CHAPTER VIII
THE PORTRAIT
It was night; the light from the candles shone brightly on the portrait. Why was it that, in spite of my joyful state of mind caused by my decision in regard to Hélène,—why should I feel so suddenly overcome with sadness as soon as I beheld the austere face of my father? Never had his sad and gloomy nature impressed me more powerfully. His high and bare forehead was preëminent; the deep-set eyes, overshadowed by their thick gray eyebrows, stared at me with piercing fixedness; the high cheek-bones, the hollow cheeks, the proud and severe expression of the mouth, even the dark colour of the vestments, hardly distinguishable from the background,—all was as I had last seen it and produced the same effect on me. I could see nothing but that pale face shining out of the obscurity.
I knelt down and remained a long time in meditation.
When I raised my head something quite natural in itself frightened me so badly that I shivered involuntarily. I fancied I saw, or rather I really did see, something like a brilliant tear roll down the cheeks of the portrait, and then fall in a cold drop on my hand, which was placed on the frame.
No words can express my terror; I remained for some moments paralysed with fright.
Then, overcoming this childish alarm, I went nearer to the portrait, and discovered that the combined heat and moisture of the room had caused a sort of dew to form on the canvas, which had been kept closed for such a length of time. I smiled sadly at my fright, but the impression had been so violent, that I could not get over my resentment. As I became more calm, I seated myself before the portrait.
Little by little my long conversations with my father returned to my mind; so did his cold-blooded maxims, and his doubts as to the reality and duration of any earthly affection. As I had so recently felt my heart expand and dilate with pleasure, so now I felt it contracting with agony. The remembrance of my indifference, of my forgetfulness, disgusted me with myself; but wishing to escape from the circle of these bitter fancies, I attempted to consult my father mentally on the decision. I had just arrived at the point of marrying Hélène. Still thinking of that future which appeared so smiling and beautiful, I fixed my eyes on that pale and mute visage, and wildly demanded of it an answer to my questionings. I implored its approval of my resolution, but its imperturbable and disdainfully sad smile froze my blood.
"I love Hélène with the deepest, purest love," I cried, extending my hands towards the portrait. "I am not deceived as to my feelings; the noble and generous resolution I have taken will certainly secure my own and Hélène's happiness,—is it not true, my father?"
And I waited eagerly for an answer from these motionless features, believing in that momentary hallucination that I would receive a sign of affirmation.
But the white and wrinkled forehead bowed not; then I thought I could hear from the most secret recesses of my heart the steady voice of my father, saying:
"You loved me once with this profound, unchanging love; I have done more for you than Hélène has, I have given you both life and fortune. And it is in the enjoyment of that fortune I am forgotten! Poor child!"
Overcome with terror, I continued:
"But Hélène loves me sincerely, does she not, father?" And as I steadfastly gazed on the motionless figure, whose silence so overpowered me, I repeated in my anxiety:
"Do you not believe in her love? I am, then, mistaken in what I suppose to be the love I bear to her, since you stare upon me thus, oh, my father!"
"Did I not warn you against trusting in the admirations your fortune would excite, and tell you never to trust to deceitful appearances?"
"But, great God! what deception can Hélène be capable of,—such a noble and candid young girl, she who always loved you as a father and me as a brother? Has she not given herself freely to me, confiding in my love, careless of all the rest, and so absorbed by it that she has even recklessly exposed her reputation—her sole treasure—to the evil tongue of slander?"
Alas! pardon, oh, my father! Perhaps it was but a base and sordid instinct of my own which I mistook for your answer. Doubtless, ashamed to acknowledge my own baseness, I was willing to attribute to your influence the vile, infernal thought, this first horrible doubt which has come to trouble for ever the smiling and pure stream of my beliefs; pardon, father, pardon once more, if in that moment when, overcome with anguish, I asked you, "What reason can Hélène have for feigning love for me?" my brutal selfishness answered, "Your fortune, for Hélène is poor!"
Since that fatal day, constantly tormented by an incessant and absorbing idea, for ever tortured by doubt,—that two-bladed sword which wounds both him who wields it, and him against whom it is raised,—I have persistently sought, and, to my sorrow, generally believed myself to have discovered, the most infamous motives hidden under the most innocent appearances, the most odious projects under the most expansive and generous devotion. I have very often, alas! pitilessly killed with a word the tenderest and sweetest enthusiasms; but never, O God! never can I forget the grievous, heartrending shock with which scepticism tore out from my heart its sacred and primal faith.
From that instant, it was as though a funereal crêpe was banded over my eyes, disfiguring everything I looked at. Hélène's face, so candid and pure, now seemed filled with falseness and cupidity. The blackest plot was unfolded to my view: my aunt's carelessness was a base calculation; that letter, drawing her attention to the rumours in circulation, was a part of the scheme; then, with a cruel pride, I applauded myself for having been so clever as to discover and overturn this shameless compact into which they had all entered against me; they had taken me, then, for their dupe.
Then, by a swift and inexplicable reaction, all my love was turned to hatred and despite; the tenderest effusions appeared to me as disgraceful pretences. Oh, shame! Oh, grief! my execrable doubting went so far as to disbelieve in the childish affection that Hélène had demonstrated when in the convent; and in my secret heart I even dared to accuse Madame de Verteuil and her daughter with being the accomplices of Hélène and her mother, and to have invented that episode in order to blind me the more surely.
Certainly the supposition of so base a deception was odious and stupid; it was horrible and incredible to be thus possessed with doubt when barely twenty-three years old; when, in all my life so far, no bitter experiences, no past deceptions justified me in such scepticism!
Alas! it was a sorry benefit, for one cannot deny that, when clothed in such a cuirass of doubt, and armed with such wise distrust, one braves with impunity the falsehoods and deceits of the world. But, as the steel corselet, while protecting you from the enemy's sword, renders you insensible to the warmth of a friendly hand, so unbelief, that iron armour, so cold and polished, protects you from the deceitfulness of a scoundrel, but makes you, alas! impenetrable to the ineffable belief in pure affection.
Since now I can analyse and get to the root of the influences, instincts, or natural organisation, which were the causes of this sudden germination and development in my mind of the distrust henceforth to be the centre around which all my thoughts were to gravitate, no matter in how apparently indubitable a position I might be, I can remember my father telling me frequently: "I am glad to see that you distrust your own motives. When we can distrust ourselves, we can defy others, and in this there is great wisdom."
Then, by a singular contrast, my mother, blinded by maternal pride, which sublime egotism is to women what personality is to men, after vainly attempting to work me up to a fit of self-glorification, would say, sadly: "My poor, dear child, I am in despair when I see how little confidence you have in yourself; by dint of distrusting yourself, you will lose your belief in others, and that will be a terrible misfortune."
Now I am certain that my insurmountable self-distrust was one of the principal causes of my doubting others; having no faith in the opinions people professed to have of me, for they seemed false and exaggerated, I consequently was always on the watch for some interested or underhand reason for their admiration of me. What confirmed me in this opinion is, that I have never found more persistent, more imperturbable believers than among foolish and vain people. The want of intelligence of the fool prevents him from observing, reflecting, or comparing, while the conceited man's self-satisfaction never permits him to doubt as to the certain and prodigious effect he is sure of producing.
To return to my projects of a union with Hélène: from the day that doubt entered my mind, my plans were for ever changed.
I passed a sleepless and unhappy night.
The next day I was weak enough to avoid my aunt and Hélène; I mounted my horse early in the morning, and went to one of my farms, where I spent the whole day.
I returned home late in the evening, and, pretending to be excessively tired, I did not appear in the salon.
On entering my room, I saw on my study-table these words in Hélène's handwriting (they were in a book which she had returned me): "My mother has told me all. I will be at the pavilion of the pyramid to-morrow morning at nine o'clock. Meet me there. Ah, how much you must have suffered!"
Though in my state of mind such an interview would be painful and distasteful, I could not very well avoid it, therefore I resolved to go.