The Human Comedy - La Comédie humaine (Complete Edition). Honore de Balzac
the Moor, hearing me, slid down, and vanished with ghostly rapidity.
He must have been dying of fright, and so was I, for I did not hear him go away; apparently he remained at the foot of the elm. After a good quarter of an hour, during which I lost myself in contemplation of the heavens, and battled with the waves of curiosity, I closed my widow and sat down on the bed to unfold the delicate bit of paper, with the tender touch of a worker amongst the ancient manuscripts at Naples. It felt redhot to my fingers. "What a horrible power this man has over me!" I said to myself.
All at once I held out the paper to the candle—I would burn it without reading a word. Then a thought stayed me, "What can he have to say that he writes so secretly?" Well, dear, I did burn it, reflecting that, though any other girl in the world would have devoured the letter, it was not fitting that I—Armande-Louise-Marie de Chaulieu—should read it.
The next day, at the Italian opera, he was at his post. But I feel sure that, ex-prime minister of a constitutional government though he is, he could not discover the slightest agitation of mind in any movement of mine. I might have seen nothing and received nothing the evening before. This was most satisfactory to me, but he looked very sad. Poor man! in Spain it is so natural for love to come in at the window!
During the interval, it seems, he came and walked in the passages. This I learned from the chief secretary of the Spanish embassy, who also told the story of a noble action of his.
As Duc de Soria he was to marry one of the richest heiresses in Spain, the young princess Marie Heredia, whose wealth would have mitigated the bitterness of exile. But it seems that Marie, disappointing the wishes of the fathers, who had betrothed them in their earliest childhood, loved the younger son of the house of Soria, to whom my Felipe, gave her up. Allowing himself to be despoiled by the King of Spain.
"He would perform this piece of heroism quite simply," I said to the young man.
"You know him then?" was his ingenuous reply.
My mother smiled.
"What will become of him, for he is condemned to death?" I asked.
"Though dead to Spain, he can live in Sardinia."
"Ah! then Spain is the country of tombs as well as castles?" I said, trying to carry it off as a joke.
"There is everything in Spain, even Spaniards of the old school," my mother replied.
"The Baron de Macumer obtained a passport, not without difficulty, from the King of Sardinia," the young diplomatist went on. "He has now become a Sardinian subject, and he possesses a magnificent estate in the island with full feudal rights. He has a palace at Sassari. If Ferdinand VII. were to die, Macumer would probably go in for diplomacy, and the Court of Turin would make him ambassador. Though young, he is—"
"Ah! he is young?"
"Certainly, mademoiselle... though young, he is one of the most distinguished men in Spain."
I scanned the house meanwhile through my opera-glass, and seemed to lend an inattentive ear to the secretary; but, between ourselves, I was wretched at having burnt his letter. In what terms would a man like that express his love? For he does love me. To be loved, adored in secret; to know that in this house, where all the great men of Paris were collected, there was one entirely devoted to me, unknown to everybody! Ah! Renee, now I understand the life of Paris, its balls, and its gaieties. It all flashed on me in the true light. When we love, we must have society, were it only to sacrifice it to our love. I felt a different creature—and such a happy one! My vanity, pride, self-love,—all were flattered. Heaven knows what glances I cast upon the audience!
"Little rogue!" the Duchess whispered in my ear with a smile.
Yes, Renee, my wily mother had deciphered the hidden joy in my bearing, and I could only haul down my flag before such feminine strategy. Those two words taught me more of worldly wisdom than I have been able to pick up in a year—for we are in March now. Alas! no more Italian opera in another month. How will life be possible without that heavenly music, when one's heart is full of love?
When I got home, my dear, with determination worthy of a Chaulieu, I opened my window to watch a shower of rain. Oh! if men knew the magic spell that a heroic action throws over us, they would indeed rise to greatness! a poltroon would turn hero! What I had learned about my Spaniard drove me into a very fever. I felt certain that he was there, ready to aim another letter at me.
I was right, and this time I burnt nothing. Here, then, is the first love-letter I have received, madame logician: each to her kind:—
"Louise, it is not for your peerless beauty I love you, nor for
your gifted mind, your noble feeling, the wondrous charm of all
you say and do, nor yet for your pride, your queenly scorn of
baser mortals—a pride blent in you with charity, for what angel
could be more tender?—Louise, I love you because, for the sake of
a poor exile, you have unbent this lofty majesty, because by a
gesture, a glance, you have brought consolation to a man so far
beneath you that the utmost he could hope for was your pity, the
pity of a generous heart. You are the one woman whose eyes have
shone with a tenderer light when bent on me.
"And because you let fall this glance—a mere grain of dust, yet a
grace surpassing any bestowed on me when I stood at the summit of
a subject's ambition—I long to tell you, Louise, how dear you are
to me, and that my love is for yourself alone, without a thought
beyond, a love that far more than fulfils the conditions laid down
by you for an ideal passion.
"Know, then, idol of my highest heaven, that there is in the world
an offshoot of the Saracen race, whose life is in your hands, who
will receive your orders as a slave, and deem it an honor to
execute them. I have given myself to you absolutely and for the
mere joy of giving, for a single glance of your eye, for a touch
of the hand which one day you offered to your Spanish master. I am
but your servitor, Louise; I claim no more.
"No, I dare not think that I could ever be loved; but perchance my
devotion may win for me toleration. Since that morning when you
smiled upon me with generous girlish impulse, divining the misery
of my lonely and rejected heart, you reign there alone. You are
the absolute ruler of my life, the queen of my thoughts, the god
of my heart; I find you in the sunshine of my home, the fragrance
of my flowers, the balm of the air I breathe, the pulsing of my
blood, the light that visits me in sleep.
"One thought alone troubled this happiness—your ignorance. All
unknown to you was this boundless devotion, the trusty arm, the
blind slave, the silent tool, the wealth—for henceforth all I
possess is mine only as a trust—which lay at your disposal;
unknown to you, the heart waiting to receive your confidence, and
yearning to replace all that your life (I know it well) has lacked
—the liberal ancestress, so ready to meet your needs, a father to
whom you could look for protection in every difficulty, a friend,
a brother. The secret of your isolation is no secret to me! If I