Books: Monsieur de Camors, v3
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"I was seized with a desire to call upon my neighbor. I spoke of it
to Louis, blushing slightly, for I remembered he did not approve of
intimacies between women. But above all, he loves me!
"Notwithstanding he slightly shrugged his shoulders--'Permit me at
least, Miss Mary, to make some inquiries about these people.'
"A few days afterward he had made them, for he said: 'Miss Mary, you
may visit Madame Jaubert; she is a perfectly proper person.'
"I first flew to my husband's neck, and thence went to call upon
Madame Jaubert.
"'It is I, Madame!'
"'Oh, Madame, permit me!'
"And we embraced each other and were good friends immediately.
"Her husband is a civil engineer, as I have said. He was once
occupied with great inventions and with great industrial works; but
that was only for a short time. Having inherited a large estate, he
abandoned his studies and did nothing--at least nothing but
mischief. When he married to increase his fortune, his pretty
little wife had a sad surprise. He was never seen at home; always
at the club--always behind the scenes at the opera--always going to
the devil! He gambled, he had mistresses and shameful affairs. But
worse than all, he drank--he came to his wife drunk. One incident,
which my pen almost refuses to write, will give you an idea. Think
of it! He conceived the idea of sleeping in his boots! There, my
mother, is the pretty fellow my sweet little friend transformed,
little by little, into a decent man, a man of merit, and an
excellent husband!
"And she did it all by gentleness, firmness, and sagacity. Now is
not this encouraging?--for, God knows, my task is less difficult.
"Their household charms me; for it proves that one may build for
one's self, even in the midst of this Paris, a little nest such as
one dreams of. These dear neighbors are inhabitants of Paris--not
its prey. They have their fireside; they own it, and it belongs to
them. Paris is at their door--so much the better. They have ever a
relish for refined amusement; 'they drink at the fountain,' but do
not drown themselves in it. Their habits are the same, passing
their evenings in conversation, reading, or music; stirring the fire
and listening to the wind and rain without, as if they were in a
forest.
"Life slips gently through their fingers, thread by thread, as in
our dear old country evenings.
"My mother, they are happy!
"Here, then, is my dream--here is my plan.
"My husband has no vices, as Monsieur Jaubert had. He has only the
habits of all the brilliant men of his Paris-world. It is
necessary, my own mother, gradually to reform him; to suggest
insensibly to him the new idea that one may pass one evening at home
in company with a beloved and loving wife, without dying suddenly of
consumption.
"The rest will follow.
"What is this rest? It is the taste for a quiet life, for the
serious sweetness of the domestic hearth--the family taste--the idea
of seclusion--the recovered soul!
"Is it not so, my good angel? Then trust me. I am more than ever
full of ardor, courage, and confidence. For he loves me with all
his heart, with more levity, perhaps, than I deserve; but still--he
loves me!
"He loves me; he spoils me; he heaps presents upon me. There is no
pleasure he does not offer me, except, be it understood, the
pleasure of passing one evening at home together.
"But he loves me! That is the great point--he loves me!
"Now, dearest mother, let me whisper one final word-a word that
makes me laugh and cry at the same time. It seems to me that for
some time past I have had two hearts--a large one of my own, and--
another--smaller!
"Oh, my mother! I see you in tears. But it is a great mystery
this. It is a dream of heaven; but perhaps only a dream, which I
have not yet told even to my husband--only to my adorable mother!
Do not weep, for it is not yet quite certain.
"Your naughty
Miss MARY."
In reply to this letter Madame de Camors received one three mornings
after, announcing to her the death of her grandfather. The Comte de
Tecle had died of apoplexy, of which his state of health had long given
warning. Madame de Tecle foresaw that the first impulse of her daughter
would be to join her to share her sad bereavement. She advised her
strongly against undertaking the fatigue of the journey, and promised to
visit her in Paris, as soon as she conveniently could. The mourning in
the family heightened in the heart of the Countess the uneasy feeling and
vague sadness her last letters had indicated.
She was much less happy than she told her mother; for the first
enthusiasm and first illusions of marriage could not long deceive a
spirit so quick and acute as hers.
A young girl who marries is easily deceived by the show of an affection
of which she is the object. It is rare that she does not adore her
husband and believe she is adored by him, simply because he has married
her.
The young heart opens spontaneously and diffuses its delicate perfume of
love and its songs of tenderness; and enveloped in this heavenly cloud
all seems love around it. But, little by little, it frees itself; and,
too often, recognizes that this delicious harmony and intoxicating
atmosphere which charmed it came only from itself.
Thus was it with the Countess; so far as the pen can render the shadows
of a feminine soul. Such were the impressions which, day by day,
penetrated the very soul of our poor "Miss Mary."
It was nothing more than this; but this was everything to her!
The idea of being betrayed by her husband--and that, too, with cruel
premeditation--never had arisen to torture her soul. But, beyond those
delicate attentions to her which she never exaggerated in her letters to
her mother, she felt herself disdained and slighted. Marriage had not
changed Camors's habits: he dined at home, instead of at his club, that
was all. She believed herself loved, however, but with a lightness that
was almost offensive. Yet, though she was sometimes sad and nearly in
tears, she did not despair; this valiant little heart attached itself
with intrepid confidence to all the happy chances the future might have
in store for it.
M. de Camors continued very indifferent--as one may readily comprehend--
to the agitation which tormented this young heart, but which never
occurred to him for a moment. For himself, strange as it may appear,
he was happy enough. This marriage had been a painful step to take;
but, once confirmed in his sin, he became reconciled to it. But his
conscience, seared as it was, had some living fibres in it; and he would
not have failed in the duty he thought he owed to his wife. These
sentiments were composed of a sort of indifference, blended with pity.
He was vaguely sorry for this child, whose existence was absorbed and
destroyed between those of two beings of nature superior to her own;
and he hoped she would always remain ignorant of the fate to which she
was condemned. He resolved never to neglect anything that might
extenuate its rigor; but he belonged, nevertheless, more than ever solely
to the passion which was the supreme crime of his life. For his intrigue
with Madame de Campvallon, continually excited by mystery and danger--and
conducted with profound address by a woman whose cunning was equal to her
beauty--continued as strong, after years of enjoyment, as at first.
The gracious courtesy of M. de Camors, on which he piqued himself, as
regarded his wife, had its limits; as the young Countess perceived
whenever she attempted to abuse it. Thus, on several occasions she
declined receiving guests on the ground of indisposition, hoping her
husband would not abandon her to her solitude. She was in error.
The Count gave her in reality, under these circumstances, a tete-a-tete
of a few minutes after dinner; but near nine o'clock he would leave her
with perfect tranquillity. Perhaps an hour later she would receive a
little packet of bonbons, or a pretty basket of choice fruit, that would
permit her to pass the evening as she might. These little gifts she
sometimes divided with her neighbor, Madame Jaubert; sometimes with
M. de Vautrot, secretary to her husband.
This M. de Vautrot, for whom she had at first conceived an aversion, was
gradually getting into her good graces. In the absence of her husband
she always found him at hand; and referred to him for many little
details, such as addresses, invitations, the selection of books and the
purchase of furniture. From this came a certain familiarity; she began
to call him Vautrot, or "My good Vautrot," while he zealously performed
all her little commissions. He manifested for her a great deal of
respectful attention, and even refrained from indulging in the sceptical
sneers which he knew displeased her. Happy to witness this reform and to
testify her gratitude, she invited him to remain on two or three evenings
when he came to take his leave, and talked with him of books and the
theatres.
When her mourning kept her at home, M. de Camors passed the two first
evenings with her until ten o'clock. But this effort fatigued him, and
the poor young woman, who had already erected an edifice for the future
on this frail basis, had the mortification of observing that on the third
evening he had resumed his bachelor habits.
This was a great blow to her, and her sadness became greater than it had
been up to that time; so much so in fact, that solitude was almost
unbearable. She had hardly been long enough in Paris to form intimacies.
Madame Jaubert came to her friend as often as she could; but in the
intervals the Countess adopted the habit of retaining Vautrot, or even of
sending for him. Camors himself, three fourths of the time, would bring
him in before going out in the evening.
"I bring you Vautrot, my dear," he would say, "and Shakespeare. You can
read him together."
Vautrot read well; and though his heavy declamatory style frequently
annoyed the Countess, she thus managed to kill many a long evening, while
waiting the expected visit of Madame de Tecle. But Vautrot, whenever he
looked at her, wore such a sympathetic air and seemed so mortified when
she did not invite him to stay, that, even when wearied of him, she
frequently did so.
About the end of the month of April, M. Vautrot was alone with the
Countess de Camors about ten o'clock in the evening. They were reading
Goethe's Faust, which she had never before heard. This reading seemed to
interest the young woman more than usual, and with her eyes fixed on the
reader, she listened to it with rapt attention. She was not alone
fascinated by the work, but--as is frequently the case-she traced her own
thoughts and her own history in the fiction of the poet.
We all know with what strange clairvoyance a mind possessed with a fixed
idea discovers resemblances and allusions in accidental description.
Madame de Camors perceived without doubt some remote connection between
her husband and Faust--between herself and Marguerite; for she could not
help showing that she was strangely agitated. She could not restrain the
violence of her emotion, when Marguerite in prison cries out, in her
agony and madness:
Marguerite.
Who has given you, headsman, this power over me? You come to me while it
is yet midnight. Be merciful and let me live.
Is not to-morrow morning soon enough?
I am yet so young--so young! and am to die already! I was fair, too;
that was my undoing. My true love was near, now he is far away.
Torn lies my garland; scattered the flowers. Don't take hold of me so
roughly! spare me! spare me. What have I done to you? Let me not
implore you in vain! I never saw you before in all my life; you know.
Faust.
Can I endure this misery?
Marguerite.
I am now entirely in thy power. Only let me give suck to the child.
I pressed it this whole night to my heart. They took it away to vex me,
and now say I killed it, and I shall never be happy again. They sing
songs upon me! It is wicked of the people. An old tale ends so--who
bids them apply it?
Faust.
A lover lies at thy feet, to unloose the bonds of wickedness.
What a blending of confused sentiments, of powerful sympathies, of vague
apprehensions, suddenly seized on the breast of the young Countess! One
can hardly imagine their force--to the very verge of distracting her.
She turned on her fauteuil and closed her beautiful eyes, as if to keep
back the tears which rolled under the fringe of the long lashes.
At this moment Vautrot ceased to read, dropped his book, sighed
profoundly, and stared a moment.
Then he knelt at the feet of the Comtesse de Camors! He took her hand;
he said, with a tragic sigh, "Poor angel!"
It will be difficult to understand this incident and the unfortunately
grave results that followed it, without having the moral and physical
portrait of its principal actor.
M. Hippolyte Vautrot was a handsome man and knew it perfectly. He even
flattered himself on a certain resemblance to his patron, the Comte de
Camors. Partly from nature and partly from continual imitation, this
idea had some foundation; for he resembled the Count as much as a vulgar
man can resemble one of the highest polish.
He was the son of a small confectioner in the provinces; had received
from his father an honestly acquired fortune, and had dissipated it in
the varied enterprises of his adventurous life. The influence of his
college, however, obtained for him a place in the Seminary. He left it
to come to Paris and study law; placed himself with an attorney;
attempted literature without success; gambled on the Bourse and lost
there.
He had successively knocked with feverish hand at all the doors of
Fortune, and none had opened to him, because, though his ambition was
great, his capacity was limited. Subordinate positions, for which alone
he was fit, he did not want. He would have made a good tutor: he sighed
to be a poet. He would have been a respectable cure in the country: he
pined to be a bishop. Fitted for an excellent secretary, he aspired to
be a minister. In fine, he wished to be a great man, and consequently
was a failure as a little one.
But he made himself a hypocrite; and that he found much easier. He
supported himself on the one hand by the philosophic society to be met at
Madame d'Oilly's; on the other, by the orthodox reunions of Madame de la
Roche-Jugan.
By these influences he contrived to secure the secretaryship to the Comte
de Camors, who, in his general contempt of the human species, judged
Vautrot to be as good as any other. Now, familiarity with M. de Camors
was, morally, fearfully prejudicial to the secretary. It had, it is
true, the effect of stripping off his devout mask, which he seldom put on
before his patron; but it terribly increased in venom the depravity which
disappointment and wounded pride had secreted in his ulcerated heart.
Of course no one will imagine that M. de Camors had the bad taste to
undertake deliberately the demoralization of his secretary; but contact,
intimacy, and example sufficed fully to do this. A secretary is always
more or less a confidant. He divines that which is not revealed to him;
and Vautrot could not be long in discovering that his patron's success
did not arise, morally, from too much principle--in politics, from excess
of conviction--in business, from a mania for scruples! The intellectual
superiority of Camors, refined and insolent as it was, aided to blind
Vautrot, showing him evil which was not only prosperous, but was also
radiant in grace and prestige. For these reasons he most profoundly
admired his master--admired, imitated, and execrated him!
Camors professed for him and for his solemn airs an utter contempt, which
he did not always take the trouble to conceal; and Vautrot trembled when
some burning sarcasm fell from such a height on the old wound of his
vanity--that wound which was ever sore within him. What he hated most in
Camors was his easy and insolent triumph--his rapid and unmerited
fortune--all those enjoyments which life yielded him without pain,
without toil, without conscience--peacefully tasted! But what he hated
above all, was that this man had thus obtained these things while he had
vainly striven for them.
Assuredly, in this Vautrot was not an exception. The same example
presented to a healthier mind would not have been much more salutary,
for we must tell those who, like M. de Camors, trample under foot all
principles of right, and nevertheless imagine that their secretaries,
their servants, their wives and their children, may remain virtuous--
we must tell these that while they wrong others they deceive themselves!
And this was the case with Hippolyte Vautrot.
He was about forty years of age--a period of life when men often become
very vicious, even when they have been passably virtuous up to that time.
He affected an austere and puritanical air; was the great man of the cafe
he frequented; and there passed judgment on his contemporaries and
pronounced them all inferior. He was difficult to please--in point of
virtue demanding heroism; in talent, genius; in art, perfection.
His political opinions were those of Erostratus, with this difference--
always in favor of the ancient--that Vautrot, after setting fire to the
temple, would have robbed it also. In short, he was a fool, but a
vicious fool as well.
If M. de Camors, at the moment of leaving his luxurious study that
evening, had had the bad taste to turn and apply his eye to the keyhole,
he would have seen something greatly to astonish even him.
He would have seen this "honorable man" approach a beautiful Italian
cabinet inlaid with ivory, turn over the papers in the drawers, and
finally open in the most natural manner a very complicated lock, the
key of which the Count at that moment had in his pocket.
It was after this search that M. Vautrot repaired with his volume of
Faust to the boudoir of the young Countess, at whose feet we have already
left him too long.
CHAPTER XVII
LIGHTNING FROM A CLEAR SKY
Madame de Camors had closed her eyes to conceal her tears. She opened
them at the instant Vautrot seized her hand and called her "Poor angel!"
Seeing the man on his knees, she could not comprehend it, and only
exclaimed, simply:
"Are you mad, Vautrot?"
"Yes, I am mad!" Vautrot threw his hair back with a romantic gesture
common to him, and, as he believed, to the poets-"Yes, I am mad with love
and with pity, for I see your sufferings, pure and noble victim!"
The Countess only stared in blank astonishment.
"Repose yourself with confidence," he continued, "on a heart that will be
devoted to you until death--a heart into which your tears now penetrate
to its most sacred depths!"
The Countess did not wish her tears to penetrate to such a distance, so
she dried them.
A man on his knees before a woman he adores must appear to her either
sublime or ridiculous. Unfortunately, the attitude of Vautrot, at once
theatrical and awkward, did not seem sublime to the Countess. To her
lively imagination it was irresistibly ludicrous. A bright gleam of
amusement illumined her charming countenance; she bit her lip to conceal
it, but it shone out of her eyes nevertheless.
A man never should kneel unless sure of rising a conqueror. Otherwise,
like Vautrot, he exposes himself to be laughed at.
"Rise, my good Vautrot," the Countess said, gravely. "This book has
evidently bewildered you. Go and take some rest and we will forget this;
only you must never forget yourself again in this manner."
Vautrot rose. He was livid.
"Madame la Comtesse," he said, bitterly, "the love of a great heart never
can be an offence. Mine at least would have been sincere; mine would
have been faithful: mine would not have been an infamous snare!"
The emphasis of these words displayed so evident an intention, the
countenance of the young woman changed immediately. She moved uneasily
on her fauteuil.
"What do you mean, Monsieur Vautrot?"
"Nothing, Madame, which you do not know, I think," he replied, meaningly.
She rose.
"You shall explain your meaning immediately to me, Monsieur!" she
exclaimed; "or later, to my husband."
"But your sadness, your tears," cried the secretary, in a tone of
admirable sincerity--"these made me sure you were not ignorant of it!"
"Of what? You hesitate! Speak, man!"
"I am not a wretch! I love you and pity you!--that is all;" and Vautrot
sighed deeply.
"And why do you pity me?" She spoke haughtily; and though Vautrot had
never suspected this imperiousness of manner or of language, he reflected
hurriedly on the point at which he had arrived. More sure than ever of
success, after a moment he took from his pocket a folded letter. It was
one with which he had provided himself to confirm the suspicions of the
Countess, now awakened for the first time.
In profound silence he unfolded and handed it to her. She hesitated a
moment, then seized it. A single glance recognized the writing, for she
had often exchanged notes with the Marquise de Campvallon.
Words of the most burning passion terminated thus:
"--Always a little jealous of Mary; half vexed at having given her to
you. For--she is pretty and--but I! I am beautiful, am I not, my
beloved?--and, above all, I adore you!"
At the first word the Countess became fearfully pale. Finishing, she
uttered a deep groan; then she reread the letter and returned it to
Vautrot, as if unconscious of what she was doing.
For a few seconds she remained motionless--petrified--her eyes fixed on
vacancy. A world seemed rolling down and crushing her heart.
Suddenly she turned, passed with rapid steps into her boudoir; and
Vautrot heard the sound of opening and shutting drawers. A moment after
she reappeared with bonnet and cloak, and crossed the boudoir with the
same strong and rapid step.
Vautrot, greatly terrified, rushed to stop her.
"Madame!" he cried, throwing himself before her.
She waved him aside with an imperious gesture of her hand; he trembled
and obeyed, and she left the boudoir. A moment later she was in the
Avenue des Champs Elysees, going toward Paris.
It was now near midnight; cold, damp April weather, with the rain falling
in great drops. The few pedestrians still on the broad pavement turned
to follow with their eyes this majestic young woman, whose gait seemed
hastened by some errand of life or death.
But in Paris nothing is surprising, for people witness all manner of
things there. Therefore the strange appearance of Madame de Camors did
not excite any extraordinary attention. A few men smiled and nodded;
others threw a few words of raillery at her--both were unheeded alike.
She traversed the Place de la Concorde with the same convulsive haste,
and passed toward the bridge. Arriving on it, the sound of the swollen
Seine rushing under the arches and against the pillars, caught her ear;
she stopped, leaned against the parapet, and gazed into the angry water;
then bowing her head she uttered a deep sigh, and resumed her rapid walk.
In the Rue Vanneau she stopped before a brilliantly lighted mansion,
isolated from the adjoining houses by a garden wall. It was the dwelling
of the Marquise de Campvallon: Arrived there, the unfortunate child knew
not what to do, nor even why she had come. She had some vague design of
assuring herself palpably of her misfortune; to touch it with her finger;
or perhaps to find some reason, some pretext to doubt it.
She dropped down on a stone bench against the garden wall, and hid her
face in both her hands, vainly striving to think. It was past midnight.
The streets were deserted: a shower of rain was falling over Paris, and
she was chilled to numbness.
A sergent-de-ville passed, enveloped in his cape. He turned and stared
at the young woman; then took her roughly by the arm.
"What are you doing here?" he said, brutally.
She looked up at him with wondering eyes.
"I do not know myself," she answered.
The man looked more closely at her, discovered through all her confusion
a nameless refinement and the subtle perfume of purity. He took pity on
her.
"But, Madame, you can not stay here," he rejoined in a softer voice.
"No?"
"You must have some great sorrow?"
"Very great."
"What is your name?"
"The Comtesse de Camors," she said, simply.
The man looked bewildered.
"Will you tell me where you live, Madame?"
She gave the address with perfect simplicity and perfect indifference.
She seemed to be thinking nothing of what she was saying. The man took a
few steps, then stopped and listened to the sound of wheels approaching.
The carriage was empty. He stopped it, opened the door, and requested
the Countess to get in. She did so quietly, and he placed himself beside
the driver.
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