Instead of leaving him a fortune, he left him only embarrassments, for he was three fourths ruined. The disorder of his affairs had begun a long time before, and it was to repair them that he had married; a process that had not proved successful. A large inheritance on which he had relied as coming to his wife went elsewhere—to endow a charity hospital. The Comte de Camors began a suit to recover it before the tribunal of the Council of State, but compromised it for an annuity of thirty thousand francs. This stopped at his death. He enjoyed, besides, several fat sinecures, which his name, his social rank, and his personal address secured him from some of the great insurance companies. But these resources did not survive him; he only rented the house he had occupied; and the young Comte de Camors found himself suddenly reduced to the provision of his mother’s dowry—a bare pittance to a man of his habits and rank.
His father had often assured him he could leave him nothing, so the son was accustomed to look forward to this situation. Therefore, when he realized it, he was neither surprised nor revolted by the improvident egotism of which he was the victim. His reverence for his father continued unabated, and he did not read with the less respect or confidence the singular missive which figures at the beginning of this story. The moral theories which this letter advanced were not new to him. They were a part of the very atmosphere around him; he had often revolved them in his feverish brain; yet, never before had they appeared to him in the condensed form of a dogma, with the clear precision of a practical code; nor as now, with the authorization of such a voice and of such an example.
One incident gave powerful aid in confirming the impression of these last pages on his mind. Eight days after his father’s death, he was reclining on the lounge in his smoking-room, his face dark as night and as his thoughts, when a servant entered and handed him a card. He took it listlessly, and read “Lescande, architect.” Two red spots rose to his pale cheeks—“I do not see any one,” he said.
“So I told this gentleman,” replied the servant, “but he insists in such an extraordinary manner—”
“In an extraordinary manner?”
“Yes, sir; as if he had something very serious to communicate.”
“Something serious—aha! Then let him in.” Camors rose and paced the chamber, a smile of bitter mockery wreathing his lips. “And must I now kill him?” he muttered between his teeth.
Lescande entered, and his first act dissipated the apprehension his conduct had caused. He rushed to the young Count and seized him by both hands, while Camors remarked that his face was troubled and his lips trembled. “Sit down and be calm,” he said.
“My friend,” said the other, after a pause, “I come late to see you, for which I crave pardon; but—I am myself so miserable! See, I am in mourning!”
Camors felt a chill run to his very marrow. “In mourning! and why?” he asked, mechanically.
“Juliette is dead!” sobbed Lescande, and covered his eyes with his great hands.
“Great God!” cried Camors in a hollow voice. He listened a moment to Lescande’s bitter sobs, then made a movement to take his hand, but dared not do it. “Great God! is it possible?” he repeated.
“It was so sudden!” sobbed Lescande, brokenly. “It seems like a dream—a frightful dream! You know the last time you visited us she was not well. You remember I told you she had wept all day. Poor child! The morning of my return she was seized with congestion—of the lungs—of the brain—I don’t know!—but she is dead! And so good!—so gentle, so loving! to the last moment! Oh, my friend! my friend! A few moments before she died, she called me to her side. ‘Oh, I love you so! I love you so!’ she said. ‘I never loved any but you—you only! Pardon me!—oh, pardon me!’ Pardon her, poor child! My God, for what? for dying?—for she never gave me a moment’s grief before in this world. Oh, God of mercy!”
“I beseech you, my friend—”
“Yes, yes, I do wrong. You also have your griefs.
“But we are all selfish, you know. However, it was not of that that I came to speak. Tell me—I know not whether a report I hear is correct. Pardon me if I mistake, for you know I never would dream of offending you; but they say that you have been left in very bad circumstances. If this is indeed so, my friend—”
“It is not,” interrupted Camors, abruptly.
“Well, if it were—I do not intend keeping my little house. Why should I, now? My little son can wait while I work for him. Then, after selling my house, I shall have two hundred thousand francs. Half of this is yours—return it when you can!”
“I thank you, my unselfish friend,” replied Camors, much moved, “but I need nothing. My affairs are disordered, it is true; but I shall still remain richer than you.”
“Yes, but with your tastes—”
“Well?”
“At all events, you know where to find me. I may count upon you—may I not?”
“You may.”
“Adieu, my friend! I can do you no good now; but I shall see you again—shall I not?”
“Yes—another time.”
Lescande departed, and the young Count remained immovable, with his features convulsed and his eyes fixed on vacancy.
This moment decided his whole future.
Sometimes a man feels a sudden, unaccountable impulse to smother in himself all human love and sympathy.
In the presence of this unhappy man, so unworthily treated, so broken-spirited, so confiding, Camors—if there be any truth in old spiritual laws—should have seen himself guilty of an atrocious act, which should have condemned him to a remorse almost unbearable.
But if it were true that the human herd was but the product of material forces in nature, producing, haphazard, strong beings and weak ones—lambs and lions—he had played only the lion’s part in destroying his companion. He said to himself, with his father’s letter beneath his eyes, that this was the fact; and the reflection calmed him.
The more he thought, that day and the next, in depth of the retreat in which he had buried himself, the more was he persuaded that this doctrine was that very truth which he had sought, and which his father had bequeathed to him as the whole rule of his life. His cold and barren heart opened with a voluptuous pleasure under this new flame that filled and warmed it.
From this moment he possessed a faith—a principle of action—a plan of life—all that he needed; and was no longer oppressed by doubts, agitation, and remorse. This doctrine, if not the most elevated, was at least above the level of the most of mankind. It satisfied his pride and justified his scorn.
To preserve his self-esteem, it was only necessary for him to preserve his honor, to do nothing low, as his father had said; and he determined never to do anything which, in his eyes, partook of that character. Moreover, were there not men he himself had met thoroughly steeped in materialism, who were yet regarded as the most honorable men of their day?
Perhaps he might have asked himself whether this incontestable fact might not, in part, have been attributed rather to the individual than to the doctrine; and whether men’s beliefs did not always influence their actions. However that might have been, from the date of this crisis Louis de Camors made his father’s will the rule of his life.
To develop in all their strength the physical and intellectual gifts which he possessed; to make of himself the polished type of the civilization of the times; to charm women and control men; to revel in all the joys of intellect, of the senses, and of rank; to subdue as servile instincts all natural sentiments; to scorn, as chimeras and hypocrisies, all vulgar beliefs; to love nothing, fear nothing, respect nothing, save honor—such, in fine, were the duties which he recognized, and the rights which he arrogated to himself.
It was with these redoubtable weapons, and strengthened by a keen intelligence and vigorous will, that he would return to the world—his brow calm and grave, his eye caressing while unyielding, a smile upon his lips, as men had known him.
From this moment there was no cloud either upon his mind or upon his face, which wore the aspect of perpetual youth. He determined, above all, not to retrench, but to preserve, despite the narrowness of his present fortune, those habits of elegant luxury in which he still might indulge for several years, by the expenditure of his principal.
Both pride and policy gave him this council in an equal degree. He was not ignorant that the world is as cold toward the needy as it is warm to those not needing its countenance. Had he been thus ignorant, the attitude of his family, just after the death of his father, would have opened his eyes to the fact.
His aunt de la Roche-Jugan and his uncle Tonnelier manifested toward him the cold circumspection of people who suspected they were dealing with a ruined man. They had even, for greater security, left Paris, and neglected to notify the young Count in what retreat they had chosen to hide their grief. Nevertheless he was soon to learn it, for while he was busied in settling his father’s affairs and organizing his own projects of fortune and ambition, one fine morning in August he met with a lively surprise.
He counted among his relatives one of the richest landed proprietors of France, General the Marquis de Campvallon d’Armignes, celebrated for his fearful outbursts in the Corps Legislatif. He had a voice of thunder, and when he rolled out, “Bah! Enough! Stop this order of the day!” the senate trembled, and the government commissioners bounced on their chairs. Yet he was the best fellow in the world, although he had killed two fellow-creatures in duels—but then he had his reasons for that.
Camors knew him but slightly, paid him the necessary respect that politeness demanded toward a relative; met him sometimes at the club, over a game of whist, and that was all.
Two years before, the General had lost a nephew, the direct heir to his name and fortune. Consequently he was hunted by an eager pack of cousins and relatives; and Madame de la Roche-Jugan and the Baroness Tonnelier gave tongue in their foremost rank.
Camors was indifferent, and had, since that event, been particularly reserved in his intercourse with the General. Therefore he was considerably astonished when he received the following letter:
“DEAR KINSMAN:
“Your two aunts and their families are with me in the country.
When it is agreeable to you to join them, I shall always feel happy
to give a cordial greeting to the son of an old friend and
companion-in-arms.
“I presented myself at your house before leaving Paris, but you were
not visible.
“Believe me, I comprehend your grief: that you have experienced an
irreparable loss, in which I sympathize with you most sincerely.
“Receive, my dear kinsman, the best wishes of
GENERAL, THE MARQUIS DE CAMPVALLON D’ARMIGNES.
“CHATEAU DE CAMPVALLON, Voie de l’ouest.
“P.S.—It is probable, my young cousin, that I may have something of
interest to communicate to you!”
This last sentence, and the exclamation mark that followed it, failed not to shake slightly the impassive calm that Camors was at that moment cultivating. He could not help seeing, as in a mirror, under the veil of the mysterious postscript, the reflection of seven hundred thousand francs of ground-rent which made the splendid income of the General. He recalled that his father, who had served some time in Africa, had been attached to the staff of M. de Campvallon as aide-de-camp, and that he had besides rendered him a great service of a different nature.
Notwithstanding that he felt the absurdity of these dreams, and wished to keep his heart free from them, he left the next day for Campvallon. After enjoying for seven or eight hours all the comforts and luxuries the Western line is reputed to afford its guests, Camors arrived in the evening at the station, where the General’s carriage awaited him. The seignorial pile of the Chateau Campvallon soon appeared to him on a height, of which the sides were covered with magnificent woods, sloping down nearly to the plain, there spreading out widely.
It was almost the dinner-hour; and the young man, after arranging his toilet, immediately descended to the drawing-room, where his presence seemed to throw a wet blanket over the assembled circle. To make up for this, the General gave him the warmest welcome; only—as he had a short memory or little imagination—he found nothing better to say than to repeat the expressions of his letter, while squeezing his hand almost to the point of fracture.
“The son of my old friend and companion-in-arms,” he cried; and the words rang out in such a sonorous voice they seemed to impress even himself—for it was noticeable that after a remark, the General always seemed astonished, as if startled by the words that came out of his mouth—and that seemed suddenly to expand the compass of his ideas and the depth of his sentiments.
To complete his portrait: he was of medium size, square, and stout; panting when he ascended stairs, or even walking on level ground; a face massive and broad as a mask, and reminding one of those fabled beings who blew fire from their nostrils; a huge moustache, white and grizzly; small gray eyes, always fixed, like those of a doll, but still terrible. He marched toward a man slowly, imposingly, with eyes fixed, as if beginning a duel to the death, and demanded of him imperatively—the time of day!
Camors well knew this innocent weakness of his host, but, notwithstanding, was its dupe for one instant during the evening.
They had left the dining-table, and he was standing carelessly in the alcove of a window, holding a cup of coffee, when the General approached him from the extreme end of the room with a severe yet confidential expression, which seemed to preface an announcement of the greatest importance.
The postscript rose before him. He felt he was to have an immediate explanation.
The General approached, seized him by the buttonhole, and withdrawing him from the depth of the recess, looked into his eyes as if he wished to penetrate his very soul. Suddenly he spoke, in his thunderous voice. He said:
“What do you take in the morning, young man?”
“Tea, General.”
“Aha! Then give your orders to Pierre—just as if you were at home;” and, turning on his heel and joining the ladies, he left Camors to digest his little comedy as he might.
Eight days passed. Twice the General made his guest the object of his formidable advance. The first time, having put him out of countenance, he contented himself with exclaiming:
“Well, young man!” and turned on his heel.
The next time he bore down upon Camors, he said not a word, and retired in silence.
Evidently the General had not the slightest recollection of the postscript. Camors tried to be contented, but would continually ask himself why he had come to Campvallon, in the midst of his family, of whom he was not overfond, and in the depths of the country, which he execrated. Luckily, the castle boasted a library well stocked with works on civil and international law, jurisprudence, and political economy. He took advantage of it; and, resuming the thread of those serious studies which had been broken off during his period of hopelessness, plunged into those recondite themes that pleased his active intelligence and his awakened ambition. Thus he waited patiently until politeness would permit him to bring to an explanation the former friend and companion-in-arms of his father. In the morning he rode on horseback; gave a lesson in fencing to his cousin Sigismund, the son of Madame de la Roche-Jugan; then shut himself up in the library until the evening, which he passed at bezique with the General. Meantime he viewed with the eye of a philosopher the strife of the covetous relatives who hovered around their rich prey.
Madame de la Roche-Jugan had invented an original way of making herself agreeable to the General, which was to persuade him he had disease of the heart. She continually felt his pulse with her plump hand, sometimes reassuring him, and at others inspiring him with a salutary terror, although he denied it.
“Good heavens! my dear cousin!” he would exclaim, “let me alone. I know I am mortal like everybody else. What of that? But I see your aim-it is to convert me! Ta-ta!”
She not only wished to convert him, but to marry him, and bury him besides.
She based her hopes in this respect chiefly on her son Sigismund; knowing that the General bitterly regretted having no one to inherit his name. He had but to marry Madame de la Roche-Jugan and adopt her son to banish this care. Without a single allusion to this fact, the Countess failed not to turn the thoughts of the General toward it with all the tact of an accomplished intrigante, with all the ardor of a mother, and with all the piety of an unctuous devotee.
Her sister, the Baroness Tonnelier, bitterly confessed her own disadvantage. She was not a widow. And she had no son. But she had two daughters, both of them graceful, very elegant and sparkling. One was Madame Bacquiere, the wife of a broker; the other, Madame Van-Cuyp, wife of a young Hollander, doing business at Paris.
Both interpreted life and marriage gayly; both floated from one year into another dancing, riding, hunting, coquetting, and singing recklessly the most risque songs of the minor theatres. Formerly, Camors, in his pensive mood, had taken an aversion to these little examples of modern feminine frivolity. Since he had changed his views of life he did them more justice. He said, calmly:
“They are pretty little animals that follow their instincts.”
Mesdames Bacquiere and Van-Cuyp, instigated by their mother, applied themselves assiduously to making the General feel all the sacred joys that cluster round the domestic hearth. They enlivened his household, exercised his horses, killed his game, and tortured his piano. They seemed to think that the General, once accustomed to their sweetness and animation, could not do without it, and that their society would become indispensable to him. They mingled, too, with their adroit manoeuvres, familiar and delicate attentions, likely to touch an old man. They sat on his knees like children, played gently with his moustache, and arranged in the latest style the military knot of his cravat.
Madame de la Roche-Jugan never ceased to deplore confidentially to the General the unfortunate education of her nieces; while the Baroness, on her side, lost no opportunity of holding up in bold relief the emptiness, impertinence, and sulkiness of young Count Sigismund.
In the midst of these honorable conflicts one person, who took no part in them, attracted the greatest share of Camors’s interest; first for her beauty and afterward for her qualities. This was an orphan of excellent family, but very poor, of whom Madame de la Roche-Jugan and Madame Tonnelier had taken joint charge. Mademoiselle Charlotte de Luc d’Estrelles passed six months of each year with the Countess and six with the Baroness. She was twenty-five years of age, tall and blonde, with deep-set eyes under the shadow of sweeping, black lashes. Thick masses of hair framed her sad but splendid brow; and she was badly, or rather poorly dressed, never condescending to wear the cast-off clothes of her relatives, but preferring gowns of simplest material made by her own hands. These draperies gave her the appearance of an antique statue.
Her Tonnelier cousins nicknamed her “the goddess.” They hated her; she despised them. The name they gave her, however, was marvellously suitable.
When she walked, you would have imagined she had descended from a pedestal; the pose of her head was like that of the Greek Venus; her delicate, dilating nostrils seemed carved by a cunning chisel from transparent ivory. She had a startled, wild air, such as one sees in pictures of huntress nymphs. She used a naturally fine voice with great effect; and had already cultivated, so far as she could, a taste for art.
She was naturally so taciturn one was compelled to guess her thoughts; and long since Camors had reflected as to what was passing in that self-centred soul. Inspired by his innate generosity, as well as his secret admiration, he took pleasure in heaping upon this poor cousin the attentions he might have paid a queen; but she always seemed as indifferent to them as she was to the opposite course of her involuntary benefactress. Her position at Campvallon was very odd. After Camors’s arrival, she was more taciturn than ever; absorbed, estranged, as if meditating some deep design, she would suddenly raise the long lashes of her blue eyes, dart a rapid glance here and there, and finally fix it on Camors, who would feel himself tremble under it.
One afternoon, when he was seated in the library, he heard a gentle tap at the door, and Mademoiselle entered, looking very pale. Somewhat astonished, he rose and saluted her.
“I wish to speak with you, cousin,” she said. The accent was pure and grave, but slightly touched with evident emotion. Camors stared at her, showed her to a divan, and took a chair facing her.
“You know very little of me, cousin,” she continued, “but I am frank and courageous. I will come at once to the object that brings me here. Is it true that you are ruined?”
“Why do you ask, Mademoiselle?”
“You always have been very good to me—you only. I am very grateful to you; and I also—” She stopped, dropped her eyes, and a bright flush suffused her cheeks. Then she bent her head, smiling like one who has regained courage under difficulty. “Well, then,” she resumed, “I am ready to devote my life to you. You will deem me very romantic, but I have wrought out of our united poverty a very charming picture, I believe. I am sure I should make an excellent wife for the husband I loved. If you must leave France, as they tell me you must, I will follow you—I will be your brave and faithful helpmate. Pardon me, one word more, Monsieur de Camors. My proposition would be immodest if it concealed any afterthought. It conceals none. I am poor. I have but fifteen hundred francs’ income. If you are richer than I, consider I have said nothing; for nothing in the world would then induce me to marry you!”
She paused; and with a manner of mingled yearning, candor, and anguish, fixed on him her large eyes full of fire.
There was a solemn pause. Between these strange natures, both high and noble, a terrible destiny seemed pending at this moment, and both felt it.
At length Camors responded in a grave, calm voice: “It is impossible, Mademoiselle, that you can appreciate the trial to which you expose me; but I have searched my heart, and I there find nothing worthy of you. Do me the justice to believe that my decision is based neither upon your fortune nor upon my own: but I am resolved never to marry.” She sighed deeply, and rose. “Adieu, cousin,” she said.
“I beg—I pray you to remain one moment,” cried the young man, reseating her with gentle force upon the sofa. He walked half across the room to repress his agitation; then leaning on a table near the young girl, said:
“Mademoiselle Charlotte, you are unhappy; are you not?”
“A little, perhaps,” she answered.
“I do not mean at this moment, but always?”
“Always!”
“Aunt de la Roche-Jugan treats you harshly?”
“Undoubtedly; she dreads that I may entrap her son. Good heavens!”
“The little Tonneliers are jealous of you, and Uncle Tonnelier torments you?”
“Basely!” she said; and two tears swam on her eyelashes, then glistened like diamonds on her cheek.
“And what do you believe of the religion of our aunt?”
“What would you have me believe of religion that bestows no virtue—restrains no vice?”
“Then you are a non-believer?”
“One may believe in God and the Gospel without believing in the religion of our aunt.”
“But she will drive you into a convent. Why, then, do you not enter one?”
“I love life,” the girl said.
He looked at her silently a moment, then continued “Yes, you love life—the sunlight, the thoughts, the arts, the luxuries—everything that is beautiful, like yourself. Then, Mademoiselle Charlotte, all these are in your hands; why do you not grasp them?”
“How?” she queried, surprised and somewhat startled.
“If you have, as I believe you have, as much strength of soul as intelligence and beauty, you can escape at once and forever the miserable servitude fate has imposed upon you. Richly endowed as you are, you might become to-morrow a great artiste, independent, feted, rich, adored—the mistress of Paris and of the world!”
“And yours also?—No!” said this strange girl.
“Pardon, Mademoiselle Charlotte. I did not suspect you of any improper idea, when you offered to share my uncertain fortunes. Render me, I pray you, the same justice at this moment. My moral principles are very lax, it is true, but I am as proud as yourself. I never shall reach my aim by any subterfuge. No; strive to study art. I find you beautiful and seductive, but I am governed by sentiments superior to personal interests. I was profoundly touched by your sympathetic leaning toward me, and have sought to testify my gratitude by friendly counsel. Since, however, you now suspect me of striving to corrupt you for my own ends, I am silent, Mademoiselle, and permit you to depart.”
“Pray proceed, Monsieur de Camors.”
“You will then listen to me with confidence?”
“I will do so.”
“Well, then, Mademoiselle, you have seen little of the world, but you have seen enough to judge and to be certain of the value of its esteem. The world! That is your family and mine: Monsieur and Madame Tonnelier, Monsieur and Madame de la Roche-Jugan, and the little Sigismund!”
“Well, then, Mademoiselle Charlotte, the day that you become a great artiste, rich, triumphant, idolized, wealthy—drinking, in deep draughts, all the joys of life—that day Uncle Tonnelier will invoke outraged morals, our aunt will swoon with prudery in the arms of her old lovers, and Madame de la Roche-Jugan will groan and turn her yellow eyes to heaven! But what will all that matter to you?”
“Then, Monsieur, you advise me to lead an immoral life.”
“By no manner of means. I only urge you, in defiance of public opinion, to become an actress, as the only sure road to independence, fame, and fortune. And besides, there is no law preventing an actress marrying and being ‘honorable,’ as the world understands the word. You have heard of more than one example of this.”
“Without mother, family, or protector, it would be an extraordinary thing for me to do! I can not fail to see that sooner or later I should be a lost girl.”
Camors remained silent. “Why do you not answer?” she asked.
“Heavens! Mademoiselle, because this is so delicate a subject, and our ideas are so different about it. I can not change mine; I must leave you yours. As for me, I am a very pagan.”
“How? Are good and bad indifferent to you?”
“No; but to me it seems bad to fear the opinion of people one despises, to practise what one does not believe, and to yield before prejudices and phantoms of which one knows the unreality. It is bad to be a slave or a hypocrite, as are three fourths of the world. Evil is ugliness, ignorance, folly, and baseness. Good is beauty, talent, ability, and courage! That is all.”
“And God?” the girl cried. He did not reply. She looked fixedly at him a moment without catching the eyes he kept turned from her. Her head drooped heavily; then raising it suddenly, she said: “There are sentiments men can not understand. In my bitter hours I have often dreamed of this free life you now advise; but I have always recoiled before one thought—only one.”
“And that?”
“Perhaps the sentiment is not peculiar to me—perhaps it is excessive pride, but I have a great regard for myself—my person is sacred to me. Should I come to believe in nothing, like you—and I am far from that yet, thank God!—I should even then remain honest and true—faithful to one love, simply from pride. I should prefer,” she added, in a voice deep and sustained, but somewhat strained, “I should prefer to desecrate an altar rather than myself!”
Saying these words, she rose, made a haughty movement of the head in sign of an adieu, and left the room.
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