Another Study of Woman | Page 9

the finest
pieces of work we have ever executed.' Before this last ray of light I
might have believed something--might have taken a woman's word. I
left the shop still having faith in pleasure, but where love was

concerned I was as atheistical as a mathematician.
"Two months later I was sitting by the side of the ethereal being in her
boudoir, on her sofa; I was holding one of her hands--they were very
beautiful--and we scaled the Alps of sentiment, culling their sweetest
flowers, and pulling off the daisy-petals; there is always a moment
when one pulls daisies to pieces, even if it is in a drawing- room and
there are no daisies. At the intensest moment of tenderness, and when
we are most in love, love is so well aware of its own short duration that
we are irresistibly urged to ask, 'Do you love me? Will you love me
always?' I seized the elegiac moment, so warm, so flowery, so
full-blown, to lead her to tell her most delightful lies, in the enchanting
language of love. Charlotte displayed her choicest allurements: She
could not live without me; I was to her the only man in the world; she
feared to weary me, because my presence bereft her of all her wits;
with me, all her faculties were lost in love; she was indeed too tender to
escape alarms; for the last six months she had been seeking some way
to bind me to her eternally, and God alone knew that secret; in short, I
was her god!"
The women who heard de Marsay seemed offended by seeing
themselves so well acted, for he seconded the words by airs, and
sidelong attitudes, and mincing grimaces which were quite illusory.
"At the very moment when I might have believed these adorable
falsehoods, as I still held her right hand in mine, I said to her, 'When
are you to marry the Duke?'
"The thrust was so direct, my gaze met hers so boldly, and her hand lay
so tightly in mine, that her start, slight as it was, could not be disguised;
her eyes fell before mine, and a faint blush colored her cheeks.--'The
Duke! What do you mean?' she said, affecting great astonishment.--'I
know everything,' replied I; 'and in my opinion, you should delay no
longer; he is rich; he is a duke; but he is more than devout, he is
religious! I am sure, therefore, that you have been faithful to me, thanks
to his scruples. You cannot imagine how urgently necessary it is that
you should compromise him with himself and with God; short of that
you will never bring him to the point.'-- 'Is this a dream?' said she,
pushing her hair from her forehead, fifteen years before Malibran, with
the gesture which Malibran has made so famous.--'Come, do not be
childish, my angel,' said I, trying to take her hands; but she folded them

before her with a little prudish and indignant mein.--'Marry him, you
have my permission,' said I, replying to this gesture by using the formal
/vous/ instead of /tu/. 'Nay, better, I beg you to do so.'--'But,' cried she,
falling at my knees, 'there is some horrible mistake; I love no one in the
world but you; you may demand any proofs you please.'--'Rise, my
dear,' said I, 'and do me the honor of being truthful.'--'As before
God.'--'Do you doubt my love?'--'No.'--'Nor my fidelity?'--'No.'--'Well,
I have committed the greatest crime,' I went on. 'I have doubted your
love and your fidelity. Between two intoxications I looked calmly
about me.'--'Calmly!' sighed she. 'That is enough, Henri; you no longer
love me.'
"She had at once found, you perceive, a loophole for escape. In scenes
like these an adverb is dangerous. But, happily, curiosity made her add:
'And what did you see? Have I ever spoken of the Duke excepting in
public? Have you detected in my eyes----?'--'No,' said I, 'but in his. And
you have eight times made me go to Saint-Thomas d'Aquin to see you
listening to the same mass as he.'--'Ah!' she exclaimed, 'then I have
made you jealous!'--Oh! I only wish I could be!' said I, admiring the
pliancy of her quick intelligence, and these acrobatic feats which can
only be successful in the eyes of the blind. 'But by dint of going to
church I have become very incredulous. On the day of my first cold,
and your first treachery, when you thought I was in bed, you received
the Duke, and you told me you had seen no one.'--'Do you know that
your conduct is infamous?'--'In what respect? I consider your marriage
to the Duke an excellent arrangement; he gives you a great name, the
only rank that suits you, a brilliant and distinguished position. You will
be one