第28章

"'"You see,Honorine,"said I,my eyes full of tears,"the ice is broken,and I am so tremulous with happiness that you must forgive the incoherency of my language.It will be so for a long time yet.""'"There is no crime in being in love with your wife,"said she with a forced smile.

"'"Do me the favor,"said I,"no longer to work as you do.I have heard from Madame Gobain that for three weeks you have been living on your savings;you have sixty thousand francs a year of your own,and if you cannot give me back your heart,at least do not abandon your fortune to me.""'"I have long known your kindness,"said she.

"'"Though you should prefer to remain here,"said I,"and to preserve your independence;though the most ardent love should find no favor in your eyes,still,do not toil.""'I gave her three certificates for twelve thousand francs a year each;she took them,opened them languidly,and after reading them through she gave me only a look as my reward.She fully understood that I was not offering her money,but freedom.

"'"I am conquered,"said she,holding out her hand,which I kissed.

"Come and see me as often as you like."

"'So she had done herself a violence in receiving me.Next day Ifound her armed with affected high spirits,and it took two months of habit before I saw her in her true character.But then it was like a delicious May,a springtime of love that gave me ineffable bliss;she was no longer afraid;she was studying me.Alas!when I proposed that she should go to England to return ostensibly to me,to our home,that she should resume her rank and live in our new residence,she was seized with alarm.

"'"Why not live always as we are?"she said.

"'I submitted without saying a word.

"'"Is she making an experiment?"I asked myself as I left her.On my way from my own house to the Rue Saint-Maur thoughts of love had swelled in my heart,and I had said to myself,like a young man,"This evening she will yield.""'All my real or affected force was blown to the winds by a smile,by a command from those proud,calm eyes,untouched by passion.Iremembered the terrible words you once quoted to me,"Lucretia's dagger wrote in letters of blood the watchword of woman's charter--Liberty!"and they froze me.I felt imperatively how necessary to me was Honorine's consent,and how impossible it was to wring it from her.Could she guess the storms that distracted me when I left as when I came?

"'At last I painted my situation in a letter to her,giving up the attempt to speak of it.Honorine made no answer,and she was so sad that I made as though I had not written.I was deeply grieved by the idea that I could have distressed her;she read my heart and forgave me.And this was how.Three days ago she received me,for the first time,in her own blue-and-white room.It was bright with flowers,dressed,and lighted up.Honorine was in a dress that made her bewitching.Her hair framed that face that you know in its light curls;and in it were some sprays of Cape heath;she wore a white muslin gown,a white sash with long floating ends.You know what she is in such simplicity,but that day she was a bride,the Honorine of long past days.My joy was chilled at once,for her face was terribly grave;there were fires beneath the ice.

"'"Octave,"she said,"I will return as your wife when you will.But understand clearly that this submission has its dangers.I can be resigned----""'I made a movement.

"'"Yes,"she went on,"I understand:resignation offends you,and you want what I cannot give--Love.Religion and pity led me to renounce my vow of solitude;you are here!"She paused.

"'"At first,"she went on,"you asked no more.Now you demand your wife.Well,here I give you Honorine,such as she is,without deceiving you as to what she will be.--What shall I be?A mother?Ihope it.Believe me,I hope it eagerly.Try to change me;you have my consent;but if I should die,my dear,do not curse my memory,and do not set down to obstinacy what I should call the worship of the Ideal,if it were not more natural to call the indefinable feeling which must kill me the worship of the Divine!The future will be nothing to me;it will be your concern;consult your own mind.""'And she sat down in the calm attitude you used to admire,and watched me turning pale with the pain she had inflicted.My blood ran cold.On seeing the effect of her words she took both my hands,and,holding them in her own,she said:

"'"Octave,I do love you,but not in the way you wish to be loved.Ilove your soul.Still,understand that I love you enough to die in your service like an Eastern slave,and without a regret.It will be my expiation.""'She did more;she knelt before me on a cushion,and in a spirit of sublime charity she said:

"'"And perhaps I shall not die!"

"'For two months now I have been struggling with myself.What shall Ido?My heart is too full;I therefore seek a friend,and send out this cry,"What shall I do?"'

"I did not answer this letter.Two months later the newspapers announced the return on board an English vessel of the Comtesse Octave,restored to her family after adventures by land and sea,invented with sufficient probability to arouse no contradiction.

"When I moved to Genoa I received a formal announcement of the happy event of the birth of a son to the Count and Countess.I held that letter in my hand for two hours,sitting on this terrace--on this bench.Two months after,urged by Octave,by M.de Grandville,and Monsieur de Serizy,my kind friends,and broken by the death of my uncle,I agreed to take a wife.