The Cross of Berny | Page 2

good luck."
Governed by my weakness, or rather by my fatal judgment, I have
plighted my troth!... Good Heavens! is it really true that I am engaged
to Prince de Monbert?
If you knew the prince you would laugh at my sadness, and at the
melancholy tone in which I announce this intelligence.
Monsieur de Monbert is the most witty and agreeable man in Paris; he
is noble-hearted, generous and ...in fact fascinating!... and I love him!
He alone pleases me; in his absence I weary of everything; in his
presence I am satisfied and happy--the hours glide away uncounted; I
have perfect faith in his good heart and sound judgment, and proudly
recognise his incontestable superiority--yes, I admire, respect, and, I
repeat it, love him!...
Yet, the promise I have made to dedicate my life to him, frightens me,
and for a month I have had but one thought--to postpone this marriage I
wished for--to fly from this man whom I have chosen!...

I question my heart, my experience, my imagination, for an answer to
this inexplicable contradiction; and to interpret so many fears, find
nothing but school-girl philosophy and poetic fancies, which you will
excuse because you love me, and I know my imaginary sufferings will
at least awaken pity in your sympathetic breast.
Yes, my dear Valentine, I am more to be pitied now, than I was in the
days of my distress and desolation. I, who so courageously braved the
blows of adversity, feel weak and trembling under the weight of a too
brilliant fortune.
This happy destiny for which I alone am responsible, alarms me more
than did the bitter lot that was forced upon me one year ago.
The actual trials of poverty exhaust the field of thought and prevent us
from nursing imaginary cares, for when we have undergone the torture
of our own forebodings, struggled with the impetuosity and agony of a
nature surrendered to itself, we are disposed to look almost with relief
on tangible troubles, and to end by appreciating the cares of poverty as
salutary distractions from the sickly anxieties of an unemployed mind.
Oh! believe me to be serious, and accuse me not of comic-opera
philosophy, my dear Valentine! I feel none of that proud disdain for
importunate fortune that we read of in novels; nor do I regret "my
pretty boat," nor "my cottage by the sea;" here, in this beautiful
drawing-room of the Hotel de Langeac, writing to you, I do not sigh for
my gloomy garret in the Marais, where my labors day and night were
most tiresome, because a mere parody of the noblest arts, an
undignified labor making patience and courage ridiculous, a cruel game
which we play for life while cursing it.
No! I regret not this, but I do regret the indolence, the idleness of mind
succeeding such trivial exertions. For then there were no resolutions to
make, no characters to study, and, above all, no responsibility to bear,
nothing to choose, nothing to change.
I had but to follow every morning the path marked out by necessity the
evening before.

If I were able to copy or originate some hundred designs; if I possessed
sufficient carmine or cobalt to color some wretched
engravings--worthless, but fashionable--which I must myself deliver on
the morrow; if I could succeed in finding some new patterns for
embroidery and tapestry, I was content--and for recreation indulged at
evenings in the sweetest, that is most absurd, reveries.
Revery then was a rest to me, now it is a labor, and a dangerous labor
when too often resorted to; good thoughts then came to assist me in my
misery; now, vexatious presentiments torment my happiness. Then the
uncertainty of my future made me mistress of events. I could each day
choose a new destiny, and new adventures. My unexpected and
undeserved misfortune was so complete that I had nothing more to
dread and everything to hope for, and experienced a vague feeling of
gratitude for the ultimate succor that I confidently expected.
I would pass long hours gazing from my window at a little light shining
from the fourth-story window of a distant house. What strange
conjectures I made, as I silently watched the mysterious beacon!
Sometimes, in contemplating it, I recalled the questions addressed by
Childe Harold to the tomb of Cecilia Metella, asking the cold marble if
she who rested there were young and beautiful, a dark-eyed,
delicate-featured woman, whose destiny was that reserved by Heaven
for those it loves; or was she a venerable matron who had outlived her
charms, her children and her kindred?
So I also questioned this solitary light:
To what distressed soul did it lend its aid? Some anxious mother
watching and praying beside her sick child, or some youthful student
plunging