CHAPTER XXVI
AN ENCOUNTER
It would be useless to tell of all my remorse and regret after the departure of Madame de Pënâfiel. I went over again (only on another theme) all the tortures which followed my rupture with Hélène. Only, before I finally renounced for ever that noble girl, there remained to me the hope of at some time obtaining her hand; while now I knew I should never see Marguerite again. As it always happens, the affection she had shown me appeared in all its intoxicating sweetness when I had lost it for ever, and by a fatal contradiction I knew that I loved her more passionately than ever.
I dwelt with a sort of cruel enjoyment on all I had so unworthily sacrificed, not to distrust, but to a species of monomania as wicked as it was stupid; to be sure, it had brought terrible suffering on me, but what of that? A crazy man suffers, too; but is the harm he does any the less harmful?
What more can I say? The vision of that seductive woman appeared more beautiful, more voluptuous, than ever before. The saddening vulgarity of the saying that we only know the worth of happiness when we have lost it, was the dolorous theme upon which my despair played every sort of variation.
Overcome by such crushing regrets, what could I do?
Alas! when a man is of such an unfortunate disposition that neither love, ambition, study, nor social obligations suffice to occupy his mind and his heart, above all, when he despises or misunderstands that beneficent spiritual nourishment which religion offers him as a salutary and never failing aliment, his soul, thus deprived of all life-giving principles, reacts upon itself. Then nameless chagrins, mournful and pale ennui, gnawing doubts, phantoms of despair, are almost always born of these gloomy, solitary, and sickly nocturnal meditations.
If, on the contrary, man applies that self-destroying energy to the rigorous observance of the laws imposed on him by God and humanity, if he succeeds in thus limiting his career to the fulfilling of his duties, in tracing out for himself a definite and straight road which ends in a hope of immortality, his life becomes logical, and is the natural consequence of the principles which govern him and the goal towards which he aspires. Then all becomes an admirable sequence, each deed has its cause and its effects. Instead of wandering miserably, with neither interest, hope, nor restraint, he advances towards a definite object. False or true, at least he is travelling along a road, and if the magnificent perspectives in which it ends, and on which he gazes so eagerly, are only a dazzling mirage, what does it matter, since this divine and consoling mirage has led him on to the end of his existence, his heart filled with joy, with hope, and with love?
Alas! these noble thoughts vainly filled my mind; I felt neither the desire nor the energy to follow them.
So that I fell again with all the weight of my dejection into the void. I understood my disease, but had not the courage to try to cure it. I acted with the weakness of those sick people who, stubborn in their sufferings, obstinately prefer a constant pain to the heroic but beneficent action of the knife or the fire.
I led a miserable life; in the daytime I closed my door to the few visitors that my reserve and selfish happiness had not alienated. Sometimes I would give myself up to violent exercise, I would ride on horseback, I would have a furious bout at fencing, so as to tire myself out, thinking thus to dull the mind by fatiguing the body.
Then when night came, I felt a strange and melancholy pleasure in enveloping myself in a cloak, and thus wandering alone about Paris, especially when the weather was cloudy or stormy.
I gave myself up on these occasions to a sort of scornful rage, as ridiculous as it was puerile, whenever I would pass before a splendid residence, or a brightly lit up theatre, where the carriages were rapidly driving up from every direction. I, too, if I desire it, can have my place in these gay salons, amid this splendid and envied throng; if I so willed it my restive horses would now be bearing me to these very fêtes! The existence I scorn would be the joy and pride of most men, and yet, from I know not what caprice, which thus insults the ready-made happiness that fate has bestowed upon me, I prefer to wander thus on foot, dragging my incurable sadness through these muddy streets.
A woman who was both beautiful and young, noble and clever, who united in herself all that could flatter a man's vanity, has deigned to ravish me with the most perfect love, and, after two months of ideal bliss, without reason or shame, I have insanely and brutally trampled this love under my feet with anger and scorn! And now I have no longer the courage to be angry and spiteful; I weep; I am the most miserable of men; I go about, hiding myself like a criminal; and these indecent creatures, who shamelessly wander about here and there in the mud, they dare to speak to me,—to me. To me, who at this very hour might be at the feet of a woman who is admired by all for her elegance, wit, and beauty! A woman who offered me the realisation of my fondest dream of happiness, and who, perhaps, might even now be holding my hand in hers, saying in her enchanting voice, while her eyes became humid with love, "My life is thine,—my life and my soul!"
Truly it was frightful, and yet, through the strange perversity of my unfortunate nature, I took a sort of gloomy and inexplicable delight in contrasting this dismal and abject present with such a dazzling and bewildering past.
One night, five or six days after Marguerite's departure, I was at the height of one of these painful paroxysms of grief. The night was dark, a drizzly, cold rain was falling; I enveloped myself in my cloak, and went out.
I had never been aware of the dismal aspect of the streets of Paris at this hour; nothing could be more forlorn and lugubrious than the pale reflection of the street-lamps on the pavements, as they shone on the fetid mud that covered the sidewalks, and in the stagnant water of the gutters. Wandering thus, I often thought of the miserable state of a homeless man, without bread, without resources, wandering thus as I wandered. I will admit that, when such thoughts assailed me, if I met on my road, in such stormy weather, some poor woman carrying a child already bearing the impress of misery, or some lean, old, trembling beggar, I would bestow on them liberal alms; and, although vice was probably the cause of their miserable condition, I always felt a moment of the greatest satisfaction in seeing with what a stupefied look they would touch a piece of gold. And then the whole terrible picture of misery would expose itself to my view! Not the misery of the man who, building a hut of leaves, or hiding himself in the cleft of a rock, can, at least, breathe pure and invigorating air, and have the consolation of the sunshine and solitude; but the sordid and swarming misery of great cities, which herds together in infected shelters in order to keep warm.
Then an insurmountable terror would come over me as I would imagine myself by some unforeseen calamity forced to live the same life pell-mell with these unfortunate creatures who are depraved as much through poverty as crime.
I would become pale with affright at such a thought, for the most laborious condition, with a life in the open air, and solitude, had no terrors for me, but when I thought of this herding together, the hideous and perpetual contact of prisoners and galériens, for example, I was sometimes so wild and so terrified that it was an overwhelming relief to me to return to my home, which I found all lighted up, and where attentive servants, my books, my pictures, my portraits, all the peace and comforts of seclusion, awaited me, and where I could fly as to a haven of refuge.
Oh, then it was that on my knees I gratefully thanked my father for all he had done for me in leaving me rich. It was but a poor sort of gratitude, which had need of being thus terrified before it could awaken in my heart and revive for an instant those souvenirs which were already so far distant and so forgotten!
But to return to my nocturnal promenades. One night, as I almost aimlessly wandered along the streets, I arrived at the Boulevard de la Bastille. The moon threw an uncertain light through the flying clouds that obscured her disc, for it was very windy, and a drizzling rain was falling steadily. It might have been about nine o'clock.
Among some of the detached houses, situated near the old garden of Beaumarchais, I noticed one because it seemed newer than the others, and singularly clean and neat. It was very small, and a railing breast-high protected a little square garden like those we see before houses in England. Opening on to the garden, and at one of the corners of the house, was a green door with a brass knocker; the house was only one story high above the ground floor; three windows down-stairs, and three on the upper floor. In the closed shutters I noticed three small holes, destined, no doubt, to allow the light to enter; a bright light shone out from these openings, which were just on a level with my eye. I gave way to momentary idle curiosity, and peeped in.
The curtains had been drawn aside, and I could see through the window-panes the interior of the apartment.
But what was my astonishment, good God, when I recognised Hélène!
I was stupefied, for I believed her to be still in England with her mother.
For an instant I turned away my eyes, for I was breathless with emotion.
My heart beat so violently that its pulsations were painful; but, prompted by burning curiosity, I looked again.
Oh, how beautiful Hélène had become! She was no longer frail and stooping, as formerly; her shoulders were broader, her form more developed and rounder, but her waist as small and as supple as ever. Then her fresh and rosy cheeks, her calm, fair forehead, her whole person, revealed an appearance of quietude and serenity which, I admit, gave me a terrible shock; for I knew that she had altogether forgotten me,—since she seemed no longer to suffer.
She wore a black silk dress; her beautiful blonde hair fell in thick curls on her forehead and neck, and, as always, she wore the daintiest slippers.
As my eye became gradually used to looking through such a small space, the horizon which I could take in became larger, and how can I tell what I felt, when through an open door I saw a child's cradle!
Hélène, seated in an armchair, her pretty feet crossed one over the other, was reading by the light of a lamp, whose green silk shade reminded me of our salon at Serval. From time to time she placed her book on her knees, and, with a movement that thrilled me with sweet and bitter souvenirs, she rested her round white chin on the back of her left hand, whose little finger was raised along the side of her cheek, where the polished finger-nail shone like a pink shell.
From time to time Hélène gave an uneasy glance towards the clock, and then again towards the fire, which burned cheerfully on the hearth; sometimes, too, she listened attentively to any sound that might come from the cradle, then she would go on with her reading; while reading she would mechanically pull at one of the elastic, silky rings of her long, fair hair and bring it up to her lips; which was another one of her childish tricks, for which her mother had often taken her to task, and which, alas! was another sad souvenir of my happy days at Serval. The interior of this little parlour was of the greatest simplicity; beside Hélène, on a table which was covered with a pretty cloth, I recognised a Saxony vase, which had belonged to her mother. It contained one of her favourite flowers. The walls of the room were papered with red, and covered with a quantity of water-colours and sketches in simple oak frames. Besides these there were many plaster casts from well-selected antique models, and two or three beautiful proofs of Rembrandt's etchings. These were all the ornaments of the apartment.
While I was examining all this with the most painful interest, I heard the noise of an approaching carriage, and hastily fled.
I had scarcely got back to the boulevard when a cab stopped before the house, and a very tall man, whose face I could not see, descended from it, passed very close to me, and opened the little green door, which quickly closed after him.
Then, more curious than ever, I went back to the window blinds, but the light had entirely disappeared.
After taking a note of the number of the house, I returned home.
It would be useless to attempt to tell what a state this new complication of sadness put me in.
So Hélène was married; but to whom? Where was her mother? How was it that I, her nearest relative, had never been informed of this union? Hélène's aversion to me must be very obstinate, since she had never taken the trouble to treat me with mere formal politeness. But who was this husband of hers? Judging from what I had seen, he must be a man of very limited means. Could Hélène live happily in this way? Alas! her charming face, so placid and contented, told me how happy she was. For I knew from experience what grievous and deep traces sorrow had imprinted on her features.
She was living happily, then! Happy without me! Happy, though apparently poor! Could that be possible? Did wealth count for so little in making up the sum of our life's pleasure? No wonder I had inspired her with such odious scorn, when I had so meanly accused her of being mercenary.
I passed a wretched night. Fortunately for me, my impatient curiosity to know more about Hélène's circumstances diverted my grief by turning it into another channel, if I may say so.
Wishing to know as fully as possible every detail regarding my cousin, I thought over every way in which I could discover something about her.
I had in my service a man who had served in the capacity of courier when I had travelled; he was a young fellow of great activity, adroitness, and intelligence. For a moment I had an idea of calling on him to secretly find out all I wished to know; but fearing that in some way he might annoy Hélène, I decided to do everything myself.
Success seemed hardly possible, for the house was isolated. There were neither any neighbours nor any janitor to question, and for nothing in the world would I have gone to call on Hélène. I decided, though, to carry out my plan.