser than when she
began the conversation. She manifested her disappointment by pushing the
dog aside with her foot--the poor thing was perfectly innocent!--and in a
cross tone, which was much more familiar than her former coaxing one, she
continued:
"Very well, since I am wrong, since your husband adores you and you him,
since, to sum it all up, your heart is perfectly tranquil and free, your
conduct is devoid of common-sense, and I advise you to change it. I warn
you that all this hypochondria, paleness, and languor are caprices which
are very disagreeable to others. There is a Provence proverb which says:
Vaillance de Blacas, prudence de Pontevez, caprice de Corandeuil. If
there was not such a saying, it should be created for you, for you have
something incomprehensible enough in your character to make a saint
swear. If anybody should know you, it is I, who brought you up. I do
not wish to reproach you, but you gave me trouble enough; you were a most
wayward, capricious, and fantastic creature, a spoiled child--"
"Aunt," interrupted Clemence, with heightened color in her pale cheeks,
"you have told me of my faults often enough for me to know them, and, if
they were not corrected, it was not your fault, for you never spared me
scoldings. If I had not been so unfortunate as to lose my mother when I
was a baby, I should not have given you so much trouble."