The Chouans

H >> Honore de Balzac >> The Chouans


"Have you noticed, mademoiselle," he said, "how little the feelings of
the heart follow the old conventional rules in the days of terror in
which we live? Everything about us bears the stamp of suddenness. We
love in a day, or we hate on the strength of a single glance. We are
bound to each other for life in a moment, or we part with the celerity
of death itself. All things are hurried, like the convulsions of the
nation. In the midst of such dangers as ours the ties that bind should
be stronger than under the ordinary course of life. In Paris during
the Terror, every one came to know the full meaning of a clasp of the
hand as men do on a battle-field."

"People felt the necessity of living fast and ardently," she answered,
"for they had little time to live." Then, with a glance at her
companion which seemed to tell him that the end of their short
intercourse was approaching, she added, maliciously: "You are very
well informed as to the affairs of life, for a young man who has just
left the Ecole Polytechnique!"

"What are you thinking of me?" he said after a moment's silence. "Tell
me frankly, without disguise."

"You wish to acquire the right to speak to me of myself," she said
laughing.

"You do not answer me," he went on after a slight pause. "Take care,
silence is sometimes significant."

"Do you think I cannot guess all that you would like to say to me?
Good heavens! you have already said enough."

"Oh, if we understand each other," he replied, smiling, "I have
obtained more than I dared hope for."

She smiled in return so graciously that she seemed to accept the
courteous struggle into which all men like to draw a woman. They
persuaded themselves, half in jest, half in earnest, that they never
could be more to each other than they were at that moment. The young
man fancied, therefore, he might give reins to a passion that could
have no future; the young woman felt she might smile upon it. Marie
suddenly struck her foot against a stone and stumbled.

"Take my arm," said her companion.

"It seems I must," she replied; "you would be too proud if I refused;
you would fancy I feared you."

"Ah, mademoiselle," he said, pressing her arm against his heart that
she might feel the beating of it, "you flatter my pride by granting
such a favor."

"Well, the readiness with which I do so will cure your illusions."

"Do you wish to save me from the danger of the emotions you cause?"

"Stop, stop!" she cried; "do not try to entangle me in such boudoir
riddles. I don't like to find the wit of fools in a man of your
character. See! here we are beneath the glorious sky, in the open
country; before us, above us, all is grand. You wish to tell me that I
am beautiful, do you not? Well, your eyes have already told me so;
besides, I know it; I am not a woman whom mere compliments can please.
But perhaps you would like," this with satirical emphasis, "to talk
about your /sentiments/? Do you think me so simple as to believe that
sudden sympathies are powerful enough to influence a whole life
through the recollections of one morning?"

"Not the recollections of a morning," he said, "but those of a
beautiful woman who has shown herself generous."

"You forget," she retorted, laughing, "half my attractions,--a
mysterious woman, with everything odd about her, name, rank,
situation, freedom of thought and manners."

"You are not mysterious to me!" he exclaimed. "I have fathomed you;
there is nothing that could be added to your perfections except a
little more faith in the love you inspire."

"Ah, my poor child of eighteen, what can you know of love?" she said
smiling. "Well, well, so be it!" she added, "it is a fair subject of
conversation, like the weather when one pays a visit. You shall find
that I have neither false modesty nor petty fears. I can hear the word
love without blushing; it has been so often said to me without one
echo of the heart that I think it quite unmeaning. I have met with it
everywhere, in books, at the theatre, in society,--yes, everywhere,
and never have I found in it even a semblance of its magnificent
ideal."

"Did you seek that ideal?"

"Yes."

The word was said with such perfect ease and freedom that the young
man made a gesture of surprise and looked at Marie fixedly, as if he
had suddenly changed his opinion on her character and real position.

"Mademoiselle," he said with ill-concealed devotion, "are you maid or
wife, angel or devil?"

"All," she replied, laughing. "Isn't there something diabolic and also
angelic in a young girl who has never loved, does not love, and
perhaps will never love?"

"Do you think yourself happy thus?" he asked with a free and easy tone
and manner, as though already he felt less respect for her.

"Oh, happy, no," she replied. "When I think that I am alone, hampered
by social conventions that make me deceitful, I envy the privileges of
a man. But when I also reflect on the means which nature has bestowed
on us women to catch and entangle you men in the invisible meshes of a
power which you cannot resist, then the part assigned to me in the
world is not displeasing to me. And then again, suddenly, it does seem
very petty, and I feel that I should despise a man who allowed himself
to be duped by such vulgar seductions. No sooner do I perceive our
power and like it, than I know it to be horrible and I abhor it.
Sometimes I feel within me that longing towards devotion which makes
my sex so nobly beautiful; and then I feel a desire, which consumes
me, for dominion and power. Perhaps it is the natural struggle of the
good and the evil principle in which all creatures live here below.
Angel or devil! you have expressed it. Ah! to-day is not the first
time that I have recognized my double nature. But we women understand
better than you men can do our own shortcomings. We have an instinct
which shows us a perfection in all things to which, nevertheless, we
fail to attain. But," she added, sighing as she glanced at the sky;
"that which enhances us in your eyes is--"

"Is what?" he said.

"--that we are all struggling, more or less," she answered, "against a
thwarted destiny."

"Mademoiselle, why should we part to-night?"

"Ah!" she replied, smiling at the passionate look which he gave her,
"let us get into the carriage; the open air does not agree with us."

Marie turned abruptly; the young man followed her, and pressed her arm
with little respect, but in a manner that expressed his imperious
admiration. She hastened her steps. Seeing that she wished to escape
an importune declaration, he became the more ardent; being determined
to win a first favor from this woman, he risked all and said, looking
at her meaningly:--

"Shall I tell you a secret?"

"Yes, quickly, if it concerns you."

"I am not in the service of the Republic. Where are you going? I shall
follow you."

At the words Marie trembled violently. She withdrew her arm and
covered her face with both hands to hide either the flush or the
pallor of her cheeks; then she suddenly uncovered her face and said in
a voice of deep emotion:--

"Then you began as you would have ended, by deceiving me?"

"Yes," he said.

At this answer she turned again from the carriage, which was now
overtaking them, and began to almost run along the road.

"I thought," he said, following her, "that the open air did not agree
with you?"

"Oh! it has changed," she replied in a grave tone, continuing to walk
on, a prey to agitating thoughts.

"You do not answer me," said the young man, his heart full of the soft
expectation of coming pleasure.

"Oh!" she said, in a strained voice, "the tragedy begins."

"What tragedy?" he asked.

She stopped short, looked at the young student from head to foot with
a mingled expression of fear and curiosity; then she concealed her
feelings that were agitating her under the mask of an impenetrable
calmness, showing that for a girl of her age she had great experience
of life.

"Who are you?" she said,--"but I know already; when I first saw you I
suspected it. You are the royalist leader whom they call the Gars. The
ex-bishop of Autun was right in saying we should always believe in
presentiments which give warning of evil."

"What interest have you in knowing the Gars?"

"What interest has he in concealing himself from me who have already
saved his life?" She began to laugh, but the merriment was forced. "I
have wisely prevented you from saying that you love me. Let me tell
you, monsieur, that I abhor you. I am republican, you are royalist; I
would deliver you up if you were not under my protection, and if I had
not already saved your life, and if--" she stopped. These violent
extremes of feeling and the inward struggle which she no longer
attempted to conceal alarmed the young man, who tried, but in vain, to
observe her calmly. "Let us part here at once,--I insist upon it;
farewell!" she said. She turned hastily back, made a few steps, and
then returned to him. "No, no," she continued, "I have too great an
interest in knowing who you are. Hide nothing from me; tell me the
truth. Who are you? for you are no more a pupil of the Ecole
Polytechnique than you are eighteen years old."

"I am a sailor, ready to leave the ocean and follow you wherever your
imagination may lead you. If I have been so lucky as to rouse your
curiosity in any particular I shall be very careful not to lessen it.
Why mingle the serious affairs of real life with the life of the heart
in which we are beginning to understand each other?"

"Our souls might have understood each other," she said in a grave
voice. "But I have no right to exact your confidence. You will never
know the extent of your obligations to me; I shall not explain them."

They walked a few steps in silence.

"My life does interest you," said the young man.

"Monsieur, I implore you, tell me your name or else be silent. You are
a child," she added, with an impatient movement of her shoulders, "and
I feel a pity for you."

The obstinacy with which she insisted on knowing his name made the
pretended sailor hesitate between prudence and love. The vexation of a
desired woman is powerfully attractive; her anger, like her
submission, is imperious; many are the fibres she touches in a man's
heart, penetrating and subjugating it. Was this scene only another
aspect of Mademoiselle de Verneuil's coquetry? In spite of his sudden
passion the unnamed lover had the strength to distrust a woman thus
bent on forcing from him a secret of life and death.

"Why has my rash indiscretion, which sought to give a future to our
present meeting, destroyed the happiness of it?" he said, taking her
hand, which she left in his unconsciously.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil, who seemed to be in real distress, was
silent.

"How have I displeased you?" he said. "What can I do to soothe you?"

"Tell me your name."

He made no reply, and they walked some distance in silence. Suddenly
Mademoiselle de Verneuil stopped short, like one who has come to some
serious determination.

"Monsieur le Marquis de Montauran," she said, with dignity, but
without being able to conceal entirely the nervous trembling of her
features, "I desire to do you a great service, whatever it may cost
me. We part here. The coach and its escort are necessary for your
protection, and you must continue your journey in it. Fear nothing
from the Republicans; they are men of honor, and I shall give the
adjutant certain orders which he will faithfully execute. As for me, I
shall return on foot to Alencon with my maid, and take a few of the
soldiers with me. Listen to what I say, for your life depends on it.
If, before you reach a place of safety, you meet that odious man you
saw in my company at the inn, escape at once, for he will instantly
betray you. As for me,--" she paused, "as for me, I fling myself back
into the miseries of life. Farewell, monsieur, may you be happy;
farewell."

She made a sign to Captain Merle, who was just then reaching the brow
of the hill behind her. The marquis was taken unawares by her sudden
action.

"Stop!" he cried, in a tone of despair that was well acted.

This singular caprice of a girl for whom he would at that instant have
thrown away his life so surprised him that he invented, on the spur of
the moment, a fatal fiction by which to hide his name and satisfy the
curiosity of his companion.

"You have almost guessed the truth," he said. "I am an /emigre/,
condemned to death, and my name is Vicomte de Bauvan. Love of my
country has brought me back to France to join my brother. I hope to be
taken off the list of /emigres/ through the influence of Madame de
Beauharnais, now the wife of the First Consul; but if I fail in this,
I mean to die on the soil of my native land, fighting beside my friend
Montauran. I am now on my way secretly, by means of a passport he has
sent me, to learn if any of my property in Brittany is still
unconfiscated."

While the young man spoke Mademoiselle de Verneuil examined him with a
penetrating eye. She tried at first to doubt his words, but being by
nature confiding and trustful, she slowly regained an expression of
serenity, and said eagerly, "Monsieur, are you telling me the exact
truth?"

"Yes, the exact truth," replied the young man, who seemed to have no
conscience in his dealings with women.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil gave a deep sigh, like a person who returns
to life.

"Ah!" she exclaimed, "I am very happy."

"Then you hate that poor Montauran?"

"No," she said; "but I could not make you understand my meaning. I was
not willing that /you/ should meet the dangers from which I will try
to protect him,--since he is your friend."

"Who told you that Montauran was in danger?"

"Ah, monsieur, even if I had not come from Paris, where his enterprise
is the one thing talked of, the commandant at Alencon said enough to
show his danger."

"Then let me ask you how you expect to save him from it."

"Suppose I do not choose to answer," she replied, with the haughty air
that women often assume to hide an emotion. "What right have you to
know my secrets?"

"The right of a man who loves you."

"Already?" she said. "No, you do not love me. I am only an object of
passing gallantry to you,--that is all. I am clear-sighted; did I not
penetrate your disguise at once? A woman who knows anything of good
society could not be misled, in these days, by a pupil of the
Polytechnique who uses choice language, and conceals as little as you
do the manners of a /grand seigneur/ under the mask of a Republican.
There is a trifle of powder left in your hair, and a fragrance of
nobility clings to you which a woman of the world cannot fail to
detect. Therefore, fearing that the man whom you saw accompanying me,
who has all the shrewdness of a woman, might make the same discovery,
I sent him away. Monsieur, let me tell you that a true Republican
officer just from the Polytechnique would not have made love to me as
you have done, and would not have taken me for a pretty adventuress.
Allow me, Monsieur de Bauvan, to preach you a little sermon from a
woman's point of view. Are you too juvenile to know that of all the
creatures of my sex the most difficult to subdue is that same
adventuress,--she whose price is ticketed and who is weary of
pleasure. That sort of woman requires, they tell me, constant
seduction; she yields only to her own caprices; any attempt to please
her argues, I should suppose, great conceit on the part of a man. But
let us put aside that class of women, among whom you have been good
enough to rank me; you ought to understand that a young woman,
handsome, brilliant, and of noble birth (for, I suppose, you will
grant me those advantages), does not sell herself, and can only be won
by the man who loves her in one way. You understand me? If she loves
him and is willing to commit a folly, she must be justified by great
and heroic reasons. Forgive me this logic, rare in my sex; but for the
sake of your happiness,--and my own," she added, dropping her head,
--"I will not allow either of us to deceive the other, nor will I
permit you to think that Mademoiselle de Verneuil, angel or devil, maid
or wife, is capable of being seduced by commonplace gallantry."

"Mademoiselle," said the marquis, whose surprise, though he concealed
it, was extreme, and who at once became a man of the great world, "I
entreat you to believe that I take you to be a very noble person, full
of the highest sentiments, or--a charming girl, as you please."

"I don't ask all that," she said, laughing. "Allow me to keep my
incognito. My mask is better than yours, and it pleases me to wear it,
--if only to discover whether those who talk to me of love are
sincere. Therefore, beware of me! Monsieur," she cried, catching his
arm vehemently, "listen to me; if you were able to prove that your
love is true, nothing, no human power, could part us. Yes, I would
fain unite myself to the noble destiny of some great man, and marry a
vast ambition, glorious hopes! Noble hearts are never faithless, for
constancy is in their fibre; I should be forever loved, forever happy,
--I would make my body a stepping-stone by which to raise the man who
loved me; I would sacrifice all things to him, bear all things from
him, and love him forever,--even if he ceased to love me. I have never
before dared to confess to another heart the secrets of mine, nor the
passionate enthusiasms which exhaust me; but I tell you something of
them now because, as soon as I have seen you in safety, we shall part
forever."

"Part? never!" he cried, electrified by the tones of that vigorous
soul which seemed to be fighting against some overwhelming thought.

"Are you free?" she said, with a haughty glance which subdued him.

"Free! yes, except for the sentence of death which hangs over me."

She added presently, in a voice full of bitter feeling: "If all this
were not a dream, a glorious life might indeed be ours. But I have
been talking folly; let us beware of committing any. When I think of
all you would have to be before you could rate me at my proper value I
doubt everything--"

"I doubt nothing if you will only grant me--"

"Hush!" she cried, hearing a note of true passion in his voice, "the
open air is decidedly disagreeing with us; let us return to the
coach."

That vehicle soon came up; they took their places and drove on several
miles in total silence. Both had matter for reflection, but henceforth
their eyes no longer feared to meet. Each now seemed to have an equal
interest in observing the other, and in mutually hiding important
secrets; but for all that they were drawn together by one and the same
impulse, which now, as a result of this interview, assumed the
dimensions of a passion. They recognized in each other qualities which
promised to heighten all the pleasures to be derived from either their
contest or their union. Perhaps both of them, living a life of
adventure, had reached the singular moral condition in which, either
from weariness or in defiance of fate, the mind rejects serious
reflection and flings itself on chance in pursuing an enterprise
precisely because the issues of chance are unknown, and the interest
of expecting them vivid. The moral nature, like the physical nature,
has its abysses into which strong souls love to plunge, risking their
future as gamblers risk their fortune. Mademoiselle de Verneuil and
the young marquis had obtained a revelation of each other's minds as a
consequence of this interview, and their intercourse thus took rapid
strides, for the sympathy of their souls succeeded to that of their
senses. Besides, the more they felt fatally drawn to each other, the
more eager they were to study the secret action of their minds. The
so-called Vicomte de Bauvan, surprised at the seriousness of the
strange girl's ideas, asked himself how she could possibly combine
such acquired knowledge of life with so much youth and freshness. He
thought he discovered an extreme desire to appear chaste in the
modesty and reserve of her attitudes. He suspected her of playing a
part; he questioned the nature of his own pleasure; and ended by
choosing to consider her a clever actress. He was right; Mademoiselle
de Verneuil, like other women of the world, grew the more reserved the
more she felt the warmth of her own feelings, assuming with perfect
naturalness the appearance of prudery, beneath which such women veil
their desires. They all wish to offer themselves as virgins on love's
altar; and if they are not so, the deception they seek to practise is
at least a homage which they pay to their lovers. These thoughts
passed rapidly through the mind of the young man and gratified him. In
fact, for both, this mutual examination was an advance in their
intercourse, and the lover soon came to that phase of passion in which
a man finds in the defects of his mistress a reason for loving her the
more.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil was thoughtful. Perhaps her imagination led
her over a greater extent of the future than that of the young
/emigre/, who was merely following one of the many impulses of his
life as a man; whereas Marie was considering a lifetime, thinking to
make it beautiful, and to fill it with happiness and with grand and
noble sentiments. Happy in such thoughts, more in love with her ideal
than with the actual reality, with the future rather than with the
present, she desired now to return upon her steps so as to better
establish her power. In this she acted instinctively, as all women
act. Having agreed with her soul that she would give herself wholly
up, she wished--if we may so express it--to dispute every fragment of
the gift; she longed to take back from the past all her words and
looks and acts and make them more in harmony with the dignity of a
woman beloved. Her eyes at times expressed a sort of terror as she
thought of the interview just over, in which she had shown herself
aggressive. But as she watched the face before her, instinct with
power, and felt that a being so strong must also be generous, she
glowed at the thought that her part in life would be nobler than that
of most women, inasmuch as her lover was a man of character, a man
condemned to death, who had come to risk his life in making war
against the Republic. The thought of occupying such a soul to the
exclusion of all rivals gave a new aspect to many matters. Between the
moment, only five hours earlier, when she composed her face and toned
her voice to allure the young man, and the present moment, when she
was able to convulse him with a look, there was all the difference to
her between a dead world and a living one.

In the condition of soul in which Mademoiselle de Verneuil now existed
external life seemed to her a species of phantasmagoria. The carriage
passed through villages and valleys and mounted hills which left no
impressions on her mind. They reached Mayenne; the soldiers of the
escort were changed; Merle spoke to her; she replied; they crossed the
whole town and were again in the open country; but the faces, houses,
streets, landscape, men, swept past her like the figments of a dream.
Night came, and Marie was travelling beneath a diamond sky, wrapped in
soft light, and yet she was not aware that darkness had succeeded day;
that Mayenne was passed; that Fougeres was near; she knew not even
where she was going. That she should part in a few hours from the man
she had chosen, and who, she believed, had chosen her, was not for her
a possibility. Love is the only passion which looks to neither past
nor future. Occasionally her thoughts escaped in broken words, in
phrases devoid of meaning, though to her lover's ears they sounded
like promises of love. To the two witnesses of this birth of passion
she seemed to be rushing onward with fearful rapidity. Francine knew
Marie as well as Madame du Gua knew the marquis, and their experience
of the past made them await in silence some terrible finale. It was,
indeed, not long before the end came to the drama which Mademoiselle
de Verneuil had called, without perhaps imagining the truth of her
words, a tragedy.

When the travellers were about three miles beyond Mayenne they heard a
horseman riding after them with great rapidity. When he reached the
carriage he leaned towards it to look at Mademoiselle de Verneuil, who
recognized Corentin. That offensive personage made her a sign of
intelligence, the familiarity of which was deeply mortifying; then he
turned away, after chilling her to the bone with a look full of some
base meaning. The young /emigre/ seemed painfully affected by this
circumstance, which did not escape the notice of his pretended mother;
but Marie softly touched him, seeming by her eyes to take refuge in
his heart as thought it were her only haven. His brow cleared at this
proof of the full extent of his mistress's attachment, coming to him
as it were by accident. An inexplicable fear seemed to have overcome
her coyness, and her love was visible for a moment without a veil.
Unfortunately for both of them, Madame du Gua saw it all; like a miser
who gives a feast, she seemed to count the morsels and begrudge the
wine.