Yesterday we went to the convent of the ladies of the Visitation, to which we were taken by the Abbe Grimont, a friend of the du Guenic family, who told us that your dear Felicite, mamma, was indeed a saint. She could not very well be anything else to him, for her conversion, which was thought to be his doing, has led to his appointment as vicar-general of the diocese. Mademoiselle des Touches declined to receive Calyste, and would only see me. Ifound her slightly changed, thinner and paler; but she seemed much pleased at my visit.
"Tell Calyste," she said, in a low voice, "that it is a matter of conscience with me not to see him, for I am permitted to do so. Iprefer not to buy that happiness by months of suffering. Ah, you do not know what it costs me to reply to the question, 'Of what are you thinking?' Certainly the mother of the novices has no conception of the number and extent of the ideas which are rushing through my mind when she asks that question. Sometimes I am seeing Italy or Paris, with all its sights; always thinking, however, of Calyste, who is"--she said this in that poetic way you know and admire so much--"who is the sun of memory to me. I found," she continued, "that I was too old to be received among the Carmelites, and I have entered the order of Saint-Francois de Sales solely because he said, 'I will bare your heads instead of your feet,'--objecting, as he did, to austerities which mortified the body only. It is, in truth, the head that sins. The saintly bishop was right to make his rule austere toward the intellect, and terrible against the will. That is what I sought; for my head was the guilty part of me. It deceived me as to my heart until Ireached that fatal age of forty, when, for a few brief moments, we are forty times happier than young women, and then, speedily, fifty times more unhappy. But, my child, tell me," she asked, ceasing with visible satisfaction to speak of herself, "are you happy?""You see me under all the enchantments of love and happiness," Ianswered.
"Calyste is as good and simple as he is noble and beautiful," she said, gravely. "I have made you my heiress in more things than property; you now possess the double ideal of which I dreamed. Irejoice in what I have done," she continued, after a pause. "But, my child, make no mistake; do yourself no wrong. You have easily won happiness; you have only to stretch out your hand to take it, and it is yours; but be careful to preserve it. If you had come here solely to carry away with you the counsels that my knowledge of your husband alone can give you, the journey would be well repaid. Calyste is moved at this moment by a communicated passion, but you have not inspired it. To make your happiness lasting, try, my dear child, to give him something of his former emotions. In the interests of both of you, be capricious, be coquettish; to tell you the truth, you /must/ be. I am not advising any odious scheming, or petty tyranny; this that I tell you is the science of a woman's life. Between usury and prodigality, my child, is economy. Study, therefore, to acquire honorably a certain empire over Calyste. These are the last words on earthly interests that Ishall ever utter, and I have kept them to say as we part; for there are times when I tremble in my conscience lest to save Calyste I may have sacrificed you. Bind him to you, firmly, give him children, let him respect their mother in you--and," she added, in a low and trembling voice, "manage, if you can, that he shall never again see Beatrix."That name plunged us both into a sort of stupor; we looked into each other's eyes, exchanging a vague uneasiness.
"Do you return to Guerande?" she asked me.
"Yes," I said.
"Never go to Les Touches. I did wrong to give him that property.""Why?" I asked.
"Child!" she answered, "Les Touches for you is Bluebeard's chamber. There is nothing so dangerous as to wake a sleeping passion."I have given you, dear mamma, the substance, or at any rate, the meaning of our conversation. If Mademoiselle des Touches made me talk to her freely, she also gave me much to think of; and all the more because, in the delight of this trip, and the charm of these relations with my Calyste, I had well-nigh forgotten the serious situation of which I spoke to you in my first letter, and about which you warned me.
But oh! mother, it is impossible for me to follow these counsels.
I cannot put an appearance of opposition or caprice into my love;it would falsify it. Calyste will do with me what he pleases.
According to your theory, the more I am a woman the more I make myself his toy; for I am, and I know it, horribly weak in my happiness; I cannot resist a single glance of my lord. But no! Ido not abandon myself to love; I only cling to it, as a mother presses her infant to her breast, fearing some evil.
Note.--When "Beatrix" was first published, in 1839, the volume ended with the following paragraph: "Calyste, rich and married to the most beautiful woman in Paris, retains a sadness in his soul which nothing dissipates,--not even the birth of a son at Guerande, in 1839, to the great joy of Zephirine du Guenic. Beatrix lives still in the depths of his heart, and it is impossible to foresee what disasters might result should he again meet with Madame de Rochefide." In 1842 this concluding paragraph was suppressed and the story continued as here follows.--TR.
