A Woman of Thirty | Page 9

with the Colonel. Ah! if you
could but see things from the standpoint of ten years hence, you would
admit that my old experience was right. I know what Victor is, that
gaiety of his is simply animal spirits--the gaiety of the barracks. He has
no ability, and he is a spendthrift. He is one of those men whom
Heaven created to eat and digest four meals a day, to sleep, to fall in
love with the first woman that comes to hand, and to fight. He does not
understand life. His kind heart, for he has a kind heart, will perhaps
lead him to give his purse to a sufferer or to a comrade; /but/ he is
careless, he has not the delicacy of heart which makes us slaves to a
woman's happiness, he is ignorant, he is selfish. There are plenty of
/buts/--"
"But, father, he must surely be clever, he must have ability, or he would
not be a colonel--"
"My dear, Victor will be a colonel all his life.--I have seen no one who
appears to me to be worthy of you," the old father added, with a kind of
enthusiasm.
He paused an instant, looked at his daughter, and added, "Why, my
poor Julie, you are still too young, too fragile, too delicate for the cares
and rubs of married life. D'Aiglemont's relations have spoiled him, just
as your mother and I have spoiled you. What hope is there that you two
could agree, with two imperious wills diametrically opposed to each
other? You will be either the tyrant or the victim, and either alternative
means, for a wife, an equal sum of misfortune. But you are modest and
sweet-natured, you would yield from the first. In short," he added, in a
quivering voice, "there is a grace of feeling in you which would never
be valued, and then----" he broke off, for the tears overcame him.
"Victor will give you pain through all the girlish qualities of your
young nature," he went on, after a pause. "I know what soldiers are, my
Julie; I have been in the army. In a man of that kind, love very seldom
gets the better of old habits, due partly to the miseries amid which

soldiers live, partly to the risks they run in a life of adventure."
"Then you mean to cross my inclinations, do you, father?" asked Julie,
half in earnest, half in jest. "Am I to marry to please you and not to
please myself?"
"To please me!" cried her father, with a start of surprise. "To please
/me/, child? when you will not hear the voice that upbraids you so
tenderly very much longer! But I have always heard children impute
personal motives for the sacrifices that their parents make for them.
Marry Victor, my Julie! Some day you will bitterly deplore his
ineptitude, his thriftless ways, his selfishness, his lack of delicacy, his
inability to understand love, and countless troubles arising through him.
Then, remember, that here under these trees your old father's prophetic
voice sounded in your ears in vain."
He said no more; he had detected a rebellious shake of the head on his
daughter's part. Both made several paces towards the carriage which
was waiting for them at the grating. During that interval of silence, the
young girl stole a glance at her father's face, and little by little her
sullen brow cleared. The intense pain visible on his bowed forehead
made a lively impression upon her.
"Father," she began in gentle tremulous tones, "I promise to say no
more about Victor until you have overcome your prejudices against
him."
The old man looked at her in amazement. Two tears which filled his
eyes overflowed down his withered cheeks. He could not take Julie in
his arms in that crowded place; but he pressed her hand tenderly. A few
minutes later when they had taken their places in the cabriolet, all the
anxious thought which had gathered about his brow had completely
disappeared. Julie's pensive attitude gave him far less concern than the
innocent joy which had betrayed her secret during the review.

Nearly a year had passed since the Emperor's last review. In early
March 1814 a caleche was rolling along the highroad from Amboise to
Tours. As the carriage came out from beneath the green-roofed aisle of
walnut trees by the post-house of la Frilliere, the horses dashed forward
with such speed that in a moment they gained the bridge built across
the Cise at the point of its confluence with the Loire. There, however,
they come to a sudden stand. One of the traces had given way in

consequence of the furious pace at which the post-boy, obedient to his
orders, had urged on four horses, the most