Honoré de Balzac: Premium Collection. Honore de Balzac
A Colonel of the Imperial Guard, a position equal to that of a Brigadier-General, was undoubtedly one of the best matches in the army.
It was now nearly midnight. The conversation, the gambling, the dancing, the flirtations, interests, petty rivalries, and scheming had all reached the pitch of ardor which makes a young man exclaim involuntarily, “A fine ball!”
“My sweet little angel,” said Madame de Lansac to the Countess, “you are now at an age when in my day I made many mistakes. Seeing you are just now enduring a thousand deaths, it occurred to me that I might give you some charitable advice. To go wrong at two-and-twenty means spoiling your future; is it not tearing the gown you must wear? My dear, it is not much later that we learn to go about in it without crumpling it. Go on, sweetheart, making clever enemies, and friends who have no sense of conduct, and you will see what a pleasant life you will some day be leading!”
“Oh, madame, it is very hard for a woman to be happy, do not you think?” the Countess eagerly exclaimed.
“My child, at your age you must learn to choose between pleasure and happiness. You want to marry Martial, who is not fool enough to make a good husband, nor passionate enough to remain a lover. He is in debt, my dear; he is the man to run through your fortune; still, that would be nothing if he could make you happy.—Do not you see how aged he is? The man must have been ill; he is making the most of what is left him. In three years he will be a wreck. Then he will be ambitious; perhaps he may succeed. I do not think so.—What is he? A man of intrigue, who may have the business faculty to perfection, and be able to gossip agreeably; but he is too presumptuous to have any sterling merit; he will not go far. Besides—only look at him. Is it not written on his brow that, at this very moment, what he sees in you is not a young and pretty woman, but the two million francs you possess? He does not love you, my dear; he is reckoning you up as if you were an investment. If you are bent on marrying, find an older man who has an assured position and is half-way on his career. A widow’s marriage ought not to be a trivial love affair. Is a mouse to be caught a second time in the same trap? A new alliance ought now to be a good speculation on your part, and in marrying again you ought at least to have a hope of being some day addressed as Madame la Marechale!”
As she spoke, both women naturally fixed their eyes on Colonel Montcornet’s handsome face.
“If you would rather play the delicate part of a flirt and not marry again,” the Duchess went on, with blunt good-nature; “well! my poor child, you, better than any woman, will know how to raise the storm-clouds and disperse them again. But, I beseech you, never make it your pleasure to disturb the peace of families, to destroy unions, and ruin the happiness of happy wives. I, my dear, have played that perilous game. Dear heaven! for a triumph of vanity some poor virtuous soul is murdered—for there really are virtuous women, child,—and we may make ourselves mortally hated. I learned, a little too late, that, as the Duc d’Albe once said, one salmon is worth a thousand frogs! A genuine affection certainly brings a thousand times more happiness than the transient passions we may inspire.—Well, I came here on purpose to preach to you; yes, you are the cause of my appearance in this house, which stinks of the lower class. Have I not just seen actors here? Formerly, my dear, we received them in our boudoir; but in the drawing-room—never!—Why do you look at me with so much amazement? Listen to me. If you want to play with men, do not try to wring the hearts of any but those whose life is not yet settled, who have no duties to fulfil; the others do not forgive us for the errors that have made them happy. Profit by this maxim, founded on my long experience.—That luckless Soulanges, for instance, whose head you have turned, whom you have intoxicated for these fifteen months past, God knows how! Do you know at what you have struck?—At his whole life. He has been married these two years; he is worshiped by a charming wife, whom he loves, but neglects; she lives in tears and embittered silence. Soulanges has had hours of remorse more terrible than his pleasure has been sweet. And you, you artful little thing, have deserted him.—Well, come and see your work.”
The old lady took Madame de Vaudremont’s hand, and they rose.
“There,” said Madame de Lansac, and her eyes showed her the stranger, sitting pale and tremulous under the glare of the candles, “that is my grandniece, the Comtesse de Soulanges; to-day she yielded at last to my persuasion, and consented to leave the sorrowful room, where the sight of her child gives her but little consolation. You see her? You think her charming? Then imagine, dear Beauty, what she must have been when happiness and love shed their glory on that face now blighted.”
The Countess looked away in silence, and seemed lost in sad reflections.
The Duchess led her to the door into the card-room; then, after looking round the room as if in search of some one—“And there is Soulanges!” she said in deep tones.
The Countess shuddered as she saw, in the least brilliantly lighted corner, the pale, set face of Soulanges stretched in an easy-chair. The indifference of his attitude and the rigidity of his brow betrayed his suffering. The players passed him to and fro, without paying any more attention to him than if he had been dead. The picture of the wife in tears, and the dejected, morose husband, separated in the midst of this festivity like the two halves of a tree blasted by lightning, had perhaps a prophetic significance for the Countess. She dreaded lest she here saw an image of the revenges the future might have in store for her. Her heart was not yet so dried up that the feeling and generosity were entirely excluded, and she pressed the Duchess’ hand, while thanking her by one of those smiles which have a certain childlike grace.
“My dear child,” the old lady said in her ear, “remember henceforth that we are just as capable of repelling a man’s attentions as of attracting them.”
“She is yours if you are not a simpleton.” These words were whispered into Colonel Montcornet’s ear by Madame de Lansac, while the handsome Countess was still absorbed in compassion at the sight of Soulanges, for she still loved him truly enough to wish to restore him to happiness, and was promising herself in her own mind that she would exert the irresistible power her charms still had over him to make him return to his wife.
“Oh! I will talk to him!” said she to Madame de Lansac.
“Do nothing of the kind, my dear!” cried the old lady, as she went back to her armchair. “Choose a good husband, and shut your door to my nephew. Believe me, my child, a wife cannot accept her husband’s heart as the gift of another woman; she is a hundred times happier in the belief that she has reconquered it. By bringing my niece here I believe I have given her an excellent chance of regaining her husband’s affection. All the assistance I need of you is to play the Colonel.” She pointed to the Baron’s friend, and the Countess smiled.
“Well, madame, do you at last know the name of the unknown?” asked Martial, with an air of pique, to the Countess when he saw her alone.
“Yes,” said Madame de Vaudremont, looking him in the face.
Her features expressed as much roguery as fun. The smile which gave life to her lips and cheeks, the liquid brightness of her eyes, were like the will-o’-the-wisp which leads travelers astray. Martial, who believed that she still loved him, assumed the coquetting graces in which a man is so ready to lull himself in the presence of the woman he loves. He said with a fatuous air:
“And will you be annoyed with me if I seem to attach great importance to your telling me that name?”
“Will you be annoyed with me,” answered Madame de Vaudremont, “if a remnant of affection prevents my telling you; and if I forbid you to make the smallest advances to that young lady? It would be at the risk of your life perhaps.”
“To lose your good graces, madame, would be worse than to lose my life.”
“Martial,” said the Countess severely, “she is Madame de Soulanges. Her husband would blow your brains out—if, indeed, you have any——”
“Ha! ha!” laughed the coxcomb. “What! the Colonel can leave the man in peace who has robbed him of your love, and then would fight for his wife! What a subversion of principles!—I beg of you to allow me to dance with the little lady. You will then be able to judge how little love that heart of