Marquise de Ganges | Page 8

to invite ridicule by
any manifestation; he shut his jealousy into his soul, and it emerged in
a different form on every different occasion. To words of love, so sweet
that they seemed the speech of angels, succeeded those bitter and biting
utterances that foretell approaching division. Before long, the marquis
and the marquise only saw each other at hours when they could not
avoid meeting; then, on the pretext of necessary journeys, and presently
without any pretext at all, the marquis would go away for three-quarters
of a year, and once more the marquise found herself widowed.
Whatever contemporary account one may consult, one finds them all
agreeing to declare that she was always the same--that is to say, full of
patience, calmness, and becoming behaviour--and it is rare to find such
a unanimity of opinion about a young and beautiful woman.
About this time the marquis, finding it unendurable to be alone with his
wife during the short spaces of time which he spent at home, invited his
two brothers, the chevalier and the abbe de Ganges, to come and live
with him. He had a third brother, who, as the second son, bore the title
of comte, and who was colonel of the Languedoc regiment, but as this

gentleman played no part in this story we shall not concern ourselves
with him.
The abbe de Ganges, who bore that title without belonging to the
Church, had assumed it in order to enjoy its privileges: he was a kind of
wit, writing madrigals and 'bouts-rimes' [Bouts-rimes are verses written
to a given set of rhymes.] on occasion, a handsome man enough,
though in moments of impatience his eyes would take a strangely cruel
expression; as dissolute and shameless to boot, as though he had really
belonged to the clergy of the period.
The chevalier de Ganges, who shared in some measure the beauty so
profusely showered upon the family, was one of those feeble men who
enjoy their own nullity, and grow on to old age inapt alike for good and
evil, unless some nature of a stronger stamp lays hold on them and
drags them like faint and pallid satellites in its wake. This was what
befell the chevalier in respect of his brother: submitted to an influence
of which he himself was not aware, and against which, had he but
suspected it, he would have rebelled with the obstinacy of a child, he
was a machine obedient to the will of another mind and to the passions
of another heart, a machine which was all the more terrible in that no
movement of instinct or of reason could, in his case, arrest the impulse
given.
Moreover, this influence which the abbe had acquired over the
chevalier extended, in some degree also, to the marquis. Having as a
younger son no fortune, having no revenue, for though he wore a
Churchman's robes he did not fulfil a Churchman's functions, he had
succeeded in persuading the marquis, who was rich, not only in the
enjoyment of his own fortune, but also in that of his wife, which was
likely to be nearly doubled at the death of M. de Nocheres, that some
zealous man was needed who would devote himself to the ordering of
his house and the management of his property; and had offered himself
for the post. The marquis had very gladly accepted, being, as we have
said, tired by this time of his solitary home life; and the abbe had
brought with him the chevalier, who followed him like his shadow, and
who was no more regarded than if he had really possessed no body.
The marquise often confessed afterwards that when she first saw these
two men, although their outward aspect was perfectly agreeable, she
felt herself seized by a painful impression, and that the fortune- teller's

prediction of a violent death, which she had so long forgotten, gashed
out like lightning before her eyes. The effect on the two brothers was
not of the same kind: the beauty of the marquise struck them both,
although in different ways. The chevalier was in ecstasies of admiration,
as though before a beautiful statue, but the impression that she made
upon him was that which would have been made by marble, and if the
chevalier had been left to himself the consequences of this admiration
would have been no less harmless. Moreover, the chevalier did not
attempt either to exaggerate or to conceal this impression, and allowed
his sister-in-law to see in what manner she struck him. The abbe, on the
contrary, was seized at first sight with a deep and violent desire to
possess this woman--the most beautiful whom he had ever met; but
being as perfectly capable of mastering his sensations as the chevalier
was incapable,