The next morning the Marquise de Campvallon was strolling beside a large circular sheet of water which ornamented the lower part of her park, the metallic gleam of the rippling waves being discernible from afar through the branches of the surrounding trees.
She walked slowly along the bank of the lake, her head bowed, and the long skirt of her mourning-robe sweeping the grass. Two large and dazzlingly white swans, watching their mistress eagerly, in expectation of receiving their usual titbits from her hands, swam close to the bank, following her steps as if escorting her.
Suddenly the Comte de Camors appeared before her. She had believed that she never should see him again. She raised her head quickly and pressed one hand to her heart.
“Yes, it is I!” said Camors. “Give me your hand.”
She gave it to him.
“You were right, Charlotte,” he said, after a moment of silence. “Ties like ours can not be broken. I have reflected on everything. I was seized with a momentary cowardice, for which I have reproached myself bitterly, and for which, moreover, I have been sufficiently punished. But I come to you to ask your forgiveness.”
The Marquise led him tenderly into the deep shadow of the great plane-trees that surrounded the lake; she knelt before him with theatric grace, and fixed on him her swimming eyes. She covered his head with kisses. He raised her and pressed her to his heart.
“But you do not wish that crime to be committed?” he said in a low voice.
She bent her head with mournful indecision.
“For that matter,” he added, bitterly, “it would only make us worthier of each other; for, as to myself, they have already believed me capable of it.”
He took her arm and recounted to her briefly the scene of the night before.
He told her he had not returned home, and never should. This was the result of his mournful meditations. To attempt an explanation with those who had so mortally outraged him—to open to them the depth of his heart—to allude to the criminal thought they had accused him of—he had repelled with horror, the evening before, when proposed by another. He thought of all this; but this humiliation—if he could have so abased himself—would have been useless. How could he hope to conquer by these words the distrust capable of creating such suspicions?
He confusedly divined the origin, and understood that this distrust, envenomed by remembrance of the past, was incurable.
The sentiment of the irreparable, of revolted pride, indignation, and even injustice, had shown him but one refuge, and it was this to which he had fled.
The Comtesse de Camors and Madame de Tecle learned only through their servants and the public of the removal of the Count to a country-house he had rented near the Chateau Campvallon. After writing ten letters—all of which he had burned—he had decided to maintain an absolute silence. They sometimes trembled at the thought he might take away his son. He thought of it; but it was a kind of vengeance that he disdained.
This move, which publicly proclaimed the relations existing between M. de Camors and the Marquise, made a sensation in the Parisian world, where it was soon known. It revived again the strange recollections and rumors that all remembered. Camors heard of them, but despised them.
His pride, which was then exasperated by a savage irritation, was gratified at defying public opinion, which had been so easily duped before. He knew there was no situation one could not impose upon the world providing one had wealth and audacity. From this day he resumed energetically the love of his life, his habits, his labors, and his thoughts for the future. Madame de Campvallon was the confidante of all his projects, and added her own care to them; and both occupied themselves in organizing in advance their mutual existence, hereafter blended forever. The personal fortune of M. de Camors, united to that of the Marquise, left no limits to the fancies which their imagination could devise. They arranged to live separately at Paris, though the Marquise’s salon should be common to both; but their double influence would shine at the same time, and they would be the social centre of a sovereign influence. The Marquise would reign by the splendor of her person over the society of letters, art, and politics. Camors would there find the means of action which could not fail to accomplish the high destiny to which his talent and his ambition called him.
This was the life that had appeared to them in the origin of their liaison as a sort of ideal of human happiness—that of two superior beings, who proudly shared, above the masses, all the pleasures of earth, the intoxication of passion, the enjoyment of intellectual strength, the satisfaction of pride, and the emotions of power. The eclat of such a life would constitute the vengeance of Camors, and force to repent bitterly those who had dared to misunderstand him. The recent mourning of the Marquise commanded them, notwithstanding, to adjourn the realization of their dream, if they did not wish to wound the conscience of the public. They felt it, and resolved to travel for a few months before settling in Paris. The time that passed in their preparations for the future, and in arrangements for this voyage, was to Madame de Campvallon the sweetest period of her life. She finally tasted to the full an intimacy, so long troubled, of which the charm, in truth, was very great; for her lover, as if to make her forget his momentary desertion, was prodigal in the effusion of his tenderness. He brought to private studies, as well as to their common schemes, an ardor, a fire, which displayed itself in his face, in his eyes, and which seemed yet more to heighten his manly beauty. It often happened, after quitting the Marquise in the evening, that he worked very late at home, sometimes until morning. One night, shortly before the day fixed for their departure, a private servant of the Count, who slept in the room above his master’s, heard a noise which alarmed him.
He went down in great haste, and found M. de Camors stretched apparently lifeless on the floor at the foot of his desk. The servant, whose name was Daniel, had all his master’s confidence, and he loved him with that singular affection which strong natures often inspire in their inferiors.
He sent for Madame de Campvallon, who soon came. M. de Camors, recovering from his fainting-fit, was very pale, and was walking across the room when she entered. He seemed irritated at seeing her, and rebuked his servant sharply for his ill-advised zeal.
He said he had only had a touch of vertigo, to which he was subject. Madame de Campvallon soon retired, having first supplicated him not to overwork himself again. When he came to her next day, she could not help being surprised at the dejection stamped on his face, which she attributed to the attack he had had the night before. But when she spoke of their approaching departure, she was astonished, and even alarmed by his reply:
“Let us defer it a little, I beg of you,” he said. “I do not feel in a state fit for travelling.”
Days passed; he made no further allusion to the voyage. He was serious, silent, and cold. The active ardor, almost feverish, which had animated until then his life, his speech, his eyes, was suddenly quenched. One symptom which disquieted the Marquise above all was the absolute idleness to which he now abandoned himself.
He left her in the evening at an early hour. Daniel told the Marquise that the Count worked no longer; that he heard him pacing up and down the greater part of the night. At the same time his health failed visibly. The Marquise ventured once to interrogate him. As they were both walking one day in the park, she said:
“You are hiding something from me. You suffer, my friend. What is the cause?”
“There is nothing.”
“I pray you tell me!”
“Nothing is the matter with me,” he replied, petulantly.
“Is it your son that you regret?”
“I regret nothing.” After a few steps taken in silence—“When I think,” he said, quickly, “that there is one person in the world who considers me a coward—for I hear always that word in my ear—and who treated me like a coward, and who believed it when it was said, and believes it still! If it had been a man, it would be easy, but it was a woman.”
After this sudden explosion he was silent.
“Very well; what do you desire?” said the Marquise, with vexation. “Do you wish that I should go and tell her the truth—tell her that you were ready to defend her against me—that you love her, and hate me? If it be that you wish, say so. I believe if this life continues I shall be capable of doing anything!”
“Do not you also outrage me! Dismiss me, if that will give you pleasure; but I love you only. My pride bleeds, that is all; and I give you my word of honor that if you ever affront me by going to justify me, I shall never in my life see you or her. Embrace me!” and he pressed her to his heart.
She was calm for a few hours.
The house he occupied was about to be taken again by its proprietor. The middle of September approached, and it was the time when the Marquise was in the habit of returning to Paris. She proposed to M. de Camors to occupy the chateau during the few days he purposed passing in the country. He accepted; but whenever she spoke of returning to Paris:
“Why so soon?” he would say; “are we not very well here?”
A little later she reminded him that the session of the Chamber was about to open. He made his health a pretext for delay, saying that he felt weak and wished to send in his resignation as deputy. She induced him only by her urgent prayer to content himself with asking leave of absence.
“But you, my beloved!” he said, “I am condemning you to a sad existence!”
“With you,” she replied, “I am happy everywhere and always!”
It was not true that she was happy, but it was true that she loved him and was devoted to him. There was no suffering she would not have resigned herself to, no sacrifice she would not make, were it for him.
From this moment the prospect of worldly sovereignty, which she thought she had touched with her hand, escaped her. She had a presentiment of a melancholy future of solitude, of renunciation, of secret tears; but near him grief became a fete. One knows with what rapidity life passes with those who busy themselves without distraction in some profound grief—the days themselves are long, but the succession of them is rapid and imperceptible. It was thus that the months and then the seasons succeeded one another, for Camors and the Marquise, with a monotony that left hardly any trace on their thoughts. Their daily relations were marked, on the part of the Count with an invariably cold and distant courtesy, and very often silence; on the part of the Marquise by an attentive tenderness and a constrained grief. Every day they rode out on horseback, both clad in black, sympathetic by their beauty and their sadness, and surrounded in the country by distant respect. About the beginning of the ensuing winter Madame de Campvallon experienced a serious disquietude. Although M. de Camors never complained, it was evident his health was gradually failing. A dark and almost clayey tint covered his thin cheeks, and spread nearly to the whites of his eyes. The Marquise showed some emotion on perceiving it, and persuaded him to consult a physician. The physician perceived symptoms of chronic debility. He did not think it dangerous, but recommended a season at Vichy, a few hygienic precautions, and absolute repose of mind and body.
When the Marquise proposed to Camors this visit to Vichy, he only shrugged his shoulders without reply.
A few days after, Madame de Campvallon on entering the stable one morning, saw Medjid, the favorite mare of Camors, white with foam, panting and exhausted. The groom explained, with some awkwardness, the condition of the animal, by a ride the Count had taken that morning. The Marquise had recourse to Daniel, of whom she made a confidant, and having questioned him, drew out the acknowledgment that for some time his master had been in the habit of going out in the evening and not returning until morning. Daniel was in despair with these nightly wanderings, which he said greatly fatigued his master. He ended by confessing to Madame de Campvallon the goal of his excursions.
The Comtesse de Camors, yielding to considerations the details of which would not be interesting, had continued to live at Reuilly since her husband had abandoned her. Reuilly was distant twelve leagues from Campvallon, which could be made shorter by a crosscut. M. de Camors did not hesitate to pass over this distance twice in the same night, to give himself the emotion of breathing for a few minutes the same air with his wife and child.
Daniel had accompanied him two or three times, but the Count generally went alone. He left his horse in the wood, and approached as near as he could without risking discovery; and, hiding himself like a malefactor behind the shadows of the trees, he watched the windows, the lights, the house, the least signs of those dear beings, from whom an eternal abyss had divided him.
The Marquise, half frightened, half irritated, by an oddity which seemed to border on madness, pretended to be ignorant of it. But these two spirits were too accustomed to each other, day by day, to be able to hide anything. He knew she was aware of his weakness, and seemed no longer to care to make a mystery of it.
One evening in the month of July, he left on horseback in the afternoon, and did not return for dinner. He arrived at the woods of Reuilly at the close of the day, as he had premeditated. He entered the garden with his usual precaution, and, thanks to his knowledge of the habits of the household, he could approach, without being noticed, the pavilion where the Countess’s chamber was situated, and which was also that of his son. This chamber, by a particular arrangement of the house, was elevated at the side of the court by the height of an entresol, but was level with the garden. One of the windows was open, owing to the heat of the evening. Camors hid himself behind the shutters, which were half closed, and gazed eagerly into the chamber.
He had not seen for two years either his wife, his child, or Madame de Tecle. He now saw all three there. Madame de Tecle was working near the chimney. Her face was unchanged. She had the same youthful look, but her hair was as white, as snow. Madame de Camors was sitting on a couch nearly in front of the window and undressing her son, at the same time talking to and caressing him.
The child, at a sign, knelt down at his mother’s feet in his light night-garments, and while she held his joined hands in her own, he began in a loud voice his evening prayers. She whispered him from time to time a word that escaped him. This prayer, composed of a number of phrases adapted to a youthful mind, terminated with these words: “O God! be good and merciful to my mother, my grandmother, to me—and above all, O God, to my unfortunate father.” He pronounced these words with childish haste, but under a serious look from his mother, he repeated them immediately, with some emotion, as a child who repeats the inflection of a voice which has been taught him.
Camors turned suddenly and retired noiselessly, leaving the garden by the nearest gate. A fixed idea tortured him. He wished to see his son—to speak to him—to embrace him, and to press him to his heart. After that, he cared for little.
He remembered they had formerly the habit of taking the child to the dairy every morning to give him a cup of milk. He hoped they had continued this custom. Morning arrived, and soon came the hour for which he waited. He hid himself in the walk which led to the farm. He heard the noise of feet, of laughter, and of joyous cries, and his son suddenly appeared running in advance. He was a charming little boy of five or six years, of a graceful and proud mien. On perceiving M. de Camors in the middle of the walk he stopped, he hesitated at this unknown or half-forgotten face; but the tender and half-supplicating smile of Camors reassured him.
“Monsieur!” he said, doubtfully.
Camors opened his arms and bent as if to kneel before him.
“Come and embrace me, I beg of you,” he murmured.
The child had already advanced smiling, when the woman who was following him, who was his old nurse, suddenly appeared. ‘She made a gesture of fright:
“Your father!” she said, in a stifled voice.
At these words the child uttered a cry of terror, rushed back to the nurse, pressed against her, and regarded his father with frightened eyes.
The nurse took him by the arm, and earned him off in great haste.
M. de Camors did not weep. A frightful contraction distorted the corners of his mouth, and exaggerated the thinness of his cheeks. He had two or three shudderings as if seized with sudden fever. He slowly passed his hand over his forehead, sighed profoundly, and departed.
Madame de Campvallon knew nothing of this sad scene, but she saw its consequences; and she herself felt them bitterly. The character of M. de Camors, already so changed, became after this unrecognizable. He showed her no longer even the cold politeness he had manifested for her up to that period. He exhibited a strange antipathy toward her. He fled from her. She perceived he avoided even touching her hand.
They saw each other rarely now. The health of Camors did not admit of his taking regular meals. These two desolate existences offered then, in the midst of the almost royal state which surrounded them, a spectacle of pity.
In this magnificent park—across these beautiful gardens, with great vases of marble—under long arcades of verdure peopled with more statues-both wandered separately, like two sad shadows, meeting sometimes but never speaking.
One day, near the end of September, Camors did not descend from his apartment. Daniel told the Marquise he had given orders to let no one enter.
“Not even me?” she said. He bent his head mournfully. She insisted.
“Madame, I should lose my place!”
The Count persisted in this mania of absolute seclusion. She was compelled from this moment to content herself with the news she obtained from his servant. M. de Camors was not bedridden. He passed his time in a sad reverie, lying on his divan. He got up at intervals, wrote a few lines, then lay down again. His weakness appeared great, though he did not complain of any suffering.
After two or three weeks, the Marquise read in the features of Daniel a more marked disquietude than usual. He supplicated her to call in the country physician who had once before seen him. It was so decided. The unfortunate woman, when the physician was shown into the Count’s apartment, leaned against the door listening in agony. She thought she heard the voice of Camors loudly raised, then the noise ceased.
The doctor, when departing, simply said to her: “Madame, his sad case appears to me serious—but not hopeless. I did not wish to press him to-day, but he allows me to return tomorrow.”
In the night which followed, at two o’clock, Madame de Campvallon heard some one calling her, and recognized the voice of Daniel. She rose immediately, threw a mantle around her, and admitted him.
“Madame,” he said, “Monsieur le Comte asks for you,” and burst into tears.
“Mon Dieu! what is the matter?”
“Come, Madame—you must hasten!”
She accompanied him immediately. From the moment she put her foot in the chamber, she could not deceive herself—Death was there. Crushed by sorrow, this existence, so full, so proud, so powerful, was about to terminate. The head of Camors, turned on the pillow, seemed already to have assumed a death-like immobility. His beautiful features, sharpened by suffering, took the rigid outline of sculpture; his eye alone yet lived and looked at her.
She approached him hastily and wished to seize the hand resting on the sheet.
He withdrew it. She gave a despairing groan. He continued to look fixedly at her. She thought he was trying to speak, but could not; but his eyes spoke. They addressed to her some request, at the same time with an imperious though supplicating expression, which she doubtless understood; for she said aloud, with an accent full of sadness and tenderness:
“I promise it to you.”
He appeared to make a painful effort, and his look indicated a large sealed letter lying on the bed. She took it, and read on the envelope-“To my son.”
“I promise you,” she said, again, falling on her knees, and moistening the sheet with her tears.
He extended his hand toward her. “Thanks!” was all he said. Her tears flowed faster. She set her lips on this hand already cold. When she raised her head, she saw at the same instant the eyes of Camors slightly moist, rolling wildly—then extinguished! She uttered a cry, threw herself on the bed, and kissed madly those eyes still open—yet void of light forever!
Thus ended Camors, who was a great sinner, but nevertheless a MAN!
ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS:
A man never should kneel unless sure of rising a conqueror
A defensive attitude is never agreeable to a man
Bad to fear the opinion of people one despises
Believing that it is for virtue’s sake alone such men love them
Camors refused, hesitated, made objections, and consented
Confounding progress with discord, liberty with license
Contempt for men is the beginning of wisdom
Cried out, with the blunt candor of his age
Dangers of liberty outweighed its benefits
Demanded of him imperatively—the time of day
Determined to cultivate ability rather than scrupulousness
Disenchantment which follows possession
Do not get angry. Rarely laugh, and never weep
Every one is the best judge of his own affairs
Every road leads to Rome—and one as surely as another
Every cause that is in antagonism with its age commits suicide
God—or no principles!
Have not that pleasure, it is useless to incur the penalties
He is charming, for one always feels in danger near him
Inconstancy of heart is the special attribute of man
Intemperance of her zeal and the acrimony of her bigotry
Knew her danger, and, unlike most of them, she did not love it
Man, if he will it, need not grow old: the lion must
Never can make revolutions with gloves on
Once an excellent remedy, is a detestable regimen
One of those pious persons who always think evil
Pleasures of an independent code of morals
Police regulations known as religion
Principles alone, without faith in some higher sanction
Property of all who are strong enough to stand it
Put herself on good terms with God, in case He should exist
Semel insanivimus omnes.’ (every one has his madness)
Slip forth from the common herd, my son, think for yourself
Suspicion that he is a feeble human creature after all!
There will be no more belief in Christ than in Jupiter
Ties that become duties where we only sought pleasures
Truth is easily found. I shall read all the newspapers
Two persons who desired neither to remember nor to forget
Whether in this world one must be a fanatic or nothing
Whole world of politics and religion rushed to extremes
With the habit of thinking, had not lost the habit of laughing
You can not make an omelette without first breaking the eggs
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