第20章

"Virgin and martyr," she replied, smiling at the commonness of that hackneyed expression, but giving it a freshness of meaning by her smile, so full of painful gayety."If I laugh," she continued, "it is that I am thinking of that princess whom the world thinks it knows, that Duchesse de Maufrigneuse to whom it gives as lovers de Marsay, that infamous de Trailles (a political cutthroat), and that little fool of a d'Esgrignon, and Rastignac, Rubempre, ambassadors, ministers, Russian generals, heaven knows who! all Europe! They have gossiped about that album which I ordered made, believing that those who admired me were my friends.Ah! it is frightful! I wonder that Iallow a man at my feet! Despise them all, THAT should be my religion."She rose and went to the window with a gait and bearing magnificent in motifs.

D'Arthez remained on the low seat to which he had returned not daring to follow the princess; but he looked at her; he heard her blowing her nose.Was there ever a princess who blew her nose? but Diane attempted the impossible to convey an idea of her sensibility.D'Arthez believed his angel was in tears; he rushed to her side, took her round the waist, and pressed her to his heart.

"No, no, leave me!" she murmured in a feeble voice."I have too many doubts to be good for anything.To reconcile me with life is a task beyond the powers of any man.""Diane! I will love you for your whole lost life.""No; don't speak to me thus," she answered."At this moment I tremble, I am ashamed as though I had committed the greatest sins."She was now entirely restored to the innocence of little girls, and yet her bearing was august, grand, noble as that of a queen.It is impossible to describe the effect of these manoeuvres, so clever that they acted like the purest truth on a soul as fresh and honest as that of d'Arthez.The great author remained dumb with admiration, passive beside her in the recess of that window awaiting a word, while the princess awaited a kiss; but she was far too sacred to him for that.

Feeling cold, the princess returned to her easy-chair; her feet were frozen.

"It will take a long time," she said to herself, looking at Daniel's noble brow and head.

"Is this a woman?" thought that profound observer of human nature.

"How ought I to treat her?"

Until two o'clock in the morning they spent their time in saying to each other the silly things that women of genius, like the princess, know how to make adorable.Diane pretended to be too worn, too old, too faded; D'Arthez proved to her (facts of which she was well convinced) that her skin was the most delicate, the softest to the touch, the whitest to the eye, the most fragrant; she was young and in her bloom, how could she think otherwise? Thus they disputed, beauty by beauty, detail by detail with many: "Oh! do you think so?"--"You are beside yourself!"--"It is hope, it is fancy!"--"You will soon see me as I am.--I am almost forty years of age.Can a man love so old a woman?"D'Arthez responded with impetuous and school-boy eloquence, larded with exaggerated epithets.When the princess heard this wise and witty writer talking the nonsense of an amorous sub-lieutenant she listened with an absorbed air and much sensibility; but she laughed in her sleeve.

When d'Arthez was in the street, he asked himself whether he might not have been rather less respectful.He went over in memory those strange confidences--which have, naturally, been much abridged here, for they needed a volume to convey their mellifluous abundance and the graces which accompanied them.The retrospective perspicacity of this man, so natural, so profound, was baffled by the candor of that tale and its poignancy, and by the tones of the princess.

"It is true," he said to himself, being unable to sleep, "there are such dramas as that in society.Society covers great horrors with the flowers of its elegance, the embroidery of its gossip, the wit of its lies.We writers invent no more than the truth.Poor Diane! Michel had penetrated that enigma; he said that beneath her covering of ice there lay volcanoes! Bianchon and Rastignac were right; when a man can join the grandeurs of the ideal and the enjoyments of human passion in loving a woman of perfect manners, of intellect, of delicacy, it must be happiness beyond words."So thinking, he sounded the love that was in him and found it infinite.