Farewell, Honoré de Balzac [read out loud books txt] 📗
- Author: Honoré de Balzac
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stragglers learned that by their own fault they were delivered over to death or to slavery.
When the Countess heard the report and the cries that followed, she sprang out of the carriage, and rushed in frenzied anguish over the snow-covered plain; she saw the burned bivouacs and the fatal raft about to be launched on a frozen Beresina. She saw Major Philip brandishing his sabre among the crowd. The cry that broke from Mme. de Vandieres made the blood run cold in the veins of all who heard it. She stood face to face with the colonel, who watched her with a beating heart. At first she stared blankly at the strange scene about her, then she reflected. For an instant, brief as a lightning flash, there was the same quick gaze and total lack of comprehension that we see in the bright eyes of a bird; then she passed her hand across her forehead with the intelligent expression of a thinking being; she looked round on the memories that had taken substantial form, into the past life that had been transported into her present; she turned her face to Philip--and saw him! An awed silence fell upon the crowd. The colonel breathed hard, but dared not speak; tears filled the doctor's eyes. A faint color overspread Stephanie's beautiful face, deepening slowly, till at last she glowed like a girl radiant with youth. Still the bright flush grew. Life and joy, kindled within her at the blaze of intelligence, swept through her like leaping flames. A convulsive tremor ran from her feet to her heart. But all these tokens, which flashed on the sight in a moment, gathered and gained consistence, as it were, when Stephanie's eyes gleamed with heavenly radiance, the light of a soul within. She lived, she thought! She shuddered--was it with fear? God Himself unloosed a second time the tongue that had been bound by death, and set His fire anew in the extinguished soul. The electric torrent of the human will vivified the body whence it had so long been absent.
"Stephanie!" the colonel cried.
"Oh! it is Philip!" said the poor Countess.
She fled to the trembling arms held out towards her, and the embrace of the two lovers frightened those who beheld it. Stephanie burst into tears.
Suddenly the tears ceased to flow; she lay in his arms a dead weight, as if stricken by a thunderbolt, and said faintly:
"Farewell, Philip!... I love you.... farewell!"
"She is dead!" cried the colonel, unclasping his arms.
The old doctor received the lifeless body of his niece in his arms as a young man might have done; he carried her to a stack of wood and set her down. He looked at her face, and laid a feeble hand, tremulous with agitation, upon her heart--it beat no longer.
"Can it really be so?" he said, looking from the colonel, who stood there motionless, to Stephanie's face. Death had invested it with a radiant beauty, a transient aureole, the pledge, it may be, of a glorious life to come.
"Yes, she is dead."
"Oh, but that smile!" cried Philip; "only see that smile. Is it possible?"
"She has grown cold already," answered M. Fanjat.
M. de Sucy made a few strides to tear himself from the sight; then he stopped, and whistled the air that the mad Stephanie had understood; and when he saw that she did not rise and hasten to him, he walked away, staggering like a drunken man, still whistling, but he did not turn again.
In society General de Sucy is looked upon as very agreeable, and above all things, as very lively and amusing. Not very long ago a lady complimented him upon his good humor and equable temper.
"Ah! madame," he answered, "I pay very dearly for my merriment in the evening if I am alone."
"Then, you are never alone, I suppose."
"No," he answered, smiling.
If a keen observer of human nature could have seen the look that Sucy's face wore at that moment, he would, without doubt, have shuddered.
"Why do you not marry?" the lady asked (she had several daughters of her own at a boarding-school). "You are wealthy; you belong to an old and noble house; you are clever; you have a future before you; everything smiles upon you."
"Yes," he answered; "one smile is killing me--"
On the morrow the lady heard with amazement that M. de Sucy had shot himself through the head that night.
The fashionable world discussed the extraordinary news in divers ways, and each had a theory to account for it; play, love, ambition, irregularities in private life, according to the taste of the speaker, explained the last act of the tragedy begun in 1812. Two men alone, a magistrate and an old doctor, knew that Monsieur le Comte de Sucy was one of those souls unhappy in the strength God gives to them to enable them to triumph daily in a ghastly struggle with a mysterious horror. If for a minute God withdraws His sustaining hand, they succumb.
PARIS, March 1830.
Imprint
When the Countess heard the report and the cries that followed, she sprang out of the carriage, and rushed in frenzied anguish over the snow-covered plain; she saw the burned bivouacs and the fatal raft about to be launched on a frozen Beresina. She saw Major Philip brandishing his sabre among the crowd. The cry that broke from Mme. de Vandieres made the blood run cold in the veins of all who heard it. She stood face to face with the colonel, who watched her with a beating heart. At first she stared blankly at the strange scene about her, then she reflected. For an instant, brief as a lightning flash, there was the same quick gaze and total lack of comprehension that we see in the bright eyes of a bird; then she passed her hand across her forehead with the intelligent expression of a thinking being; she looked round on the memories that had taken substantial form, into the past life that had been transported into her present; she turned her face to Philip--and saw him! An awed silence fell upon the crowd. The colonel breathed hard, but dared not speak; tears filled the doctor's eyes. A faint color overspread Stephanie's beautiful face, deepening slowly, till at last she glowed like a girl radiant with youth. Still the bright flush grew. Life and joy, kindled within her at the blaze of intelligence, swept through her like leaping flames. A convulsive tremor ran from her feet to her heart. But all these tokens, which flashed on the sight in a moment, gathered and gained consistence, as it were, when Stephanie's eyes gleamed with heavenly radiance, the light of a soul within. She lived, she thought! She shuddered--was it with fear? God Himself unloosed a second time the tongue that had been bound by death, and set His fire anew in the extinguished soul. The electric torrent of the human will vivified the body whence it had so long been absent.
"Stephanie!" the colonel cried.
"Oh! it is Philip!" said the poor Countess.
She fled to the trembling arms held out towards her, and the embrace of the two lovers frightened those who beheld it. Stephanie burst into tears.
Suddenly the tears ceased to flow; she lay in his arms a dead weight, as if stricken by a thunderbolt, and said faintly:
"Farewell, Philip!... I love you.... farewell!"
"She is dead!" cried the colonel, unclasping his arms.
The old doctor received the lifeless body of his niece in his arms as a young man might have done; he carried her to a stack of wood and set her down. He looked at her face, and laid a feeble hand, tremulous with agitation, upon her heart--it beat no longer.
"Can it really be so?" he said, looking from the colonel, who stood there motionless, to Stephanie's face. Death had invested it with a radiant beauty, a transient aureole, the pledge, it may be, of a glorious life to come.
"Yes, she is dead."
"Oh, but that smile!" cried Philip; "only see that smile. Is it possible?"
"She has grown cold already," answered M. Fanjat.
M. de Sucy made a few strides to tear himself from the sight; then he stopped, and whistled the air that the mad Stephanie had understood; and when he saw that she did not rise and hasten to him, he walked away, staggering like a drunken man, still whistling, but he did not turn again.
In society General de Sucy is looked upon as very agreeable, and above all things, as very lively and amusing. Not very long ago a lady complimented him upon his good humor and equable temper.
"Ah! madame," he answered, "I pay very dearly for my merriment in the evening if I am alone."
"Then, you are never alone, I suppose."
"No," he answered, smiling.
If a keen observer of human nature could have seen the look that Sucy's face wore at that moment, he would, without doubt, have shuddered.
"Why do you not marry?" the lady asked (she had several daughters of her own at a boarding-school). "You are wealthy; you belong to an old and noble house; you are clever; you have a future before you; everything smiles upon you."
"Yes," he answered; "one smile is killing me--"
On the morrow the lady heard with amazement that M. de Sucy had shot himself through the head that night.
The fashionable world discussed the extraordinary news in divers ways, and each had a theory to account for it; play, love, ambition, irregularities in private life, according to the taste of the speaker, explained the last act of the tragedy begun in 1812. Two men alone, a magistrate and an old doctor, knew that Monsieur le Comte de Sucy was one of those souls unhappy in the strength God gives to them to enable them to triumph daily in a ghastly struggle with a mysterious horror. If for a minute God withdraws His sustaining hand, they succumb.
PARIS, March 1830.
Imprint
Publication Date: 07-20-2010
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