Honoré de Balzac: Premium Collection. Honore de Balzac
his balm for every wound! For a woman brought up like Marie, religious and noble as she was, such a love was a form of charity. Hence the boldness of it. Pure sentiments often compromise themselves with a lofty disdain that resembles the boldness of courtesans.
As soon as by her specious distinctions Marie had convinced herself that she did not in any way impair her conjugal faith, she rushed into the happiness of loving Raoul. The least little things of her daily life acquired a charm. Her boudoir, where she thought of him, became a sanctuary. There was nothing there that did not rouse some sense of pleasure; even her ink-stand was the coming accomplice in the pleasures of correspondence; for she would now have letters to read and answer. Dress, that splendid poesy of the feminine life, unknown or exhausted by her, appeared to her eyes endowed with a magic hitherto unperceived. It suddenly became clear to her what it is to most women, the manifestation of an inward thought, a language, a symbol. How many enjoyments in a toilet arranged to please him, to do him honor! She gave herself up ingenuously to all those gracefully charming things in which so many Parisian women spend their lives, and which give such significance to all that we see about them, and in them, and on them. Few women go to milliners and dressmakers for their own pleasure and interest. When old they never think of adornment. The next time you meet in the street a young woman stopping for a moment to look into a shop-window, examine her face carefully. “Will he think I look better in that?” are the words written on that fair brow, in the eyes sparkling with hope, in the smile that flickers on the lips.
Lady Dudley’s ball took place on a Saturday night. On the following Monday the countess went to the Opera, feeling certain of seeing Raoul, who was, in fact, watching for her on one of the stairways leading down to the stalls. With what delight did she observe the unwonted care he had bestowed upon his clothes. This despiser of the laws of elegance had brushed and perfumed his hair; his waistcoat followed the fashion, his cravat was well tied, the bosom of his shirt was irreproachably smooth. Raoul was standing with his arms crossed as if posed for his portrait, magnificently indifferent to the rest of the audience and full of repressed impatience. Though lowered, his eyes were turned to the red velvet cushion on which lay Marie’s arm. Felix, seated in the opposite corner of the box, had his back to Nathan.
So, in a moment, as it were, Marie had compelled this remarkable man to abjure his cynicism in the line of clothes. All women, high or low, are filled with delight on seeing a first proof of their power in one of these sudden metamorphoses. Such changes are an admission of serfdom.
“Those women were right; there is a great pleasure in being understood,” she said to herself, thinking of her treacherous friends.
When the two lovers had gazed around the theatre with that glance that takes in everything, they exchanged a look of intelligence. It was for each as if some celestial dew had refreshed their hearts, burned-up with expectation.
“I have been here for an hour in purgatory, but now the heavens are opening,” said Raoul’s eyes.
“I knew you were waiting, but how could I help it?” replied those of the countess.
Thieves, spies, lovers, diplomats, and slaves of any kind alone know the resources and comforts of a glance. They alone know what it contains of meaning, sweetness, thought, anger, villainy, displayed by the modification of that ray of light which conveys the soul. Between the box of the Comtesse Felix de Vandenesse and the step on which Raoul had perched there were barely thirty feet; and yet it was impossible to wipe out that distance. To a fiery being, who had hitherto known no space between his wishes and their gratification, this imaginary but insuperable gulf inspired a mad desire to spring to the countess with the bound of a tiger. In a species of rage he determined to try the ground and bow openly to the countess. She returned the bow with one of those slight inclinations of the head with which women take from their adorers all desire to continue their attempt. Comte Felix turned round to see who had bowed to his wife; he saw Nathan, but did not bow, and seemed to inquire the meaning of such audacity; then he turned back slowly and said a few words to his wife. Evidently the door of that box was closed to Nathan, who cast a terrible look of hatred upon Felix.
Madame d’Espard had seen the whole thing from her box, which was just above where Raoul was standing. She raised her voice in crying bravo to some singer, which caused Nathan to look up to her; he bowed and received in return a gracious smile which seemed to say:—
“If they won’t admit you there come here to me.”
Raoul obeyed the silent summons and went to her box. He felt the need of showing himself in a place which might teach that little Vandenesse that fame was every whit as good as nobility, and that all doors turned on their hinges to admit him. The marquise made him sit in front of her. She wanted to question him.
“Madame Felix de Vandenesse is fascinating in that gown,” she said, complimenting the dress as if it were a book he had published the day before.
“Yes,” said Raoul, indifferently, “marabouts are very becoming to her; but she seems wedded to them; she wore them on Saturday,” he added, in a careless tone, as if to repudiate the intimacy Madame d’Espard was fastening upon him.
“You know the proverb,” she replied. “There is no good fete without a morrow.”
In the matter of repartees literary celebrities are often not as quick as women. Raoul pretended dulness, a last resort for clever men.
“That proverb is true in my case,” he said, looking gallantly at the marquise.
“My dear friend, your speech comes too late; I can’t accept it,” she said, laughing. “Don’t be so prudish! Come, I know how it was; you complimented Madame de Vandenesse at the ball on her marabouts and she has put them on again for your sake. She likes you, and you adore her; it may be a little rapid, but it is all very natural. If I were mistaken you wouldn’t be twisting your gloves like a man who is furious at having to sit here with me instead of flying to the box of his idol. She has obtained,” continued Madame d’Espard, glancing at his person impertinently, “certain sacrifices which you refused to make to society. She ought to be delighted with her success,—in fact, I have no doubt she is vain of it; I should be so in her place—immensely. She was never a woman of any mind, but she may now pass for one of genius. I am sure you will describe her in one of those delightful novels you write. And pray don’t forget Vandenesse; put him in to please me. Really, his self-sufficiency is too much. I can’t stand that Jupiter Olympian air of his,—the only mythological character exempt, they say, from ill-luck.”
“Madame,” cried Raoul, “you rate my soul very low if you think me capable of trafficking with my feelings, my affections. Rather than commit such literary baseness, I would do as they do in England,—put a rope round a woman’s neck and sell her in the market.”
“But I know Marie; she would like you to do it.”
“She is incapable of liking it,” said Raoul, vehemently.
“Oh! then you do know her well?”
Nathan laughed; he, the maker of scenes, to be trapped into playing one himself!
“Comedy is no longer there,” he said, nodding at the stage; “it is here, in you.”
He took his opera-glass and looked about the theatre to recover countenance.
“You are not angry with me, I hope?” said the marquise, giving him a sidelong glance. “I should have had your secret somehow. Let us make peace. Come and see me; I receive every Wednesday, and I am sure the dear countess will never miss an evening if I let her know you will be there. So I shall be the gainer. Sometimes she comes between four and five o’clock, and I’ll be kind and add you to the little set of favorites I admit at that hour.”
“Ah!” cried Raoul, “how the world judges; it calls you unkind.”
“So I am when I need to be,” she replied. “We must defend ourselves. But your countess I adore; you will be contented with her; she is charming. Your name will be the first engraved upon her heart with that infantine joy that makes a lad cut the initials of his love