The Lily of the Valley

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The interests of her children gave Madame de Mortsauf almost as much
anxiety as their health. I soon saw the truth of what she had told me
as to her secret share in the management of the family affairs, into
which I became slowly initiated. After ten years' steady effort Madame
de Mortsauf had changed the method of cultivating the estate. She had
"put it in fours," as the saying is in those parts, meaning the new
system under which wheat is sown every four years only, so as to make
the soil produce a different crop yearly. To evade the obstinate
unwillingness of the peasantry it was found necessary to cancel the
old leases and give new ones, to divide the estate into four great
farms and let them on equal shares, the sort of lease that prevails in
Touraine and its neighborhood. The owner of the estate gives the
house, farm-buildings, and seed-grain to tenants-at-will, with whom he
divides the costs of cultivation and the crops. This division is
superintended by an agent or bailiff, whose business it is to take the
share belonging to the owner; a costly system, complicated by the
market changes of values, which alter the character of the shares
constantly. The countess had induced Monsieur de Mortsauf to cultivate
a fifth farm, made up of the reserved lands about Clochegourde, as
much to occupy his mind as to show other farmers the excellence of the
new method by the evidence of facts. Being thus, in a hidden way, the
mistress of the estate, she had slowly and with a woman's persistency
rebuilt two of the farm-houses on the principle of those in Artois and
Flanders. It is easy to see her motive. She wished, after the
expiration of the leases on shares, to relet to intelligent and
capable persons for rental in money, and thus simplify the revenues of
Clochegourde. Fearing to die before her husband, she was anxious to
secure for him a regular income, and to her children a property which
no incapacity could jeopardize. At the present time the fruit-trees
planted during the last ten years were in full bearing; the hedges,
which secured the boundaries from dispute, were in good order; the
elms and poplars were growing well. With the new purchases and the new
farming system well under way, the estate of Clochegourde, divided
into four great farms, two of which still needed new houses, was
capable of bringing in forty thousand francs a year, ten thousand for
each farm, not counting the yield of the vineyards, and the two
hundred acres of woodland which adjoined them, nor the profits of the
model home-farm. The roads to the great farms all opened on an avenue
which followed a straight line from Clochegourde to the main road
leading to Chinon. The distance from the entrance of this avenue to
Tours was only fifteen miles; tenants would never be wanting,
especially now that everybody was talking of the count's improvements
and the excellent condition of his land.

The countess wished to put some fifteen thousand francs into each of
the estates lately purchased, and to turn the present dwellings into
two large farm-houses and buildings, in order that the property might
bring in a better rent after the ground had been cultivated for a year
or two. These ideas, so simple in themselves, but complicated with the
thirty odd thousand francs it was necessary to expend upon them, were
just now the topic of many discussions between herself and the count,
sometimes amounting to bitter quarrels, in which she was sustained by
the thought of her children's interests. The fear, "If I die to-morrow
what will become of them?" made her heart beat. The gentle, peaceful
hearts to whom anger is an impossibility, and whose sole desire is to
shed on those about them their own inward peace, alone know what
strength is needed for such struggles, what demands upon the spirit
must be made before beginning the contest, what weariness ensues when
the fight is over and nothing has been won. At this moment, just as
her children seemed less anemic, less frail, more active (for the
fruit season had had its effect on them), and her moist eyes followed
them as they played about her with a sense of contentment which
renewed her strength and refreshed her heart, the poor woman was
called upon to bear the sharp sarcasms and attacks of an angry
opposition. The count, alarmed at the plans she proposed, denied with
stolid obstinacy the advantages of all she had done and the
possibility of doing more. He replied to conclusive reasoning with the
folly of a child who denies the influence of the sun in summer. The
countess, however, carried the day. The victory of commonsense over
insanity so healed her wounds that she forgot the battle. That day we
all went to the Cassine and the Rhetoriere, to decide upon the
buildings. The count walked alone in front, the children went next,
and we ourselves followed slowly, for she was speaking in a low,
gentle tone, which made her words like the murmur of the sea as it
ripples on a smooth beach.

She was, she said, certain of success. A new line of communication
between Tours and Chinon was to be opened by an active man, a carrier,
a cousin of Manette's, who wanted a large farm on the route. His
family was numerous; the eldest son would drive the carts, the second
could attend to the business, the father living half-way along the
road, at Rabelaye, one of the farms then to let, would look after the
relays and enrich his land with the manure of the stables. As to the
other farm, la Baude, the nearest to Clochegourde, one of their own
people, a worthy, intelligent, and industrious man, who saw the
advantages of the new system of agriculture, was ready to take a lease
on it. The Cassine and the Rhetoriere need give no anxiety; their soil
was the very best in the neighborhood; the farm-houses once built, and
the ground brought into cultivation, it would be quite enough to
advertise them at Tours; tenants would soon apply for them. In two
years' time Clochegourde would be worth at least twenty-four thousand
francs a year. Gravelotte, the farm in Maine, which Monsieur de
Mortsauf had recovered after the emigration, was rented for seven
thousand francs a year for nine years; his pension was four thousand.
This income might not be a fortune, but it was certainly a competence.
Later, other additions to it might enable her to go to Paris and
attend to Jacques' education; in two years, she thought, his health
would be established.

With what feeling she uttered the word "Paris!" I knew her thought;
she wished to be as little separated as possible from her friend. On
that I broke forth; I told her that she did not know me; that without
talking of it, I had resolved to finish my education by working day
and night so as to fit myself to be Jacques' tutor. She looked grave.

"No, Felix," she said, "that cannot be, any more than your priesthood.
I thank you from my heart as a mother, but as a woman who loves you
sincerely I can never allow you to be the victim of your attachment to
me. Such a position would be a social discredit to you, and I could
not allow it. No! I cannot be an injury to you in any way. You,
Vicomte de Vandenesse, a tutor! You, whose motto is 'Ne se vend!' Were
you Richelieu himself it would bar your way in life; it would give the
utmost pain to your family. My friend, you do not know what insult
women of the world, like my mother, can put into a patronizing glance,
what degradation into a word, what contempt into a bow."

"But if you love me, what is the world to me?"

She pretended not to hear, and went on:--

"Though my father is most kind and desirous of doing all I ask, he
would never forgive your taking so humble a position; he would refuse
you his protection. I could not consent to your becoming tutor to the
Dauphin even. You must accept society as it is; never commit the fault
of flying in the face of it. My friend, this rash proposal of--"

"Love," I whispered.

"No, charity," she said, controlling her tears, "this wild idea
enlightens me as to your character; your heart will be your bane. I
shall claim from this moment the right to teach you certain things.
Let my woman's eye see for you sometimes. Yes, from the solitudes of
Clochegourde I mean to share, silently, contentedly, in your
successes. As to a tutor, do not fear; we shall find some good old
abbe, some learned Jesuit, and my father will gladly devote a handsome
sum to the education of the boy who is to bear his name. Jacques is my
pride. He is, however, eleven years old," she added after a pause.
"But it is with him as with you; when I first saw you I took you to be
about thirteen."

We now reached the Cassine, where Jacques, Madeleine, and I followed
her about as children follow a mother; but we were in her way; I left
her presently and went into the orchard where Martineau the elder,
keeper of the place, was discussing with Martineau the younger, the
bailiff, whether certain trees ought or ought not to be taken down;
they were arguing the matter as if it concerned their own property. I
then saw how much the countess was beloved. I spoke of it to a poor
laborer, who, with one foot on his spade and an elbow on its handle,
stood listening to the two doctors of pomology.

"Ah, yes, monsieur," he answered, "she is a good woman, and not
haughty like those hussies at Azay, who would see us die like dogs
sooner than yield us one penny of the price of a grave! The day when
that woman leaves these parts the Blessed Virgin will weep, and we
too. She knows what is due to her, but she knows our hardships, too,
and she puts them into the account."

With what pleasure I gave that man all the money I had.

A few days later a pony arrived for Jacques, his father, an excellent
horseman, wishing to accustom the child by degrees to the fatigues of
such exercise. The boy had a pretty riding-dress, bought with the
product of the nuts. The morning when he took his first lesson
accompanied by his father and by Madeleine, who jumped and shouted
about the lawn round which Jacques was riding, was a great maternal
festival for the countess. The boy wore a blue collar embroidered by
her, a little sky-blue overcoat fastened by a polished leather belt, a
pair of white trousers pleated at the waist, and a Scotch cap, from
which his fair hair flowed in heavy locks. He was charming to behold.
All the servants clustered round to share the domestic joy. The little
heir smiled at his mother as he passed her, sitting erect, and quite
fearless. This first manly act of a child to whom death had often
seemed so near, the promise of a sound future warranted by this ride
which showed him so handsome, so fresh, so rosy,--what a reward for
all her cares! Then too the joy of the father, who seemed to renew his
youth, and who smiled for the first time in many long months; the
pleasure shown on all faces, the shout of an old huntsman of the
Lenoncourts, who had just arrived from Tours, and who, seeing how the
boy held the reins, shouted to him, "Bravo, monsieur le vicomte!"--all
this was too much for the poor mother, and she burst into tears; she,
so calm in her griefs, was too weak to bear the joy of admiring her
boy as he bounded over the gravel, where so often she had led him in
the sunshine inwardly weeping his expected death. She leaned upon my
arm unreservedly, and said: "I think I have never suffered. Do not
leave us to-day."

The lesson over, Jacques jumped into his mother's arms; she caught him
and held him tightly to her, kissing him passionately. I went with
Madeleine to arrange two magnificent bouquets for the dinner-table in
honor of the young equestrian. When we returned to the salon the
countess said: "The fifteenth of October is certainly a great day with
me. Jacques has taken his first riding lesson, and I have just set the
last stitch in my furniture cover."

"Then, Blanche," said the count, laughing, "I must pay you for it."

He offered her his arm and took her to the first courtyard, where
stood an open carriage which her father had sent her, and for which
the count had purchased two English horses. The old huntsman had
prepared the surprise while Jacques was taking his lesson. We got into
the carriage, and went to see where the new avenue entered the main
road towards Chinon. As we returned, the countess said to me in an
anxious tone, "I am too happy; to me happiness is like an illness,--it
overwhelms me; I fear it may vanish like a dream."

I loved her too passionately not to feel jealous,--I who could give
her nothing! In my rage against myself I longed for some means of
dying for her. She asked me to tell her the thoughts that filled my
eyes, and I told her honestly. She was more touched than by all her
presents; then taking me to the portico, she poured comfort into my
heart. "Love me as my aunt loved me," she said, "and that will be
giving me your life; and if I take it, must I not ever be grateful to
you?

"It was time I finished my tapestry," she added as we re-entered the
salon, where I kissed her hand as if to renew my vows. "Perhaps you do
not know, Felix, why I began so formidable a piece of work. Men find
the occupations of life a great resource against troubles; the
management of affairs distracts their mind; but we poor women have no
support within ourselves against our sorrows. To be able to smile
before my children and my husband when my heart was heavy I felt the
need of controlling my inward sufferings by some physical exercise. In
this way I escaped the depression which is apt to follow a great
strain upon the moral strength, and likewise all outbursts of
excitement. The mere action of lifting my arm regularly as I drew the
stitches rocked my thoughts and gave to my spirit when the tempest
raged a monotonous ebb and flow which seemed to regulate its emotions.
To every stitch I confided my secrets,--you understand me, do you not?
Well, while doing my last chair I have thought much, too much, of you,
dear friend. What you have put into your bouquets I have said in my
embroidery."

The dinner was lovely. Jacques, like all children when you take notice
of them, jumped into my arms when he saw the flowers I had arranged
for him as a garland. His mother pretended to be jealous; ah, Natalie,
you should have seen the charming grace with which the dear child
offered them to her. In the afternoon we played a game of backgammon,
I alone against Monsieur and Madame de Mortsauf, and the count was
charming. They accompanied me along the road to Frapesle in the
twilight of a tranquil evening, one of those harmonious evenings when
our feelings gain in depth what they lose in vivacity. It was a day of
days in this poor woman's life; a spot of brightness which often
comforted her thoughts in painful hours.

Soon, however, the riding lessons became a subject of contention. The
countess justly feared the count's harsh reprimands to his son.
Jacques grew thin, dark circles surrounded his sweet blue eyes; rather
than trouble his mother, he suffered in silence. I advised him to tell
his father he was tired when the count's temper was violent; but that
expedient proved unavailing, and it became necessary to substitute the
old huntsman as a teacher in place of the father, who could with
difficulty be induced to resign his pupil. Angry reproaches and
contentions began once more; the count found a text for his continual
complaints in the base ingratitude of women; he flung the carriage,
horses, and liveries in his wife's face twenty times a day. At last a
circumstance occurred on which a man with his nature and his disease
naturally fastened eagerly. The cost of the buildings at the Cassine
and the Rhetoriere proved to be half as much again as the estimate.
This news was unfortunately given in the first instance to Monsieur de
Mortsauf instead of to his wife. It was the ground of a quarrel, which
began mildly but grew more and more embittered until it seemed as
though the count's madness, lulled for a short time, was demanding its
arrearages from the poor wife.

That day I had started from Frapesle at half-past ten to search for
flowers with Madeleine. The child had brought the two vases to the
portico, and I was wandering about the gardens and adjoining meadows
gathering the autumn flowers, so beautiful, but too rare. Returning
from my final quest, I could not find my little lieutenant with her
white cape and broad pink sash; but I heard cries within the house,
and Madeleine presently came running out.

"The general," she said, crying (the term with her was an expression
of dislike), "the general is scolding mamma; go and defend her."

I sprang up the steps of the portico and reached the salon without
being seen by either the count or his wife. Hearing the madman's sharp
cries I first shut all the doors, then I returned and found Henriette
as white as her dress.

"Never marry, Felix," said the count as soon as he saw me; "a woman is
led by the devil; the most virtuous of them would invent evil if it
did not exist; they are all vile."

Then followed arguments without beginning or end. Harking back to the
old troubles, Monsieur de Mortsauf repeated the nonsense of the
peasantry against the new system of farming. He declared that if he
had had the management of Clochegourde he should be twice as rich as
he now was. He shouted these complaints and insults, he swore, he
sprang around the room knocking against the furniture and displacing
it; then in the middle of a sentence he stopped short, complained that
his very marrow was on fire, his brains melting away like his money,
his wife had ruined him! The countess smiled and looked upward.

"Yes, Blanche," he cried, "you are my executioner; you are killing me;
I am in your way; you want to get rid of me; you are monster of
hypocrisy. She is smiling! Do you know why she smiles, Felix?"

I kept silence and looked down.

"That woman," he continued, answering his own question, "denies me all
happiness; she is no more to me than she is to you, and yet she
pretends to be my wife! She bears my name and fulfils none of the
duties which all laws, human and divine, impose upon her; she lies to
God and man. She obliges me to go long distances, hoping to wear me
out and make me leave her to herself; I am displeasing to her, she
hates me; she puts all her art into keeping me away from her; she has
made me mad through the privations she imposes on me--for everything
flies to my poor head; she is killing me by degrees, and she thinks
herself a saint and takes the sacrament every month!"

The countess was weeping bitterly, humiliated by the degradation of
the man, to whom she kept saying for all answer, "Monsieur! monsieur!
monsieur!"

Though the count's words made me blush, more for him than for
Henriette, they stirred my heart violently, for they appealed to the
sense of chastity and delicacy which is indeed the very warp and woof
of first love.

"She is virgin at my expense," cried the count.

At these words the countess cried out, "Monsieur!"

"What do you mean with your imperious 'Monsieur!'" he shouted. "Am I
not your master? Must I teach you that I am?"

He came towards her, thrusting forward his white wolf's head, now
hideous, for his yellow eyes had a savage expression which made him
look like a wild beast rushing out of a wood. Henriette slid from her
chair to the ground to avoid a blow, which however was not given; she
lay at full length on the floor and lost consciousness, completely
exhausted. The count was like a murderer who feels the blood of his
victim spurting in his face; he stopped short, bewildered. I took the
poor woman in my arms, and the count let me take her, as though he
felt unworthy to touch her; but he went before me to open the door of
her bedroom next the salon,--a sacred room I had never entered. I put
the countess on her feet and held her for a moment in one arm, passing
the other round her waist, while Monsieur de Mortsauf took the
eider-down coverlet from the bed; then together we lifted her and laid
her, still dressed, on the bed. When she came to herself she motioned to
us to unfasten her belt. Monsieur de Mortsauf found a pair of scissors,
and cut through it; I made her breathe salts, and she opened her eyes.
The count left the room, more ashamed than sorry. Two hours passed in
perfect silence. Henriette's hand lay in mine; she pressed it to mine,
but could not speak. From time to time she opened her eyes as if to
tell me by a look that she wished to be still and silent; then
suddenly, for an instant, there seemed a change; she rose on her elbow
and whispered, "Unhappy man!--ah! if you did but know--"

She fell back upon the pillow. The remembrance of her past sufferings,
joined to the present shock, threw her again into the nervous
convulsions I had just calmed by the magnetism of love,--a power then
unknown to me, but which I used instinctively. I held her with gentle
force, and she gave me a look which made me weep. When the nervous
motions ceased I smoothed her disordered hair, the first and only time
that I ever touched it; then I again took her hand and sat looking at
the room, all brown and gray, at the bed with its simple chintz
curtains, at the toilet table draped in a fashion now discarded, at
the commonplace sofa with its quilted mattress. What poetry I could
read in that room! What renunciations of luxury for herself; the only
luxury being its spotless cleanliness. Sacred cell of a married nun,
filled with holy resignation; its sole adornments were the crucifix of
her bed, and above it the portrait of her aunt; then, on each side of
the holy water basin, two drawings of the children made by herself,
with locks of their hair when they were little. What a retreat for a
woman whose appearance in the great world of fashion would have made
the handsomest of her sex jealous! Such was the chamber where the
daughter of an illustrious family wept out her days, sunken at this
moment in anguish, and denying herself the love that might have
comforted her. Hidden, irreparable woe! Tears of the victim for her
slayer, tears of the slayer for his victim! When the children and
waiting-woman came at length into the room I left it. The count was
waiting for me; he seemed to seek me as a mediating power between
himself and his wife. He caught my hands, exclaiming, "Stay, stay with
us, Felix!"

"Unfortunately," I said, "Monsieur de Chessel has a party, and my
absence would cause remark. But after dinner I will return."

He left the house when I did, and took me to the lower gate without
speaking; then he accompanied me to Frapesle, seeming not to know what
he was doing. At last I said to him, "For heaven's sake, Monsieur le
comte, let her manage your affairs if it pleases her, and don't
torment her."

"I have not long to live," he said gravely; "she will not suffer long
through me; my head is giving way."

He left me in a spasm of involuntary self-pity. After dinner I
returned for news of Madame de Mortsauf, who was already better. If
such were the joys of marriage, if such scenes were frequent, how
could she survive them long? What slow, unpunished murder was this?
During that day I understood the tortures by which the count was
wearing out his wife. Before what tribunal can we arraign such crimes?
These thoughts stunned me; I could say nothing to Henriette by word of
mouth, but I spent the night in writing to her. Of the three or four
letters that I wrote I have kept only the beginning of one, with which
I was not satisfied. Here it is, for though it seems to me to express
nothing, and to speak too much of myself when I ought only to have
thought of her, it will serve to show you the state my soul was in:--

To Madame de Mortsauf:

How many things I had to say to you when I reached the house! I
thought of them on the way, but I forgot them in your presence.
Yes, when I see you, dear Henriette, I find my thoughts no longer
in keeping with the light from your soul which heightens your
beauty; then, too, the happiness of being near you is so ineffable
as to efface all other feelings. Each time we meet I am born into
a broader life; I am like the traveller who climbs a rock and sees
before him a new horizon. Each time you talk with me I add new
treasures to my treasury. There lies, I think, the secret of long
and inexhaustible affections. I can only speak to you of yourself
when away from you. In your presence I am too dazzled to see, too
happy to question my happiness, too full of you to be myself, too
eloquent through you to speak, too eager in seizing the present
moment to remember the past. You must think of this state of
intoxication and forgive me its consequent mistakes.

When near you I can only feel. Yet, I have courage to say, dear
Henriette, that never, in all the many joys you have given me,
never did I taste such joy as filled my soul when, after that
dreadful storm through which you struggled with superhuman
courage, you came to yourself alone with me, in the twilight of
your chamber where that unhappy scene had brought me. I alone
know the light that shines from a woman when through the portals
of death she re-enters life with the dawn of a rebirth tinting her
brow. What harmonies were in your voice! How words, even your
words, seemed paltry when the sound of that adored voice--in
itself the echo of past pains mingled with divine consolations
--blessed me with the gift of your first thought. I knew you were
brilliant with all human splendor, but yesterday I found a new
Henriette, who might be mine if God so willed; I beheld a spirit
freed from the bodily trammels which repress the ardors of the
soul. Ah! thou wert beautiful indeed in thy weakness, majestic in
thy prostration. Yesterday I found something more beautiful than
thy beauty, sweeter than thy voice; lights more sparkling than the
light of thine eyes, perfumes for which there are no words
--yesterday thy soul was visible and palpable. Would I could have
opened my heart and made thee live there! Yesterday I lost the
respectful timidity with which thy presence inspires me; thy
weakness brought us nearer together. Then, when the crisis passed
and thou couldst bear our atmosphere once more, I knew what it was
to breathe in unison with thy breath. How many prayers rose up to
heaven in that moment! Since I did not die as I rushed through
space to ask of God that he would leave thee with me, no human
creature can die of joy nor yet of sorrow. That moment has left
memories buried in my soul which never again will reappear upon
its surface and leave me tearless. Yes, the fears with which my
soul was tortured yesterday are incomparably greater than all
sorrows that the future can bring upon me, just as the joys which
thou hast given me, dear eternal thought of my life! will be
forever greater than any future joy God may be pleased to grant
me. Thou hast made me comprehend the love divine, that sure love,
sure in strength and in duration, that knows no doubt or jealousy.