Gerfaut Part 10

"So I remained at Geneva, yielding to a sensation as new as it was strange. It first acted upon my brain whose ice I felt melting away, and its sources ready to gush forth. I seized my pen with a pa.s.sion not unlike an access of rage. I finished in four days two acts of a drama that I was then writing. I never had written anything more vigorous or more highly colored. My unconstrained genius throbbed in my arteries, ran through my blood, and bubbled over as if it wished to burst forth.

My hand could not keep even with the course of my imagination; I was obliged to write in hieroglyphics.

"Adieu to the empty reveries brought about by spleen, and to the meditations 'a la Werther'! The sky was blue, the air pure, life delightful--my talent was not dead.

"After this first effort, I slackened a little! Madame de Bergenheim's face, which I had seen but dimly during this short time, returned to me in a less vaporous form; I took extreme delight in calling to mind the slightest circ.u.mstances of our meeting, the smallest details of her features, her toilette, her manner of walking and carrying her head.

What had impressed me most was the extreme softness of her dark eyes, the almost childish tone of her voice, a vague odor of heliotrope with which her hair was perfumed; also the touch of her hand upon my arm.

I sometimes caught myself embracing myself in order to feel this last sensation again, and then I could not help laughing at my thoughts, which were worthy of a fifteen-year-old lover.

"I had felt so convinced of my powerlessness to love, that the thought of a serious pa.s.sion did not at first enter my mind. However, a remembrance of my beautiful traveller pervaded my thoughts more and more, and threatened to usurp the place of everything else. I then subjected myself to a rigid a.n.a.lysis; I sought for the exact location of this sentiment whose involuntary yoke I already felt; I persuaded myself, for some time yet, that it was only the transient excitement of my brain, one of those fevers of imagination whose fleeting t.i.tillations I had felt more than once.

"But I realized that the evil, or the good--for why call love an evil?--had penetrated into the most remote regions of my being, and I realized the energy of my struggle like a person entombed who tries to extricate himself. From the ashes of this volcano which I had believed to be extinct, a flower had suddenly blossomed, perfumed with the most fragrant of odors and decked with the most charming colors. Artless enthusiasm, faith in love, all the brilliant array of the fresh illusions of my youth returned, as if by enchantment, to greet this new bloom of my life; it seemed to me as if I had been created a second time, since I was aided by intelligence and understood its mysteries while tasting of its delights. My past, in the presence of this regeneration, was nothing more than a shadow at the bottom of an abyss.

I turned toward the future with the faith of a Mussulman who kneels with his face toward the East--I loved!

"I returned to Paris, and applied to my friend Casorans, who knows the Faubourg Saint-Germain from Dan to Beersheba.

"'Madame de Bergenheim,' he said to me, 'is a very popular society woman, not very pretty, perhaps, rather clever, though, and very amiable. She is one of our coquettes of the old n.o.bility, and with her twenty-four carats' virtue she always has two sufferers attached to her chariot, and a third on the waiting-list, and yet it is impossible for one to find a word to say against her behavior. Just at this moment, Mauleon and d'Arzenac compose the team; I do not know who is on the waiting-list. She will probably spend the winter here with her aunt, Mademoiselle de Corandeuil, one of the hatefullest old women on the Rue de Varennes. The husband is a good fellow who, since the July revolution, has lived upon his estates, caring for his forests and killing wild boars without troubling himself much about his wife.'

"He then told me which houses these ladies frequented, and left me, saying with a knowing air:

"'Take care, if you intend to try the power of your seductions upon the little Baroness; whoever meddles with her smarts for it!'

"This information from a viper like Casorans satisfied me in every way.

Evidently the place was not taken; impregnable, that was another thing.

"Before Madame de Bergenheim's return, I began to show myself a.s.siduously at the houses of which my friend had spoken. My position in the Faubourg Saint-Germain is peculiar, but good, according to my opinion. I have enough family ties to be sustained by several should I be attacked by many, and this is the essential point. It is true that, thanks to my works, I am regarded as an atheist and a Jacobin; aside from these two little defects, they think well enough of me. Besides, it is a notorious fact that I have rejected several offers from the present government, and refused last year the 'croix d'honneur'; this makes amends and washes away half my sins. Finally, I have the reputation of having a certain-knowledge of heraldry, which I owe to my uncle, a confirmed hunter after genealogical claims. This gains me a respect which makes me laugh sometimes, when I see people who detest me greet me as cordially as the Cure of Saint-Eustache greeted Bayle, for fear that I might destroy their favorite saint. However, in this society, I am no longer Gerfaut of the Porte-Saint-Martin, but I am the Vicomte de Gerfaut. Perhaps, with your bourgeois ideas, you do not understand--"

"Bourgeois!" exclaimed Marillac, bounding from his seat, "what are you talking about? Do you wish that we should cut each other's throats before breakfast to-morrow? Bourgeois! why not grocer? I am an artist--don't you know that by this time?"

"Don't get angry, my dear fellow; I meant to say that in certain places the t.i.tle of a Vicomte has still a more powerful attraction than you, with your artistic but plebeian ideas, would suppose in this year of our Lord 1832."

"Well and good. I accept your apology."

"A vicomte's t.i.tle is a recommendation in the eyes of people who still cling to the baubles of n.o.bility, and all women are of this cla.s.s. There is something, I know not what, delicate and knightly in this t.i.tle, which suits a youngish bachelor. Duke above all t.i.tles is the one that sounds the best. Moliere and Regnard have done great harm to the t.i.tle of marquis. Count is terribly bourgeois, thanks to the senators of the empire. As to a Baron, unless he is called Montmorency or Beaufremont, it is the lowest grade of n.o.bility; vicomte, on the contrary, is above reproach; it exhales a mixed odor of the old regime and young France; then, don't you know, our Chateaubriand was a vicomte.

"I departed from my subject in speaking of n.o.bility. I accidentally turned over one day to the article upon my family in the Dictionnaire de Saint-Allais; I found that one of my ancestors, Christophe de Gerfaut, married, in 1569, a Mademoiselle Yolande de Corandeuil.

"'O my ancestor! O my ancestress!' I exclaimed, 'you had strange baptismal names; but no matter, I thank you. You are going to serve me as a grappling iron; I shall be very unskilful if at the very first meeting the old aunt escapes Christophe.'

"A few days later I went to the Marquise de Chameillan's, one of the most exclusive houses in the n.o.ble Faubourg. When I enter her drawing-room, I usually cause the same sensation that Beelzebub would doubtless produce should he put his foot into one of the drawing-rooms in Paradise. That evening, when I was announced, I saw a certain undulation of heads in a group of young women who were whispering to one another; many curious eyes were fastened upon me, and among these beautiful eyes were two more beautiful than all the others: they were those of my bewitching traveller.

"I exchanged a rapid glance with her, one only; after paying my respects to the mistress of the house, I mingled with a crowd of men, and entered into conversation with an old peer upon some political question, avoiding to look again toward Madame de Bergenheim.

"A moment later, Madame de Chameillan came to ask the peer to play whist; he excused himself, he could not remain late.

"'I dare not ask you to play with Mademoiselle de Corandeuil,' said she, turning toward me; 'besides, I understand too well that it is to my interest and the pleasure of these ladies, not to exile you to a whist table.'

"I took the card which she half offered me with an eagerness which might have made her suppose that I had become a confirmed whist expert during my voyage.

"Mademoiselle de Corandeuil certainly was the ugly, crabbed creature that Casorans had described; but had she been as frightful as the witches in Macbeth I was determined to make her conquest. So I began playing with unusual attention. I was her partner, and I knew from experience the profound horror which the loss of money inspires in old women. Thank heaven, we won! Mademoiselle de Corandeuil, who has an income of one hundred thousand francs, was not at all indifferent to the gain of two or three louis. She, therefore, with an almost gracious air, congratulated me, as we left the table, upon my manner of playing.

"'I would willingly contract an alliance, offensive and defensive with you,' said she to me.

"'The alliance is already contracted, Mademoiselle,' said I, seizing the opportunity.

"'How is that, Monsieur?' she replied, raising her head with a dignified air, as if she were getting ready to rebuke some impertinent speech.

"I also gravely straightened up and gave a feudal look to my face.

"'Mademoiselle, I have the honor of belonging to your family, a little distantly, to be sure; that is what makes me speak of an alliance between us as a thing already concluded. One of my ancestors, Christophe de Gerfaut, married Mademoiselle Yolande de Corandeuil, one of your great-grand-aunts, in 1569.'

"'Yolande is really a family name,' replied the old lady, with the most affable smile that her face would admit; 'I bear it myself. The Corandeuils, Monsieur, never have denied their alliances, and it is a pleasure for me to recognize my relationship with such a man as you. We address by the t.i.tle of cousin relatives as far back as 1300.'

"'I am nearer related to you by three centuries,' I replied, in my most insinuating voice; 'may I hope that this good fortune will authorize me to pay my respects to you?'

"Mademoiselle de Corandeuil replied to my 'tartuferie' by granting me permission to call upon her. My attention was not so much absorbed in our conversation that I did not see in a mirror, during this time, the interest with which Madame de Bergenheim watched my conversation with her aunt; but I was careful not to turn around, and I let her take her departure without giving her a second glance.

"Three days later, I made my first call. Madame de Bergenheim received my greeting like a woman who had been warned and was, therefore, prepared. We exchanged only one rapid, earnest glance, that was all.

Availing myself of the presence of other callers, numerous enough to a.s.sure each one his liberty, I began to observe, with a practised eye, the field whereon I had just taken my position.

"Before the end of the evening, I recognized the correctness of Casorans's information. Among all the gentlemen present I found only two professed admirers: Monsieur de Mauleon, whose insignificance was notorious, and Monsieur d'Arzenac, who appeared at first glance as if he might be more to be feared. D'Arzenac, thanks to an income of ten thousand livres, beside being a man of rank, occupies also one of the finest positions that one could desire; he is not unworthy of his name and his fortune. Irreproachable in morals as in manners; sufficiently well informed; of an exquisite but reserved politeness; understanding perfectly the ground that he is walking upon; making also more advances than is customary among the pachas of modern France, he was, without doubt, the flower of the flock in Mademoiselle de Corandeuil's drawing-room. In spite of all these advantages, an attentive examination showed me that his pa.s.sion was hopeless. Madame de Bergenheim received his attentions very kindly--too kindly. She usually listened to him with a smile in which one could read grat.i.tude for the devotion he lavished upon her. She willingly accepted him as her favorite partner in the galop, which he danced to perfection. His success stopped there.

"At the end of several days, the ground having been carefully explored and the admirers, dangerous and otherwise, having been pa.s.sed in review, one after another, I felt convinced that Clemence loved n.o.body.

"'She shall love me,' said I, on the day I reached this conclusion. In order to formulate in a decisive manner the accomplishment of my desire, I relied upon the following propositions, which are to me articles of faith.

"No woman is unattainable, except when she loves another. Thus, a woman who does not love, and who has resisted nine admirers, will yield to the tenth. The only question for me was to be the tenth. Here began the problem to be solved.

"Madame de Bergenheim had been married only three years; her husband, who was good-looking and young, pa.s.sed for a model husband; if these latter considerations were of little importance, the first was of great weight. According to all probability, it was too soon for any serious attack. Without being beautiful, she pleased much and many; a second obstacle, since sensibility in women is almost always developed in inverse ratio to their success. She had brains; she was wonderfully aristocratic in all her tastes.

"Last, being very much the fashion, sought after and envied, she was under the special surveillance of pious persons, old maids, retired beauties in one word, all that feminine mounted police, whose eyes, ears, and mouths seem to have a.s.sumed the express mission of annoying sensitive hearts while watching over the preservation of good morals.

"This ma.s.s of difficulties, none of which escaped me, traced as many lines upon my forehead as if I had been commanded to solve at once all the propositions in Euclid. She shall love me! these words flashed unceasingly before my eyes; but the means to attain this end? No satisfactory plan came to me. Women are so capricious, deep, and unfathomable! It is, with them, the thing soonest done which is soonest ended! A false step, the least awkwardness, a want of intelligence, a quarter of an hour too soon or too late! One thing only was evident: it needed a grand display of attractions, a complete plan of gallant strategy; but, then, what more?

"That earthly paradise of the Montanvert was far from us, where I had been able in less time than it would take to walk over a quadrille, to expose her to death, to save her afterward, and finally to say to her 'I love you!' Pa.s.sion in drawing-rooms is not allowed those free, dramatic ways; flowers fade in the candle-light; the oppressive atmosphere of b.a.l.l.s and fetes stifles the heart, so ready to dilate in pure mountain air. The unexpected and irresistible influence of the glacier would have been improper and foolish in Paris. There, an artless sympathy, stronger than social conventions, had drawn us to each other--Octave and Clemence. Here, she was the Baroness de Bergenheim, and I the Vicomte de Gerfaut. I must from necessity enter the ordinary route, begin the romance at the first page, without knowing how to connect the prologue with it.

"What should be my plan of campaign?

"Should I pose as an agreeable man, and try to captivate her attention and good graces by the minute attentions and delicate flattery which const.i.tute what is cla.s.sically called paying court? But D'Arzenac had seized this role, and filled it in such a superior way that all compet.i.tion would be unsuccessful. I saw where this had led him. It needed, in order to inflame this heart, a more active spark than foppish gallantry; the latter flatters the vanity without reaching the heart.

"There was the pa.s.sionate method--ardent, burning, fierce love. There are some women upon whom convulsive sighs drawn from the depths of the stomach, eyebrows frowning in a fantastic manner, and eyes in which only the whites are to be seen and which seem to say: 'Love me, or I will kill you!' produce a prodigious effect. I had myself felt the power of this fascination while using it one day upon a softhearted blond creature who thought it delightful to have a Blue-Beard for a lover.

But the drooping corners of Clemence's mouth showed at times an ironical expression which would have cooled down even an Oth.e.l.lo's outbursts.

"'She has brains, and she knows it,' said I to myself; 'shall I attack her in that direction?' Women rather like such a little war of words; it gives them an opportunity for displaying a mine of pretty expressions, piquant pouts, fresh bursts of laughter, graceful peculiarities of which they well know the effect. Should I be the Benedict to this Beatrice?

But this by-play would hardly fill the prologue, and I very much wished to reach the epilogue.

"I pa.s.sed in review the different routes that a lover might take to reach his end; I recapitulated every one of the more or less infallible methods of conquering female hearts; in a word, I went over my tactics like a lieutenant about to drill a battalion of recruits. When I had ended I had made no farther advance than before.

"'To the devil with systems!' exclaimed I; 'I will not be so foolish as wilfully to adopt the role of roue when I feel called upon to play the plain role of true lover. Let those who like play the part of Lovelace!