Books: Cosmopolis, v4
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Paul Bourget >> Cosmopolis, v4
Another material proof was soon joined to that moral proof. Granted the
character and the habits of the Countess, since she had not shown Maud's
letter to her daughter there and then, it was because the letter was not
fit to be shown. But she heard on the following day only the description
of the duel, related by Maitland to Madame Steno, the savage aggression
of Gorka against Dorsenne, the composure of the latter and the issue,
relatively harmless, of the two duels.
"You see," said her mother to her, "I was right in saying that Gorka is
mad!.... It seems he has had a fit of insanity since the duel, and that
they prevent him from seeing any one.... Can you now comprehend how Maud
could blame me for what is hereditary in the Gorka family?"
Such was indeed the story which the Venetian and her friends, Hafner,
Ardea, and others, circulated throughout Rome in order to diminish the
scandal. The accusation of madness is very common to women who have
goaded to excess man's passion, and who then wish to avoid all blame for
the deeds or words of that man. In this case, Boleslas's fury and his
two incomprehensible duels, fifteen minutes apart, justified the story.
When it became known in the city that the Palazzetto Doria was strictly
closed, that Maud Gorka received no one, and finally that she was taking
away her husband in the manner which resembled a flight, no doubt
remained of the young man's wrecked reason.
Two persons profited very handsomely by the gossiping, the origin of
which was a mystery. One was the innkeeper of the 'Tempo Perso', whose
simple 'bettola' became, during those few days, a veritable place of
pilgrimage, and who sold a quantity of wine and numbers of fresh eggs.
The other was Dorsenne's publisher, of whom the Roman booksellers ordered
several hundred volumes.
"If I had had that duel in Paris," said the novelist to Mademoiselle
Steno, relating to her the unforeseen result, "I should perhaps have at
length known the intoxication of the thirtieth edition."
It was a few days after the departure of the Gorkas that he jested thus,
at a large dinner of twenty-four covers, given at Villa Steno in honor of
Peppino Ardea and Fanny Hafner. Reestablished in the Countess's favor
since his duel, he had again become a frequenter of her house, so much
the more assiduous as the increasing melancholy of Alba interested him
greatly. The enigma of the young girl's character redoubled that
interest at each visit in such a degree that, notwithstanding the heat,
already beginning, of the dangerous Roman summer, he constantly deferred
his return to Paris until the morrow. What had she guessed in
consequence of the encounter, the details of which she had asked of him
with an emotion scarcely hidden in her eyes of a blue as clear, as
transparent, as impenetrable at the same time, as the water of certain
Alpine lakes at the foot of the glaciers. He thought he was doing right
in corroborating the story of Boleslas Gorka's madness, which he knew
better than any one else to be false. But was it not the surest means of
exempting Madame Steno from connection with the affair? Why had he seen
Alba's beautiful eyes veiled with a sadness inexplicable, as if he had
just given her another blow? He did not know that since the day on which
the word insanity had been uttered before her relative to Maud's husband,
the Contessina was the victim of a reasoning as simple as irrefutable.
"If Boleslas be mad, as they say," said Alba, "why does Maud, whom I know
to be so just and who loves me so dearly, attribute to my mother the
responsibility of this duel, to the point of breaking with me thus, and
of leaving without a line of explanation?.... No.... There is something
else.".... The nature of the "something else" the young girl
comprehended, on recalling her mother's face during the perusal of Maud's
letter. During the ten days following that scene, she saw constantly
before her that face, and the fear imprinted upon those features
ordinarily so calm, so haughty! Ah, poor little soul, indeed, who could
not succeed in banishing this fixed idea "My mother is not a good woman."
Idea! So much the more terrible, as Alba had no longer the ignorance of
a young girl, if she had the innocence. Accustomed to the conversations,
at times very bold, of the Countess's salon, enlightened by the reading
of novels chanced upon, the words lover and mistress had for her a
signification of physical intimacy such that it was an almost intolerable
torture for her to associate them with the relations of her mother, first
toward Gorka, then toward Maitland. That torture she had undergone
during the entire dinner, at the conclusion of which Dorsenne essayed to
chat gayly with her. She sat beside the painter, and the man's very
breath, his gestures, the sound of his voice, his manner of eating and of
drinking, the knowledge of his very proximity, had caused her such keen
suffering that it was impossible for her to take anything but large
glasses of iced water. Several times during that dinner, prolonged amid
the sparkle of magnificent silver and Venetian crystal, amid the perfume
of flowers and the gleam of jewels, she had seen Maitland's eyes fixed
upon the Countess with an expression which almost caused her to cry out,
so clearly did her instinct divine its impassioned sensuality, and once
she thought she saw her mother respond to it.
She felt with appalling clearness that which before she had uncertainly
experienced, the immodest character of that mother's beauty. With the
pearls in her fair hair, with neck and arms bare in a corsage the
delicate green tint of which showed to advantage the incomparable
splendor of her skin, with her dewy lips, with her voluptuous eyes shaded
by their long lashes, the dogaresse looked in the centre of that table
like an empress and like a courtesan. She resembled the Caterina
Cornaro, the gallant queen of the island of Cypress, painted by Titian,
and whose name she worthily bore. For years Alba had been so proud of
the ray of seduction cast forth by the Countess, so proud of those
statuesque arms, of the superb carriage, of the face which defied the
passage of time, of the bloom of opulent life the glorious creature
displayed. During that dinner she was almost ashamed of it.
She had been pained to see Madame Maitland seated a few paces farther on,
with brow and lips contracted as if by thoughts of bitterness. She
wondered: Does Lydia suspect them, too? But was it possible that her
mother, whom she knew to be so generous, so magnanimous, so kind, could
have that smile of sovereign tranquillity with such secrets in her heart?
Was it possible that she could have betrayed Maud for months and months
with the same light of joy in her eyes?
"Come," said Julien, stopping himself suddenly in the midst of a speech,
in which he had related two or three literary anecdotes. "Instead of
listening to your friend Dorsenne, little Countess, you are following
several blue devils flying through the room."
"They would fly, in any case," replied Alba, who, pointing to Fanny
Hafner and Prince d'Ardea seated on a couch, continued: "Has what I told
you a few weeks since been realized? You do not know all the irony of
it. You have not assisted, as I did the day before yesterday, at the
poor girl's baptism."
"It is true," replied Julien, "you were godmother. I dreamed of Leo
Thirteenth as godfather, with a princess of the house of Bourbon as
godmother. Hafner's triumph would have been complete!"
"He had to content himself with his ambassador and your servant," replied
Alba with a faint smile, which was speedily converted into an expression
of bitterness. "Are you satisfied with your pupil?" she added. "I am
progressing.... I laugh--when I wish to weep.... But you yourself would
not have laughed had you seen the fervor of charming Fanny. She was the
picture of blissful faith. Do not scoff at her."
"And where did the ceremony take place?" asked Dorsenne, obeying the
almost suppliant injunction.
"In the chapel of the Dames du Cenacle."
"I know the place," replied the novelist, "one of the most beautiful
corners of Rome! It is in the old Palais Piancini, a large mansion
almost opposite the 'Calcographie Royale', where they sell those
fantastic etchings of the great Piranese, those dungeons and those ruins
of so intense a poesy! It is the Gaya of stone. There is a garden on
the terrace. And to ascend to the chapel one follows a winding
staircase, an incline without steps, and one meets nuns in violet gowns,
with faces so delicate in the white framework of their bonnets. In
short, an ideal retreat for one of my heroines. My old friend Montfanon
took me there. As we ascended to that tower, six weeks ago, we heard the
shrill voices of ten little girls, singing: 'Questo cuor tu la vedrai'.
It was a procession of catechists, going in the opposite direction, with
tapers which flickered dimly in the remnant of daylight.... It was
exquisite.... But, now permit me to laugh at the thought of Montfanon's
choler when I relate to him this baptism. If I knew where to find the
old leaguer! But he has been hiding since our duel. He is in some
retreat doing penance. As I have already told you, the world for him has
not stirred since Francois de Guise. He only admits the alms of the
Protestants and the Jews. When Monseigneur Guerillot tells him of
Fanny's religious aspirations, he raves immoderately. Were she to cast
herself to the lions, like Saint Blandine, he would still cry out
'sacrilege.'"
"He did not see her the day before yesterday," said Alba, "nor the
expression upon her face when she recited the Credo. I do not believe in
mysticism, you know, and I have moments of doubt. There are times when
I can no longer believe in anything, life seems to me so wretched and
sad.... But I shall never forget that expression. She saw God!....
Several women were present with very touching faces, and there were many
devotees.... The Cardinal is very venerable.... All were by Fanny's
side, like saints around the Madonna in the early paintings which you
have taught me to like, and when the baptism had been gone through, guess
what she said to me: 'Come, let us pray for my dear father, and for his
conversion.' Is not such blindness melancholy."
"The fact is," said Dorsenne again, jocosely, "that in the father's
dictionary the word has another meaning: Conversion, feminine
substantive, means to him income.... But let us reason a little,
Countess. Why do you think it sad that the daughter should see her
father's character in her own light?.... You should, on the contrary,
rejoice at it.... And why do you find it melancholy that this adorable
saint should be the daughter of a thief?.... How I wish that you were
really my pupil, and that it would not be too absurd to give you here,
in this corner of the hall, a lesson in intellectuality!.... I would say
to you, when you see one of those anomalies which renders you indignant,
think of the causes. It is so easy. Although Protestant, Fanny is of
Jewish origin--that is to say, the descendant of a persecuted race--which
in consequence has developed by the side of the inherent defects of a
proscribed people the corresponding virtues, the devotion, the abnegation
of the woman who feels that she is the grace of a threatened hearth, the
sweet flower which perfumes the sombre prison."
"It is all beautiful and true," replied Alba, very seriously. She had
hung upon Dorsenne's lips while he spoke, with the instinctive taste for
ideas of that order which proved her veritable origin. "But you do not
mention the sorrow. This is what one can not do--look upon as a
tapestry, as a picture, as an object; the creature who has not asked to
live and who suffers. You, who have feeling, what is your theory when
you weep?"
"I can very clearly foresee the day on which Fanny will feel her
misfortune," continued the young girl. "I do not know when she will
begin to judge her father, but that she already begins to judge Ardea,
alas, I am only too sure.... Watch her at this moment, I pray you."
Dorsenne indeed looked at the couple. Fanny was listening to the Prince,
but with a trace of suffering upon her beautiful face, so pure in outline
that the nobleness in it was ideal.
He was laughing at some anecdote which he thought excellent, and which
clashed with the sense of delicacy of the person to whom he was
addressing himself. They were no longer the couple who, in the early
days of their betrothal, had given to Julien the sentiment of a complete
illusion on the part of the young girl for her future husband.
"You are right, Contessina," said he, "the decrystallization has
commenced. It is a little too soon."
"Yes, it is too soon," replied Alba. "And yet it is too late. Would you
believe that there are times when I ask myself if it would not be my duty
to tell her the truth about her marriage, such as I know it, with the
story of the weak man, the forced sale, and of the bargaining of Ardea?"
"You will not do it," said Dorsenne. "Moreover, why? This one or
another, the man who marries her will only want her money, rest assured.
It is necessary that the millions be paid for here below, it is one of
their ransoms.... But I shall cause you to be scolded by your mother,
for I am monopolizing you, and I have still two calls to pay this
evening."
"Well, postpone them," said Alba. "I beseech you, do not go."
"I must," replied Julien. "It is the last Wednesday of old Duchess
Pietrapertosa, and after her grandson's recent kindness--"
"She is so ugly," said Alba, "will you sacrifice me to her?"
"Then there is my compatriot, who goes away tomorrow and of whom I must
take leave this evening, Madame de Sauve, with whom you met me at the
museum .... You will not say she is ugly, will you?"
"No," responded Alba, dreamily, "she is very pretty.".... She had another
prayer upon her lips, which she did not formulate. Then, with a
beseeching glance: "Return, at least. Promise me that you will return
after your two visits. They will be over in an hour and a half. It will
not be midnight. You know some do not ever come before one and sometimes
two o'clock. You will return?"
"If possible, yes. But at any rate, we shall meet to-morrow, at the
studio, to see the portrait."
"Then, adieu," said the young girl, in a low voice.
CHAPTER X
COMMON MISERY
The Contessina's disposition was too different from her mother's for the
mother to comprehend that heart, the more contracted in proportion as it
was touched, while emotion was synonymous with expansion in the opulent
and impulsive Venetian. That evening she had not even observed Alba's
dreaminess, Dorsenne once gone, and it required that Hafner should call
her attention to it. To the scheming Baron, if the novelist was
attentive to the young girl it was certainly with the object of capturing
a considerable dowry. Julien's income of twenty-five thousand francs
meant independence. The two hundred and fifty thousand francs which Alba
would have at her mother's death was a very large fortune. So Hafner
thought he would deserve the name of "old friend," by taking Madame Steno
aside and saying to her:
"Do you not think Alba has been a little strange for several days!"
"She has always been so," replied the Countess. "Young people are like
that nowadays; there is no more youth."
"Do you not think," continued the Baron, "that perhaps there is another
cause for that sadness--some interest in some one, for example?"
"Alba?" exclaimed the mother. "For whom?"
"For Dorsenne," returned Hafner, lowering his voice; "he just left five
minutes ago, and you see she is no longer interested in anything nor in
any one."
"Ah, I should be very much pleased," said Madame Steno, laughing. "He is
a handsome fellow; he has talent, fortune. He is the grand-nephew of a
hero, which is equivalent to nobility, in my opinion. But Alba has no
thought of it, I assure you. She would have told me; she tells me
everything. We are two friends, almost two comrades, and she knows I
shall leave her perfectly free to choose.... No, my old friend,
I understand my daughter. Neither Dorsenne nor any one else interests
her, unfortunately. I sometimes fear she will go into a decline, like
her cousin Andryana Navagero, whom she resembles.... But I must cheer
her up. It will not take long."
"A Dorsenne for a son-in-law!" said Hafner to himself, as he watched the
Countess walk toward Alba through the scattered groups of her guests, and
he shook his head, turning his eyes with satisfaction upon his future
son-in-law. "That is what comes of not watching one's children closely.
One fancies one understands them until some folly opens one's eyes!....
And, it is too late!.... Well, I have warned her, and it is no affair of
mine!"
In spite of Fanny's observed and increasing vexation Ardea amused himself
by relating to her anecdotes, more or less true, of the goings-on in the
Vatican. He thus attempted to abate a Catholic enthusiasm at which he
was already offended. His sense of the ridiculous and that of his social
interest made him perceive how absurd it would be to go into clerical
society after having taken for a wife a millionaire converted the day
before. To be just, it must be added that the Countess's dry champagne
was not altogether irresponsible for the persistency with which he teased
his betrothed. It was not the first time he had indulged in the semi-
intoxication which had been one of the sins of his youth, a sin less rare
in the southern climates than the modesty of the North imagines.
"You come opportunely, Contessina," said he, when Mademoiselle Steno had
seated herself upon the couch beside them. "Your friend is scandalized
by a little story I have just told her.... The one of the noble guard
who used the telephone of the Vatican this winter to appoint rendezvous
with Guilia Rezzonico without awakening the jealousy of Ugolino.... But
it is nothing. I have almost quarrelled with Fanny for having revealed
to her that the Holy Father repeated his benediction in Chapel Sixtine,
with a singing master, like a prima donna...."
"I have already told you that I do not like those jests," said Fanny,
with visible irritation, which her patience, however, governed. "If you
desire to continue them, I will leave you to converse with Alba."
"Since you see that you annoy her," said the latter to the Prince,
"change the subject."
"Ah, Contessina," replied Peppino, shaking his head, "you support her
already. What will it be later? Well, I apologize for my innocent
epigrams on His Holiness in his dressing-gown. And," he continued,
laughing, "it is a pity, for I have still two or three entertaining
stories, notably one about a coffer filled with gold pieces, which a
faithful bequeathed to the Pope. And that poor, dear man was about to
count them when the coffer slipped from his hand, and there was the
entire treasure on the floor, and the Pope and a cardinal on all fours
were scrambling for the napoleons, when a servant entered.... Tableau!
....I assure you that good Pius IX would be the first to laugh with us at
all the Vatican jokes. He is not so much 'alla mano'. But he is a holy
man just the same. Do not think I do not render him justice. Only, the
holy man is a man, and a good old man. That is what you do not wish to
see."
"Where are you going?" said Alba to Fanny, who had risen as she had
threatened to do.
"To talk with my father, to whom I have several words to say."
"I warned you to change the subject," said Alba, when she and the Prince
were alone. Ardea, somewhat abashed, shrugged his shoulders and laughed:
"You will confess that the situation is quite piquant, little
Countess.... You will see she will forbid me to go to the Quirinal....
Only one thing will be lacking, and it is that Papa Hafner should
discover religious scruples which would prevent him from greeting the
King.... But Fanny must be appeased!"
"My God!" said Alba to herself, seeing the young man rise in his turn.
"I believe he is intoxicated. What a pity!"
As have almost all revolutions of that order, the work of Christianity,
accomplished for years, in Fanny had for its principle an example.
The death of a friend, the sublime death of a true believer, ended by
determining her faith. She saw the dying woman receive the sacrament,
and the ineffable joy of the benediction upon the face of the sufferer of
twenty lighted up by ecstasy. She heard her say, with a smile of
conviction:
"I go to ask you of Our Lord, Jesus Christ."
How could she have resisted such a cry and such a sight?
The very day after that death she asked of her father permission to be
baptized, which request drew from the Baron a reply too significant not
to be repeated here:
"Undoubtedly," had replied the surprising man, who instead of a heart,
had a Bourse list on which all was tariffed, even God, "undoubtedly I am
touched, very deeply touched, and very happy to see that religious
matters preoccupy you to such a degree. To the people it is a necessary
curb, and to us it accords with a certain rank, a certain society, a
certain deportment. I think that a person called like you to live in
Austria and in Italy should be a Catholic. However, it is necessary to
remember that you might marry some one of another faith. Do not object.
I am your father. I can foresee all. I know you will marry only
according to the dictates of your heart. Wait then until it has spoken,
to settle the question.... If you love a Catholic, you will then have
occasion to pay a compliment to your betrothed by adopting his faith, of
which he will be very sensible.... From now until then, I shall not
prevent you from following ceremonies which please you. Those of the
Roman liturgy are, assuredly, among the best; I myself attended Saint
Peter's at the time of the pontifical government.... The taste, the
magnificence, the music, all moved me.... But to take a definite,
irreparable step, I repeat, you must wait. Your actual condition of a
Protestant has the grand sentiment of being more neutral, less defined."
What words to listen to by a heart already touched by the attraction of
'grace and by the nostalgia of eternal life! But the heart was that of a
young girl very pure and very tender. To judge her father was to her
impossible, and the Baron's firmness had convinced her that she must obey
his wishes and pray that he be enlightened. She therefore waited,
hoping, sustained and directed meanwhile by Cardinal Guerillot, who later
on was to baptize her and to obtain for her the favor of approaching the
holy table for the first time at the Pope's mass. That prelate, one of
the noblest figures of which the French bishopric has had cause to be
proud, since Monseigneur Pie, was one of those grand Christians for whom
the hand of God is as visible in the direction of human beings as it is
invisible to doubtful souls. When Fanny, already devoted to her
charities, confided in him the serious troubles of her mind and the
discord which had arisen between her and her father on the so essential
point of her baptism, the Cardinal replied:
"Have faith in God. He will give you a sign when your time has come."
And he uttered those words with an accent whose conviction had filled the
young girl with a certainty which had never left her.
In spite of his seventy years, and of the experiences of the confession,
in spite of the disenchanting struggle with the freemasonry of his French
diocese, which had caused his exile to Rome, the venerable man looked at
Fanny's marriage from a supernatural standpoint. Many priests are thus
capable of a naivete which, on careful analysis, is often in the right.
But at the moment the antithesis between the authentic reality and that
which they believe, constitutes an irony almost absurd. When he had
baptized Fanny, the old Bishop of Clermont was possessed by a joy so deep
that he said to her, to express to her the more delicately the tender
respect of his friendship:
"I can now say as did Saint Monica after the baptism of Saint Augustine:
'Cur hic sim, nescio; jam consumpta spe hujus saeculi'. I do not know
why I remain here below. All my hope of the age is consummated. And
like her I can add--the only thing which made me desire to remain awhile
was to see you a Catholic before dying. The traveller, who has tarried,
has now nothing to do but to go. He has gathered the last and the
prettiest flower."....
Noble and faithful apostle, who was indeed to go so shortly after,
meriting what they said of him, that which the African bishop said of his
mother: "That religious soul was at length absolved from her body."....
He did not anticipate that he would pay dearly for that realization of
his last wish! He did not foresee that she whom he ingenuously termed
his most beautiful flower was to become to him the principal cause of
bitter sorrow. Poor, grand Cardinal! It was the final trial of his
life, the supremely bitter drop in his chalice, to assist at the
disenchantment which followed so closely upon the blissful intoxication
of his gentle neophyte's first initiation. To whom, if not to him,
should she have gone to ask counsel, in all the tormenting doubts which
she at once began to have in her feelings with regard to her fiance?