The Chouans by Honoré de Balzac (open ebook txt) 📕

feet soon separated them. The charming pair trod the fine sand beneath their feet, listening with childlike delight to the union of their footsteps, happy in being wrapped by the same ray of a sunshine that seemed spring-like, in breathing with the same breath autumnal perfumes laden with vegetable odors which seemed a nourishment brought by the breezes to their dawning love. Though to them it may have been a mere circumstance of their fortuitous meeting, yet the sky, the landscape, the season of the year, did communicate to their emotions a tinge of melancholy gravity which gave them an element of passion. They praised the weather and talked of its beauty; then of their strange encounter, of the coming rupture of an intercourse so delightful; of the ease with which, in travelling, friendships, lost as soon as made, are formed. After this last remark, the young man profited by what seemed to be a tacit permission to make a few tender confidences, and to risk an avowal of love like a man who was not unaccustomed to such situations.

“Have you noticed, mademoiselle,” he said, “how little the feelings of the heart follow the old conventional rules in the days of terror in which we live? Everything about us bears the stamp of suddenness. We love in a day, or we hate on the strength of a single glance. We are bound to each other for life in a moment, or we part with the celerity of death itself. All things are hurried, like the convulsions of the nation. In the midst of such dangers as ours the ties that bind should be stronger than under the ordinary course of life. In Paris during the Terror, every one came to know the full meaning of a clasp of the hand as men do on a battle-field.”

“People felt the necessity of living fast and ardently,” she answered, “for they had little time to live.” Then, with a glance at her companion which seemed to tell him that the end of their short intercourse was approaching, she added, maliciously: “You are very well informed as to the affairs of life, for a young man who has just left the Ecole Polytechnique!”

“What are you thinking of me?” he said after a moment’s silence. “Tell me frankly, without disguise.”

“You wish to acquire the right to speak to me of myself,” she said laughing.

“You do not answer me,” he went on after a slight pause. “Take care, silence is sometimes significant.”

“Do you think I cannot guess all that you would like to say to me? Good heavens! you have already said enough.”

“Oh, if we understand each other,” he replied, smiling, “I have obtained more than I dared hope for.”

She smiled in return so graciously that she seemed to accept the courteous struggle into which all men like to draw a woman. They persuaded themselves, half in jest, half in earnest, that they never could be more to each other than they were at that moment. The young man fancied, therefore, he might give reins to a passion that could have no future; the young woman felt she might smile upon it. Marie suddenly struck her foot against a stone and stumbled.

“Take my arm,” said her companion.

“It seems I must,” she replied; “you would be too proud if I refused; you would fancy I feared you.”

“Ah, mademoiselle,” he said, pressing her arm against his heart that she might feel the beating of it, “you flatter my pride by granting such a favor.”

“Well, the readiness with which I do so will cure your illusions.”

“Do you wish to save me from the danger of the emotions you cause?”

“Stop, stop!” she cried; “do not try to entangle me in such boudoir riddles. I don’t like to find the wit of fools in a man of your character. See! here we are beneath the glorious sky, in the open country; before us, above us, all is grand. You wish to tell me that I am beautiful, do you not? Well, your eyes have already told me so; besides, I know it; I am not a woman whom mere compliments can please. But perhaps you would like,” this with satirical emphasis, “to talk about your sentiments? Do you think me so simple as to believe that sudden sympathies are powerful enough to influence a whole life through the recollections of one morning?”

“Not the recollections of a morning,” he said, “but those of a beautiful woman who has shown herself generous.”

“You forget,” she retorted, laughing, “half my attractions,—a mysterious woman, with everything odd about her, name, rank, situation, freedom of thought and manners.”

“You are not mysterious to me!” he exclaimed. “I have fathomed you; there is nothing that could be added to your perfections except a little more faith in the love you inspire.”

“Ah, my poor child of eighteen, what can you know of love?” she said smiling. “Well, well, so be it!” she added, “it is a fair subject of conversation, like the weather when one pays a visit. You shall find that I have neither false modesty nor petty fears. I can hear the word love without blushing; it has been so often said to me without one echo of the heart that I think it quite unmeaning. I have met with it everywhere, in books, at the theatre, in society,—yes, everywhere, and never have I found in it even a semblance of its magnificent ideal.”

“Did you seek that ideal?”

“Yes.”

The word was said with such perfect ease and freedom that the young man made a gesture of surprise and looked at Marie fixedly, as if he had suddenly changed his opinion on her character and real position.

“Mademoiselle,” he said with ill-concealed devotion, “are you maid or wife, angel or devil?”

“All,” she replied, laughing. “Isn’t there something diabolic and also angelic in a young girl who has never loved, does not love, and perhaps will never love?”

“Do you think yourself happy thus?” he asked with a free and easy tone and manner, as though already he felt less respect for her.

“Oh, happy, no,” she replied. “When I think that I am alone, hampered by social conventions that make me deceitful, I envy the privileges of a man. But when I also reflect on the means which nature has bestowed on us women to catch and entangle you men in the invisible meshes of a power which you cannot resist, then the part assigned to me in the world is not displeasing to me. And then again, suddenly, it does seem very petty, and I feel that I should despise a man who allowed himself to be duped by such vulgar seductions. No sooner do I perceive our power and like it, than I know it to be horrible and I abhor it. Sometimes I feel within me that longing towards devotion which makes my sex so nobly beautiful; and then I feel a desire, which consumes me, for dominion and power. Perhaps it is the natural struggle of the good and the evil principle in which all creatures live here below. Angel or devil! you have expressed it. Ah! to-day is not the first time that I have recognized my double nature. But we women understand better than you men can do our own shortcomings. We