Books: Gerfaut, v2

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"A few moments later, I reached the pavilion at the Montanvert, where I
found a gay company gathered together, made up principally of English
people. As for myself, I must admit the frivolous, or, rather mundane,
bent of my tastes; the truly admirable spectacle presented to my eyes
interested me much less than the young stranger, who at this moment was
descending with the lightness of a sylph the little road which led to the
Mer de Glace.

"I do not know what mysterious link bound me to this woman. I had met
many much more beautiful, but the sight of them had left me perfectly
indifferent. This one attracted me from the first. The singular
circumstances of this first interview, doubtless, had something to do
with the impression. I felt glad to see that she had kept my bouquet;
she held it in one hand, while she leaned with the other upon a staff
somewhat like my own. The two other ladies, and even the men had stopped
on the edge of the ice.

Monsieur de Mauleon wished to fulfil his duties as escort, but at the
first crevasse he had also halted without manifesting the slightest
desire to imitate the chamois. The young woman seemed to take a
malicious pleasure in contemplating her admirer's prudent attitude, and,
far from listening to the advice he gave her, she began to run upon the
ice, bounding over the crevasses with the aid of her stick. I was
admiring her lightness and thoughtlessness, but with an uneasy feeling,
when I saw her suddenly stop. I instinctively ran toward her. An
enormous crevasse of great depth lay at her feet, blue at its edges and
dark in its depths. She stood motionless before this frightful gulf with
hands thrown out before her in horror, but charmed like a bird about to
be swallowed by a serpent. I knew the irresistible effect upon nervous
temperaments of this magnetic attraction toward an abyss. I seized her
by the arm, the suddenness of the movement made her drop her staff and
flowers, which fell into the depths of the chasm.

"I tried to lead her away, but after she had taken a few steps, I felt
her totter; she had grown pale; her eyes were closed. I threw my arm
about her, in order to support her and turned her face toward the north;
the cold air striking her revived her, and she soon opened her beautiful
brown eyes. I do not know what sudden tenderness seized me then, but I
pressed this lovely creature within my grasp, and she remained in my arms
unresistingly. I felt that I loved her already.

"She remained for a moment with her languishing eyes fixed on mine,
making no response, perhaps not even having heard me. The shouts of her
party, some of whom were coming toward her, broke the charm. With a
rapid movement, she withdrew from my embrace, and I offered her my arm,
just as if we were in a drawing-room and I was about to lead her out for
a dance; she took it, but I did not feel elated at this, for I could feel
her knees waver at every step. The smallest crevasse, which she had
crossed before with such agility, now inspired her with a horror which I
could divine by the trembling of her arm within mine. I was obliged to
make numerous detours in order to avoid them, and thus prolonged the
distance, for which I was not sorry. Did I not know that when we reached
our destination, the world, that other sea of ice, was going to take her
away from me, perhaps forever? We walked silently, occasionally making a
few trivial remarks, both deeply embarrassed. When we reached the
persons who awaited her, I said, as she disengaged my arm:

"'You dropped my flowers, Madame; will it be the same with your memory of
me?'

"She looked at me, but made no reply. I loved this silence. I bowed
politely to her and returned to the pavilion, while she related her
adventure to her friends; but I am quite sure she did not tell all the
details.

"The register for travellers who visit the Montan-Vert is a mixture of
all nationalities, and no tourist refuses his tribute; modest ones write
down their names only. I hoped in this way to learn the name of the
young traveller, and I was not disappointed. I soon saw the corpulent
Monsieur de Mauleon busily writing his name upon the register in
characters worthy of Monsieur Prudhomme; the other members of the little
party followed his example. The young woman was the last to write down
her name. I took the book in my turn, after she had left, and with
apparent composure I read upon the last line these words, written in a
slender handwriting:

"Baroness Clemence de Bergenheim."

CHAPTER VII

GERFAUT ASKS A FAVOR

"The Baroness de Bergenheim!" exclaimed Marillac. "Ah! I understand it
all now, and you may dispense with the remainder of your story. So this
was the reason why, instead of visiting the banks of the Rhine as we
agreed, you made me leave the route at Strasbourg under the pretext of
walking through the picturesque sites of the Vosges. It was unworthy of
you to abuse my confidence as a friend. And I allowed myself to be led
by the nose to within a mile of Bergenheim!"

"Peace," interrupted Gerfaut; "I have not finished. Smoke and listen.

"I followed Madame de Bergenheim as far as Geneva. She had gone there
from here with her aunt, and had availed herself of this journey to visit
Mont Blanc. She left for her home the next day without my meeting her
again; but I preserved her name, and it was not unknown to me. I had
heard it spoken in several houses in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, and I
knew that I should certainly have an opportunity of meeting her during
the winter.

"So I remained at Geneva, yielding to a sensation as new as it was
strange. It first acted upon my brain whose ice I felt melting away,
and its sources ready to gush forth. I seized my pen with a passion not
unlike an access of rage. I finished in four days two acts of a drama
that I was then writing. I never had written anything more vigorous or
more highly colored. My unconstrained genius throbbed in my arteries,
ran through my blood, and bubbled over as if it wished to burst forth.
My hand could not keep even with the course of my imagination; I was
obliged to write in hieroglyphics.

"Adieu to the empty reveries brought about by spleen, and to the
meditations 'a la Werther'! The sky was blue, the air pure, life
delightful--my talent was not dead.

"After this first effort, I slackened a little! Madame de Bergenheim's
face, which I had seen but dimly during this short time, returned to me
in a less vaporous form; I took extreme delight in calling to mind the
slightest circumstances of our meeting, the smallest details of her
features, her toilette, her manner of walking and carrying her head.
What had impressed me most was the extreme softness of her dark eyes,
the almost childish tone of her voice, a vague odor of heliotrope with
which her hair was perfumed; also the touch of her hand upon my arm.
I sometimes caught myself embracing myself in order to feel this last
sensation again, and then I could not help laughing at my thoughts, which
were worthy of a fifteen-year-old lover.

"I had felt so convinced of my powerlessness to love, that the thought of
a serious passion did not at first enter my mind. However, a remembrance
of my beautiful traveller pervaded my thoughts more and more, and
threatened to usurp the place of everything else. I then subjected
myself to a rigid analysis; I sought for the exact location of this
sentiment whose involuntary yoke I already felt; I persuaded myself,
for some time yet, that it was only the transient excitement of my brain,
one of those fevers of imagination whose fleeting titillations I had felt
more than once.

"But I realized that the evil, or the good--for why call love an evil?--
had penetrated into the most remote regions of my being, and I realized
the energy of my struggle like a person entombed who tries to extricate
himself. From the ashes of this volcano which I had believed to be
extinct, a flower had suddenly blossomed, perfumed with the most fragrant
of odors and decked with the most charming colors. Artless enthusiasm,
faith in love, all the brilliant array of the fresh illusions of my youth
returned, as if by enchantment, to greet this new bloom of my life; it
seemed to me as if I had been created a second time, since I was aided by
intelligence and understood its mysteries while tasting of its delights.
My past, in the presence of this regeneration, was nothing more than a
shadow at the bottom of an abyss. I turned toward the future with the
faith of a Mussulman who kneels with his face toward the East--I loved!

"I returned to Paris, and applied to my friend Casorans, who knows the
Faubourg Saint-Germain from Dan to Beersheba.

"'Madame de Bergenheim,' he said to me, 'is a very popular society woman,
not very pretty, perhaps, rather clever, though, and very amiable. She
is one of our coquettes of the old nobility, and with her twenty-four
carats' virtue she always has two sufferers attached to her chariot,
and a third on the waiting-list, and yet it is impossible for one to find
a word to say against her behavior. Just at this moment, Mauleon and
d'Arzenac compose the team; I do not know who is on the waiting-list.
She will probably spend the winter here with her aunt, Mademoiselle de
Corandeuil, one of the hatefullest old women on the Rue de Varennes.
The husband is a good fellow who, since the July revolution, has lived
upon his estates, caring for his forests and killing wild boars without
troubling himself much about his wife.'

"He then told me which houses these ladies frequented, and left me,
saying with a knowing air:

"'Take care, if you intend to try the power of your seductions upon the
little Baroness; whoever meddles with her smarts for it!'

"This information from a viper like Casorans satisfied me in every way.
Evidently the place was not taken; impregnable, that was another thing.

"Before Madame de Bergenheim's return, I began to show myself assiduously
at the houses of which my friend had spoken. My position in the Faubourg
Saint-Germain is peculiar, but good, according to my opinion. I have
enough family ties to be sustained by several should I be attacked by
many, and this is the essential point. It is true that, thanks to my
works, I am regarded as an atheist and a Jacobin; aside from these two
little defects, they think well enough of me. Besides, it is a notorious
fact that I have rejected several offers from the present government,
and refused last year the 'croix d'honneur'; this makes amends and washes
away half my sins. Finally, I have the reputation of having a certain-
knowledge of heraldry, which I owe to my uncle, a confirmed hunter after
genealogical claims. This gains me a respect which makes me laugh
sometimes, when I see people who detest me greet me as cordially as the
Cure of Saint-Eustache greeted Bayle, for fear that I might destroy their
favorite saint. However, in this society, I am no longer Gerfaut of the
Porte-Saint-Martin, but I am the Vicomte de Gerfaut. Perhaps, with your
bourgeois ideas, you do not understand--"

"Bourgeois!" exclaimed Marillac, bounding from his seat, "what are you
talking about? Do you wish that we should cut each other's throats
before breakfast to-morrow? Bourgeois! why not grocer? I am an artist--
don't you know that by this time?"

"Don't get angry, my dear fellow; I meant to say that in certain places
the title of a Vicomte has still a more powerful attraction than you,
with your artistic but plebeian ideas, would suppose in this year of our
Lord 1832."

"Well and good. I accept your apology."

"A vicomte's title is a recommendation in the eyes of people who still
cling to the baubles of nobility, and all women are of this class. There
is something, I know not what, delicate and knightly in this title, which
suits a youngish bachelor. Duke above all titles is the one that sounds
the best. Moliere and Regnard have done great harm to the title of
marquis. Count is terribly bourgeois, thanks to the senators of the
empire. As to a Baron, unless he is called Montmorency or Beaufremont,
it is the lowest grade of nobility; vicomte, on the contrary, is above
reproach; it exhales a mixed odor of the old regime and young France;
then, don't you know, our Chateaubriand was a vicomte.

"I departed from my subject in speaking of nobility. I accidentally
turned over one day to the article upon my family in the Dictionnaire de
Saint-Allais; I found that one of my ancestors, Christophe de Gerfaut,
married, in 1569, a Mademoiselle Yolande de Corandeuil.

"'O my ancestor! O my ancestress!' I exclaimed, 'you had strange
baptismal names; but no matter, I thank you. You are going to serve me
as a grappling iron; I shall be very unskilful if at the very first
meeting the old aunt escapes Christophe.'

"A few days later I went to the Marquise de Chameillan's, one of the most
exclusive houses in the noble Faubourg. When I enter her drawing-room,
I usually cause the same sensation that Beelzebub would doubtless produce
should he put his foot into one of the drawing-rooms in Paradise. That
evening, when I was announced, I saw a certain undulation of heads in a
group of young women who were whispering to one another; many curious
eyes were fastened upon me, and among these beautiful eyes were two more
beautiful than all the others: they were those of my bewitching
traveller.

"I exchanged a rapid glance with her, one only; after paying my respects
to the mistress of the house, I mingled with a crowd of men, and entered
into conversation with an old peer upon some political question, avoiding
to look again toward Madame de Bergenheim.

"A moment later, Madame de Chameillan came to ask the peer to play whist;
he excused himself, he could not remain late.

"'I dare not ask you to play with Mademoiselle de Corandeuil,' said she,
turning toward me; 'besides, I understand too well that it is to my
interest and the pleasure of these ladies, not to exile you to a whist
table.'

"I took the card which she half offered me with an eagerness which might
have made her suppose that I had become a confirmed whist expert during
my voyage.

"Mademoiselle de Corandeuil certainly was the ugly, crabbed creature that
Casorans had described; but had she been as frightful as the witches in
Macbeth I was determined to make her conquest. So I began playing with
unusual attention. I was her partner, and I knew from experience the
profound horror which the loss of money inspires in old women. Thank
heaven, we won! Mademoiselle de Corandeuil, who has an income of one
hundred thousand francs, was not at all indifferent to the gain of two or
three louis. She, therefore, with an almost gracious air, congratulated
me, as we left the table, upon my manner of playing.

"'I would willingly contract an alliance, offensive and defensive with
you,' said she to me.

"'The alliance is already contracted, Mademoiselle,' said I, seizing the
opportunity.

"'How is that, Monsieur?' she replied, raising her head with a dignified
air, as if she were getting ready to rebuke some impertinent speech.

"I also gravely straightened up and gave a feudal look to my face.

"'Mademoiselle, I have the honor of belonging to your family, a little
distantly, to be sure; that is what makes me speak of an alliance between
us as a thing already concluded. One of my ancestors, Christophe de
Gerfaut, married Mademoiselle Yolande de Corandeuil, one of your great-
grand-aunts, in 1569.'

"'Yolande is really a family name,' replied the old lady, with the most
affable smile that her face would admit; 'I bear it myself. The
Corandeuils, Monsieur, never have denied their alliances, and it is a
pleasure for me to recognize my relationship with such a man as you. We
address by the title of cousin relatives as far back as 1300.'

"'I am nearer related to you by three centuries,' I replied, in my most
insinuating voice; 'may I hope that this good fortune will authorize me
to pay my respects to you?'

"Mademoiselle de Corandeuil replied to my 'tartuferie' by granting me
permission to call upon her. My attention was not so much absorbed in
our conversation that I did not see in a mirror, during this time, the
interest with which Madame de Bergenheim watched my conversation with her
aunt; but I was careful not to turn around, and I let her take her
departure without giving her a second glance.

"Three days later, I made my first call. Madame de Bergenheim received
my greeting like a woman who had been warned and was, therefore,
prepared. We exchanged only one rapid, earnest glance, that was all.
Availing myself of the presence of other callers, numerous enough to
assure each one his liberty, I began to observe, with a practised eye,
the field whereon I had just taken my position.

"Before the end of the evening, I recognized the correctness of
Casorans's information. Among all the gentlemen present I found only
two professed admirers: Monsieur de Mauleon, whose insignificance was
notorious, and Monsieur d'Arzenac, who appeared at first glance as if
he might be more to be feared. D'Arzenac, thanks to an income of ten
thousand livres, beside being a man of rank, occupies also one of the
finest positions that one could desire; he is not unworthy of his name
and his fortune. Irreproachable in morals as in manners; sufficiently
well informed; of an exquisite but reserved politeness; understanding
perfectly the ground that he is walking upon; making also more advances
than is customary among the pachas of modern France, he was, without
doubt, the flower of the flock in Mademoiselle de Corandeuil's drawing-
room. In spite of all these advantages, an attentive examination showed
me that his passion was hopeless. Madame de Bergenheim received his
attentions very kindly--too kindly. She usually listened to him with a
smile in which one could read gratitude for the devotion he lavished upon
her. She willingly accepted him as her favorite partner in the galop,
which he danced to perfection. His success stopped there.

"At the end of several days, the ground having been carefully explored
and the admirers, dangerous and otherwise, having been passed in review,
one after another, I felt convinced that Clemence loved nobody.

"'She shall love me,' said I, on the day I reached this conclusion. In
order to formulate in a decisive manner the accomplishment of my desire,
I relied upon the following propositions, which are to me articles of
faith.

"No woman is unattainable, except when she loves another. Thus, a woman
who does not love, and who has resisted nine admirers, will yield to the
tenth. The only question for me was to be the tenth. Here began the
problem to be solved.

"Madame de Bergenheim had been married only three years; her husband, who
was good-looking and young, passed for a model husband; if these latter
considerations were of little importance, the first was of great weight.
According to all probability, it was too soon for any serious attack.
Without being beautiful, she pleased much and many; a second obstacle,
since sensibility in women is almost always developed in inverse ratio to
their success. She had brains; she was wonderfully aristocratic in all
her tastes.

Last, being very much the fashion, sought after and envied, she was under
the special surveillance of pious persons, old maids, retired beauties in
one word, all that feminine mounted police, whose eyes, ears, and mouths
seem to have assumed the express mission of annoying sensitive hearts
while watching over the preservation of good morals.

"This mass of difficulties, none of which escaped me, traced as many
lines upon my forehead as if I had been commanded to solve at once all
the propositions in Euclid. She shall love me! these words flashed
unceasingly before my eyes; but the means to attain this end? No
satisfactory plan came to me. Women are so capricious, deep, and
unfathomable! It is, with them, the thing soonest done which is soonest
ended! A false step, the least awkwardness, a want of intelligence, a
quarter of an hour too soon or too late! One thing only was evident: it
needed a grand display of attractions, a complete plan of gallant
strategy; but, then, what more?

"That earthly paradise of the Montanvert was far from us, where I had
been able in less time than it would take to walk over a quadrille, to
expose her to death, to save her afterward, and finally to say to her 'I
love you!' Passion in drawing-rooms is not allowed those free, dramatic
ways; flowers fade in the candle-light; the oppressive atmosphere of
balls and fetes stifles the heart, so ready to dilate in pure mountain
air. The unexpected and irresistible influence of the glacier would have
been improper and foolish in Paris. There, an artless sympathy, stronger
than social conventions, had drawn us to each other--Octave and Clemence.
Here, she was the Baroness de Bergenheim, and I the Vicomte de Gerfaut.
I must from necessity enter the ordinary route, begin the romance at the
first page, without knowing how to connect the prologue with it.

"What should be my plan of campaign?

"Should I pose as an agreeable man, and try to captivate her attention
and good graces by the minute attentions and delicate flattery which
constitute what is classically called paying court? But D'Arzenac had
seized this role, and filled it in such a superior way that all
competition would be unsuccessful. I saw where this had led him. It
needed, in order to inflame this heart, a more active spark than foppish
gallantry; the latter flatters the vanity without reaching the heart.

"There was the passionate method--ardent, burning, fierce love. There
are some women upon whom convulsive sighs drawn from the depths of the
stomach, eyebrows frowning in a fantastic manner, and eyes in which only
the whites are to be seen and which seem to say: 'Love me, or I will kill
you!' produce a prodigious effect. I had myself felt the power of this
fascination while using it one day upon a softhearted blond creature who
thought it delightful to have a Blue-Beard for a lover. But the drooping
corners of Clemence's mouth showed at times an ironical expression which
would have cooled down even an Othello's outbursts.

"'She has brains, and she knows it,' said I to myself; 'shall I attack
her in that direction?' Women rather like such a little war of words; it
gives them an opportunity for displaying a mine of pretty expressions,
piquant pouts, fresh bursts of laughter, graceful peculiarities of which
they well know the effect. Should I be the Benedict to this Beatrice?
But this by-play would hardly fill the prologue, and I very much wished
to reach the epilogue.

"I passed in review the different routes that a lover might take to reach
his end; I recapitulated every one of the more or less infallible methods
of conquering female hearts; in a word, I went over my tactics like a
lieutenant about to drill a battalion of recruits. When I had ended I
had made no farther advance than before.

"'To the devil with systems!' exclaimed I; 'I will not be so foolish as
wilfully to adopt the role of roue when I feel called upon to play the
plain role of true lover. Let those who like play the part of Lovelace!
As for myself, I will love; upon the whole, that is what pleases best.'
And I jumped headlong into the torrent without troubling myself as to the
place of landing.

"While I was thus scheming my attack, Madame de Bergenheim was upon her
guard and had prepared her means of defence. Puzzled by my reserve,
which was in singular contrast with my almost extravagant conduct at our
first meeting, her woman's intelligence had surmised, on my part, a plan
which she proposed to baffle. I was partly found out, but I knew it and
thus kept the advantage.

"I could not help smiling at the Baroness's clever coquetry, when I
decided to follow the inspirations of my heart, instead of choosing
selfish motives as my guide. Every time I took her hand when dancing
with her, I expected to feel a little claw ready to pierce the cold
glove. But, while waiting for the scratch, it was a very soft, velvety
little hand that was given me; and I, who willingly lent myself to her
deception, did not feel very much duped. It was evident that the sort of
halo which my merited or unmerited reputation had thrown over me had made
me appear to her as a conquest of some value, a victim upon whom one
could lavish just enough flowers in order to bring him to the sacrificial
altar. In order to wind the first chain around my neck, Mauleon and
D'Arzenac, 'a tutti quanti', were sacrificed for me without my
soliciting, even by a glance, this general disbandment. I could
interpret this discharge. I saw that the fair one wished to concentrate
all her seductions against me, so as to leave me no means of escape;
people neglect the hares to hunt for the deer. You must excuse my
conceit.

"This conduct wounded me at first, but I afterward forgave her, when a
more careful examination taught me to know this adorable woman's
character. Coquetry was with her not a vice of the heart or of an
unscrupulous mind; having nothing better to do, she enjoyed it as a
legitimate pastime, without giving it any importance or feeling any
scruples. Like all women, she liked to please; her success was sweet to
her vanity; perhaps flattery turned her head at times, but in the midst
of this tumult her heart remained in perfect peace. She found so little
danger for herself in the game she played that it did not seem to her
that it could be very serious for others. Genuine love is not common
enough in Parisian parlors for a pretty woman to conceive any great
remorse at pleasing without loving.

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