Beatrix, Honoré de Balzac [great books for teens .TXT] 📗

you in future a brother to
me, as I shall be a sister to you; and I desire that this letter
may terminate a correspondence which, between Les Touches and
Guerande, is rather absurd.

Beatrix de Casteran.

The baroness, stirred to the depths of her soul by the strange exhibitions and the rapid changes of her boy's emotions, could no longer sit quietly at her work in the ancient hall. After looking at Calyste from time to time, she finally rose and came to him in a manner that was humble, and yet bold; she wanted him to grant a favor which she felt she had a right to demand.

"Well," she said, trembling, and looking at the letter, but not directly asking for it.

Calyste read it aloud to her. And these two noble souls, so simple, so guileless, saw nothing in that wily and treacherous epistle of the malice or the snares which the marquise had written into it.

"She is a noble woman, a grand woman!" said the baroness, with moistened eyes. "I will pray to God for her. I did not know that a woman could abandon her husband and child, and yet preserve a soul so virtuous. She is indeed worthy of pardon."

"Have I not every reason to adore her?" cried Calyste.

"But where will this love lead you?" said the baroness. "Ah, my child, how dangerous are women with noble sentiments! There is less to fear in those who are bad! Marry Charlotte de Kergarouet and release two-thirds of the estate. By selling a few farms, Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel can bestow that grand result upon you in the marriage contract, and she will also help you, with her experience, to make the most of your property. You will be able to leave your children a great name, and a fine estate."

"Forget Beatrix!" said Calyste, in a muffled voice, with his eyes on the ground.

He left the baroness, and went up to his own room to write an answer to the marquise.

Madame du Guenic, whose heart retained every word of Madame de Rochefide's letter, felt the need of some help in comprehending it more clearly, and also the grounds of Calyste's hope. At this hour the Chevalier du Halga was always to be seen taking his dog for a walk on the mall. The baroness, certain of finding him there, put on her bonnet and shawl and went out.

The sight of the Baronne du Guenic walking in Guerande elsewhere than to church, or on the two pretty roads selected as promenades on _fete_ days, accompanied by the baron and Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, was an event so remarkable that two hours later, throughout the whole town, people accosted each other with the remark,--

"Madame du Guenic went out to-day; did you meet her?"

As soon as this amazing news reached the ears of Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, she said to her niece,--

"Something very extraordinary is happening at the du Guenics."

"Calyste is madly in love with that beautiful Marquise de Rochefide," said Charlotte. "I ought to leave Guerande and return to Nantes."

The Chevalier du Halga, much surprised at being sought by the baroness, released the chain of his little dog, aware that he could not divide himself between the two interests.

"Chevalier," began the baroness, "you used to practise gallantry?"

Here the Chevalier du Halga straightened himself up with an air that was not a little vain. Madame du Guenic, without naming her son or the marquise, repeated, as nearly as possible, the love-letter, and asked the chevalier to explain to her the meaning of such an answer. Du Halga snuffed the air and stroked his chin; he listened attentively; he made grimaces; and finally, he looked fixedly at the baroness with a knowing air, as he said,--

"When thoroughbred horses want to leap a barrier, they go up to reconnoitre it, and smell it over. Calyste is a lucky dog!"

"Oh, hush!" she cried.

"I'm mute. Ah! in the olden time I knew all about it," said the old chevalier, striking an attitude. "The weather was fine, the breeze nor'east. _Tudieu_! how the 'Belle-Poule' kept close to the wind that day when--Oh!" he cried, interrupting himself, "we shall have a change of weather; my ears are buzzing, and I feel the pain in my ribs! You know, don't you, that the battle of the 'Belle-Poule' was so famous that women wore head-dresses '_a la_ Belle-Poule.' Madame de Kergarouet was the first to come to the opera in that head-dress, and I said to her: 'Madame, you are dressed for conquest.' The speech was repeated from box to box all through the house."

The baroness listened pleasantly to the old hero, who, faithful to the laws of gallantry, escorted her to the alley of her house, neglecting Thisbe. The secret of Thisbe's existence had once escaped him. Thisbe was the granddaughter of a delightful Thisbe, the pet of Madame l'Amirale de Kergarouet, first wife of the Comte de Kergarouet, the chevalier's commanding officer. The present Thisbe was eighteen years old.

The baroness ran up to Calyste's room. He was absent; she saw a letter, not sealed, but addressed to Madame de Rochefide, lying on the table. An invincible curiosity compelled the anxious mother to read it. This act of indiscretion was cruelly punished. The letter revealed to her the depths of the gulf into which his passion was hurling Calyste.

Calyste to Madame la Marquise de Rochefide.

What care I for the race of the du Guenics in these days, Beatrix?
what is their name to me? My name is Beatrix; the happiness of
Beatrix is my happiness; her life is my life, and all my fortune
is in her heart. Our estates have been mortgaged these two hundred
years, and so they may remain for two hundred more; our farmers
have charge of them; no one can take them from us. To see you, to
love you,--that is my property, my object, my religion!

You talk to me of marrying! the very thought convulses my heart.
Is there another Beatrix? I will marry no one but you; I will wait
for you twenty years, if need be. I am young, and you will be ever
beautiful. My mother is a saint. I do not blame her, but she has
never loved. I know now what she has lost, and what sacrifices she
has made. You have taught me, Beatrix, to love her better; she is
in my heart with you, and no other can ever be there; she is your
only rival,--is not this to say that you reign in that heart
supreme? Therefore your arguments have no force upon my mind.

As for Camille, you need only say the word, or give me a mere
sign, and I will ask her to tell you herself that I do not love
her. She is the mother of my intellect; nothing more, nothing
less. From the moment that I first saw you she became to me a
sister, a friend, a comrade, what you will of that kind; but we
have no rights other than those of friendship upon each other. I
took her for a woman until I saw you. You have proved to me that
Camille is a man; she swims, hunts, smokes, drinks, rides on
horseback, writes and analyzes hearts and books; she has no
weaknesses; she marches on in all her strength; her motions even
have no resemblance to your graceful movements, to your step, airy
as the flight of a bird. Neither has she your voice of love, your
tender eyes, your gracious manner; she is Camille Maupin; there is
nothing of the woman about her, whereas in you are all the things
of womanhood that I love. It has seemed to me, from the first
moment when I saw you, that you were mine.

You will laugh at that fancy, but it has grown and is growing. It
seems to me unnatural, anomalous that we should be apart. You are
my soul, my life; I cannot live where you are not!

Let me love you! Let us fly! let us go into some country where you
know no one, where only God and I can reach your heart! My mother,
who loves you, might some day follow us. Ireland is full of
castles; my mother's family will lend us one. Ah, Beatrix, let us
go! A boat, a few sailors, and we are there, before any one can
know we have fled this world you fear so much.

You have never been loved. I feel it as I re-read your letter, in
which I fancy I can see that if the reasons you bring forward did
not exist, you would let yourself be loved by me. Beatrix, a
sacred love wipes out the past. Yes, I love you so truly that I
could wish you doubly shamed if so my love might prove itself by
holding you a saint!

You call my love an insult. Oh, Beatrix, you do not think it so!
The love of noble youth--and you have called me that--would honor
a queen. Therefore, to-morrow let us walk as lovers, hand in hand,
among the rocks and beside the sea; your step upon the sands of my
old Brittany will bless them anew to me! Give me this day of
happiness; and that passing alms, unremembered, alas! by you, will
be eternal riches to your

Calyste.

The baroness let fall the letter, without reading all of it. She knelt upon a chair, and made a mental prayer to God to save her Calyste's reason, to put his madness, his error far away from him; to lead him from the path in which she now beheld him.

"What are you doing, mother?" said Calyste, entering the room.

"I am praying to God for you," she answered, simply, turning her tearful eyes upon him. "I have committed the sin of reading that letter. My Calyste is mad!"

"A sweet madness!" said the young man, kissing her.

"I wish I could see that woman," she sighed.

"Mamma," said Calyste, "we shall take a boat to-morrow and cross to Croisic. If you are on the jetty you can see her."

So saying, he sealed his letter and departed for Les Touches.

That which, above all, terrified the baroness was to see a sentiment attaining, by the force of its own instinct, to the clear-sightedness of practised experience. Calyste's letter to Beatrix was such as the Chevalier du Halga, with his knowledge of the world, might have dictated.


XIII. DUEL BETWEEN WOMEN

Perhaps one of the greatest enjoyments that small minds or inferior minds can obtain is that of deceiving a great soul, and laying snares for it. Beatrix knew herself far beneath Camille Maupin. This inferiority lay not only in the collection of mental and moral qualities which we call _talent_, but in the things of the heart called _passion_.

At the moment when Calyste was hurrying