The Deputy of Arcis - Honoré de Balzac (little red riding hood read aloud TXT) 📗

requested by her to thank you for your connivance--passive, of course--in this pious falsehood. She felt that she could only show her profound gratitude by telling you the whole truth and relying upon your discretion."

"Where is Mademoiselle Marianina?"

"As Monsieur de Lanty told you, in a convent in Italy. To avoid scandal, it was thought best to send her to some safe retreat. Her own conduct will decide her future."

Now what do you think of that history? Does it not seem to you very improbable? Here are two explanations which have each come into my mind with the force of a conviction. First, Marianina's brother has just married into a grand-ducal family of Germany. Immense sacrifices must have been required of the de Lanty family to make such an alliance. Was Marianina's _dot_, and the fortune she inherited from that old grand-uncle, required to pay the costs of that princely union? Secondly, did Marianina really feel an attachment for me? And did she, in a girlish way, express it on those letters which she never sent? To punish her, had her parents sent her to a convent? And to disgust me, and throw me off the track, had the mother invented this history of another love in which she seemed to make me play so mortifying a part?

I may add that the intervention of the Abbe Fontanon authorizes such an interpretation. I have made inquiries about him, and I find he is one of those mischievous priests who worm themselves into the confidence of families for their own ends; he has already destroyed the harmony of one home,--that of Monsieur de Granville, attorney-general of the royal court of Paris under the Restoration.

As to the truth or falsehood of these suppositions I know nothing, and, in all probability, shall continue to know nothing. But, as you can easily understand, the thought of Marianina is a luminous point to which my eye is forever attached. Shall I love her? Shall I hate her and despise her? That is the question perpetually in my mind. Uncertainty of that kind is far more certain to fix a woman in a man's soul than to dislodge her.

Well, to sum up in two brief sentences my reply to your warnings: As for the opinion of Monsieur Bixiou, I care as little for it as for last year's roses; and as for that other danger which you fear, I cannot tell you whether I love Marianina or not, but this I know, I do _not_ love Madame de l'Estorade. That, I think, is giving you a plain and honest answer. And now, let us leave our master the Future to do what he likes.


XI. THE COMTESSE DE L'ESTORADE TO MADAME OCTAVE DE CAMPS

Paris, May, 1839.

Monsieur Dorlange came last evening to take leave of us. He starts to-day for Arcis-sur-Aube, where the ceremony of inaugurating _his_ statue takes place. That is also the place selected by the Opposition journals for his candidacy. Monsieur de l'Estorade declares that the locality could not have been worse chosen, and that it leaves his election without a chance.

Monsieur Dorlange paid his visit early. I was alone. Monsieur de l'Estorade was dining with the Minister of the Interior, and the children were in bed. The conversation interrupted by Madame de la Bastie could now be renewed, as I was about to ask him to continue the history, of which he had only told me the last words, when our old Lucas brought me a letter. It was from my Armand, to let me know that he had been ill since morning, and was then in the infirmary.

"Order the carriage," I said to Lucas, in a state of agitation you can easily conceive.

"But, madame," replied Lucas, "monsieur has ordered the carriage to fetch him at half-past nine o'clock, and Tony has already started."

"Then send for a cab."

"I don't know that I can find one," said our old servant, who is a man of difficulties; "it is beginning to rain."

Without noticing that remark and without thinking of Monsieur Dorlange, I went hastily to my room to put on my bonnet and shawl. That done, I returned to the salon, where my visitor still remained.

"You must excuse me, monsieur," I said to him, "for leaving you so abruptly. I must hasten to the Henri IV. College. I could not possibly pass a night in the dreadful anxiety my son's letter has caused me; he tells me he has been ill since morning in the infirmary."

"But," replied Monsieur Dorlange, "surely you are not going alone in a hired carriage to that lonely quarter?"

"Lucas will go with me."

At that moment Lucas returned; his prediction was realized; there was not a coach on the stand; it was raining in torrents. Time was passing; already it was almost too late to enter the school, where masters and pupils go to bed at nine o'clock.

"Put on thick shoes," I said to Lucas, "and come with me on foot."

Instantly I saw his face lengthen. He is no longer young and loves his ease; moreover, he complains every winter of rheumatism. He made various objections,--that it was very late; that we should "revolutionize" the school; I should take cold; Monsieur Armand could not be very ill if he wrote himself; in short, it was clear that my plan of campaign did not suit my old retainer.

Monsieur Dorlange very obligingly offered to go himself in my place and bring me word about Armand; but that did not suit me at all; I felt that I _must_ see for myself. Having thanked him, I said to Lucas in a tone of authority:--

"Get ready at once, for one thing is true in your remarks: it is getting late."

Seeing himself driven into a corner, Lucas raised the standard of revolt.

"It is not possible that madame should go out in such weather; and I don't want monsieur to scold me for giving in to such a singular idea."

"Then you do not intend to obey me?"

"Madame knows very well that for anything reasonable I would do what she told me if I had to go through fire to obey her."

"Heat is good for rheumatism, but rain is not," I said; then, turning to Monsieur Dorlange, I added: "As you were so kind as to offer to do this errand alone, may I ask you to give me your arm and come with me?"

"I am like Lucas," he said, "I do not think this excursion absolutely necessary; but as I am not afraid of being scolded by Monsieur de l'Estorade, I shall have the honor to accompany you."

We started. The weather was frightful; we had hardly gone fifty steps before we were soaked in spite of Lucas's huge umbrella, with which Monsieur Dorlange sheltered me at his own expense. Luckily a coach happened to pass; Monsieur Dorlange hailed the driver; it was empty. Of course I could not tell my companion that he was not to get in; such distrust was extremely unbecoming and not for me to show. But you know, my dear friend, that showers of rain have helped lovers from the days of Dido down. However, Monsieur Dorlange said nothing: he saw my anxiety and he had the good taste not to attempt conversation, breaking the silence only from time to time with casual remarks. When we reached the school, after getting out of the carriage to give me his hand he saw for himself that he must not enter the house and he therefore got back into the carriage to await my return.

Well, I found Monsieur Armand had hoaxed me. His illness reduced itself to a headache, which departed soon after he had written me. The doctor, for the sake of ordering something, had told him to take an infusion of linden-leaves, telling him that the next day he could go back to his studies. I had taken a club to kill a flea, and committed all sorts of enormities to get there at an hour when the entire establishment were going to bed, only to find my young gentleman perfectly well and playing chess with one of the nurses.

On leaving the school I found the rain had ceased and the moon was shining brightly. My heart was full; the reaction from my great anxiety had set in and I felt a need of breathing the fresh air. I therefore proposed to Monsieur Dorlange to dismiss the coach and return on foot.

Here was an opportunity for him to make me that long-delayed explanation; but Monsieur Dorlange seemed so little inclined to take advantage of it that, using Monsieur Armand's freak as a text, he read me a lecture on the danger of spoiling children: a subject which was not at all agreeable to me, as he must have perceived from the rather stiff manner with which I listened to him. Come, thought I, I must and will get to the bottom of this history; it is like the tale of Sancho's herdsman, which had the faculty of never getting told. So, cutting short my companion's theories of education, I said distinctly:--

"This is a very good time, I think, to continue the confidence you were about to make to me. Here we are sure of no interruption."

"I am afraid I shall prove a poor story-teller," replied Monsieur Dorlange. "I have spent all my fire this very day in telling that tale to Marie-Gaston."

"That," I answered laughing, "is against your own theory of secrecy, in which a third party is one too many."

"Oh, Marie-Gaston and I count for one only. Besides, I had to reply to his odd ideas about you and me."

"What about me?"

"Well, he imagined that in looking at the sun I should be dazzled by its rays."

"Which means, speaking less metaphorically--?"

"That, in view of the singularities which accompanied my first knowledge of you and led me to the honor of your acquaintance, I might expose myself to the danger, madame, of not retaining my reason and self-possession."

"And your history refutes this fear in the mind of Monsieur Marie-Gaston?"

"You shall judge."

And then, without further preamble, he told me a long tale which I need not repeat here; the gist of it is, however, that Monsieur Dorlange is in love with a woman who posed in his imagination for Saint-Ursula; but as this woman appears to be forever lost to him it did not seem to me impossible that in the long run he might transfer his sentiments for her memory to me. When he had finished his tale he asked if I did not think it a victorious answer to the ridiculous fears of our friend.

"Modesty," I replied, "obliges me to share your security; but they say that in the army shots frequently ricochet and kill their victims."

"Then you think me capable of the impertinence Marie-Gaston is good enough to suspect in me?"

"I don't know about its being an impertinence," I said stiffly, "but if such a fancy came into your mind, I should think you very much to be pitied."

His answer was vehement.

"Madame," he said, "you will not have to pity me. In my opinion, first love is a vaccination which protects us from a second."

The conversation stopped there. We had now reached my own door, and I invited Monsieur Dorlange to come in. He accepted my politeness, remarking that Monsieur de l'Estorade had probably returned and he could thus take leave of him.