Conscience — Complete






CHAPTER XXXIX. CONCESSION TO CONSCIENCE

He asked nothing better than to be a son to this poor woman; in reality he was worth much more than this unfortunate boy, effeminate and incapable. What did this maternal hunger require? A son to love. She would find one in her son-in-law. In seeing her daughter happy, how could she help being happy herself?

Evidently they would be happy, the mother and daughter; and whatever Phillis might think, still under the influence of the shameful blow, they would forget. They would owe him this.

It was a long time since he had worked with so much serenity as on this day; and when in the evening he went to bed, uneasy as usual about the night, he slept as calmly as if Phillis were resting her charming head on his shoulder and he breathed the perfume of it.

Decidedly, to make others happy was the best thing in the world, and as long as one could have this satisfaction there was no fear of being unhappy. To create an atmosphere of happiness for others is to profit by it at the same time.

He waited for Phillis impatiently, for she would bring him an echo of her mother’s joy, and it was a recompense that she owed him.

She arrived happy, smiling, penetrated with tenderness; but he observed that she was keeping something from him, something that embarrassed her, and yet she would not tell him what it was.

He was not disposed to admit that she could conceal anything from him, and he questioned her.

“What are you keeping from me?”

“How can you suppose that I should keep anything from you?”

“Well, what is the matter? You know, do you not, that I read all your thoughts in your eyes? Very well your eyes speak when your lips are silent.”

“I have a request to make of you, a prayer.”

“Why do you not tell me?”

“Because I do not dare.”

“Yet it does not seem to me that I show a disposition to make you believe that I could refuse you anything.”

“It is just that which is the cause of my embarrassment and reserve; I fear to pain you at the moment when I would show you all the gratitude and love in my heart.”

“If you are going to give me pain, it is better not to make me wait.”

She hesitated; then, before an impatient gesture, she decided to speak.

“I wish to ask you how you mean to be married?”

He looked at her in surprise.

“But, like every one else!”

“Every one?” she asked, persistently.

“Is there any other way of being married?”

“Yes.”

“I do not in the least understand this manner of asking conundrums; if you are alluding to a fashionable custom of which I know nothing, say so frankly. That will not wound me, since I am the first to declare that I know nothing of it. What do you wish?”

She felt his irritation increase, and yet she could not decide to say what she wished.

“I have begun badly,” she said. “I should have told you at first that you will always find in me a wife who will respect your ideas and beliefs, who will never permit herself to judge you, and still less to seek to contend with them or to modify them. That you feel, do you not, is neither a part of my nature nor of my love?”

“Conclude!” he said impatiently.

“I think, then,” she said with timid hesitation, “that you will not say that I fail in respect to your ideas in asking that our marriage take place in church.”

“But that was my intention.”

“Truly!” she exclaimed. “O dearest! And I feared to offend you!”

“Why should you think it would offend me?” he asked, smiling.

“You consent to go to confession?”

Instantly the smile in his eyes and on his lips was replaced by a gleam of fury.

“And why should I not go to confession?” he demanded.

“But—”

“Do you suppose that I can be afraid to confess? Why do you suppose that? Tell me why?”

He looked at her with eyes that pierced to her heart, as if they would read her inmost thoughts.

Stupefied by this access of fury, which burst forth without any warning, since he had smilingly replied to her request for a religious marriage, she could find nothing to say, not understanding how the simple word “confess” could so exasperate him. And yet she could not deceive herself: is was indeed this word and no other that put him in this state.

He continued to look at her, and wishing to explain herself, she said: “I supposed only one thing, and that is that I might offend you by asking you to do what is contrary to your beliefs.”

The mad anger that carried him away so stupidly began to lose its first violence; another word added to what had already escaped him would be an avowal.

“Do not let us talk of it anymore,” he said. “Above all, do not let us think of it.”

“Permit me to say one word,” she replied. “Had I been situated like other people I would have asked nothing; my will is yours. But for you, for your future and your honor, you should not appear to marry in secret, as if ashamed, with a pariah.”

“Be easy. I feel as you do, more than you, the necessity of consecrated ceremonies for us.”

She understood that on this path he would go farther than she.

To destroy the impression of this unfortunate word, he proposed that they should visit the apartment he had engaged the previous day.

For the first time they walked together boldly, with heads held high, side by side in the streets of Paris, without fear of meeting others. How proud she was! Her husband! It was on her husband’s arm that she leaned! When they crossed the Tuileries she was almost surprised that people did not turn to see them pass.

In her present state of mind she could not but find the house he chose admirable; the street was admirable, the house was admirable, the apartment was admirable.

As it contained three bedrooms opening on a terrace, where he would keep the animals for his experiments, Saniel wished to have her decide which one she would choose; as she would share it with him she wished to take the best, but he would not accept this arrangement.

“I want you to choose between the two little ones,” he said. “The largest and best must be reserved for your mother, who, not being able to go out, needs more space, air, and light than we do.”

She was transported with his kindness, delicacy, and generosity. Never would she be able to love him enough to raise herself up to him.

Fortunately the principal rooms, the parlor and the office, were about the same size as those in the Rue Louis-le-Grand, so there need be but little change in furnishing; and they would bring their furniture from the Rue des Moines.

This feminine talk, interrupted by passionate exclamations and glances, charmed Saniel, who had forgotten the incident of the confession and his anger, thinking only of Phillis, seeing only her, ravished by her gayety, her vivacity, his whole being stirred by the tender caresses of her beautiful dark eyes.

How could he not be happy with this delicious woman who held such sway over him, and who loved him so ardently? For him a single danger henceforth—solitude. She would preserve him from it. With her gayety, good temper, courage, and love, she would not leave him to his thoughts; work would do the rest.

After the question of furniture was decided, they settled that of the marriage ceremony, and she was surprised to find that his ideas were the same as hers.

She decided upon her toilet, a silk gown as simple as possible, and she would make it herself, as she made all her gowns. And then they discussed the witnesses. “We have no friends,” Phillis said.

“You had some formerly; your father had friends and comrades.”

“I am no longer the daughter of my father, I am the sister of my brother; I would not dare to ask them to witness my marriage.”

“It is just because you are the sister of your brother that they cannot refuse you; it would be cruelty added to rudeness. Cruelty may be overlooked, but rudeness! Among the men of talent, who was your father’s best friend?”

“Cintrat.”

“Is he not a bohemian, a drunkard?”

“My father regarded him as the greatest painter of our time, the most original.”

“It is not a question of talent, but of name; I am sure that he is not even decorated. Your father had other friends, more successful, more commonplace, if you wish.”

“Glorient.”

“The member of the Institute?”

“Casparis, the sculptor.”

“An academician, also; that is what we want, and both are ‘archi-decore’. You will write them, and tell them who I am, assistant professor of the school of medicine, and doctor of the hospitals. I promise you they will accept. I will ask my old master Carbonneau, president of the academy of medicine; and Claudet, the ancient minister, who, in his quality of deputy of my department, could not decline any more than the others. And that will give us decorated witnesses, which will look well in the newspapers.”

It was not only in the newspapers they looked well, but also in the church of Sainte-Marie des Batignolles.

“Glorient! Casparis! Carbonneau! Claudet! Art, science, and politics.”

But the beauty and charm of the bride were not eclipsed by these glorious witnesses. She entered on Glorient’s arm, proud in her modesty, radiant with grace.

While the priest celebrated mass at the altar, outside, before the door, a man dressed in a costume of chestnut velvet, and wearing a felt hat, walked up and down, smoking a pipe. It was the Count de Brigard, whose principles forbade him to enter a church for either a wedding or a funeral, and who walked up and down on the sidewalk with his disciples, waiting to congratulate Saniel. When he appeared the Count rushed up to him, and taking his hand pressed it warmly on separating him from his wife, and saying:

“It is good, it is noble. Circumstances made this marriage; without them it would not have taken place. I understand and I excuse it; I do more, I applaud it. My dear friend, you are a man.”

And as it was Wednesday, in the evening at Crozat’s, he publicly expressed his approbation, which, in the conditions in which it had been offered, did not satisfy his conscience.

“Gentlemen, we have assisted to-day at a grand act of reparation, the marriage of our friend Saniel to the sister of this poor boy, victim of an injustice that cries for vengeance. One evening in this same room, I spoke lightly of Saniel, some of you remember, perhaps, in spite of the time that has passed. I wish to make this public reparation to him. To-day he has shown himself a man of duty and of conscience, bravely putting himself above social weaknesses.”

“Is it not a social weakness,” asked Glady, “to have chosen as witnesses of this act of reparation persons who seem to have been selected for the decorative side of their official positions?”

“Profound irony, on the contrary!” said Brigard. “It is a powerful and fruitful lesson, which makes even those who are professional defenders concur in the demolition of the prejudiced. Saniel is a man!”

All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg