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

“You have almost guessed the truth,” he said. “I am an emigre, condemned to death, and my name is Vicomte de Bauvan. Love of my country has brought me back to France to join my brother. I hope to be taken off the list of emigres through the influence of Madame de Beauharnais, now the wife of the First Consul; but if I fail in this, I mean to die on the soil of my native land, fighting beside my friend Montauran. I am now on my way secretly, by means of a passport he has sent me, to learn if any of my property in Brittany is still unconfiscated.”

While the young man spoke Mademoiselle de Verneuil examined him with a penetrating eye. She tried at first to doubt his words, but being by nature confiding and trustful, she slowly regained an expression of serenity, and said eagerly, “Monsieur, are you telling me the exact truth?”

“Yes, the exact truth,” replied the young man, who seemed to have no conscience in his dealings with women.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil gave a deep sigh, like a person who returns to life.

“Ah!” she exclaimed, “I am very happy.”

“Then you hate that poor Montauran?”

“No,” she said; “but I could not make you understand my meaning. I was not willing that you should meet the dangers from which I will try to protect him,—since he is your friend.”

“Who told you that Montauran was in danger?”

“Ah, monsieur, even if I had not come from Paris, where his enterprise is the one thing talked of, the commandant at Alencon said enough to show his danger.”

“Then let me ask you how you expect to save him from it.”

“Suppose I do not choose to answer,” she replied, with the haughty air that women often assume to hide an emotion. “What right have you to know my secrets?”

“The right of a man who loves you.”

“Already?” she said. “No, you do not love me. I am only an object of passing gallantry to you,—that is all. I am clear-sighted; did I not penetrate your disguise at once? A woman who knows anything of good society could not be misled, in these days, by a pupil of the Polytechnique who uses choice language, and conceals as little as you do the manners of a grand seigneur under the mask of a Republican. There is a trifle of powder left in your hair, and a fragrance of nobility clings to you which a woman of the world cannot fail to detect. Therefore, fearing that the man whom you saw accompanying me, who has all the shrewdness of a woman, might make the same discovery, I sent him away. Monsieur, let me tell you that a true Republican officer just from the Polytechnique would not have made love to me as you have done, and would not have taken me for a pretty adventuress. Allow me, Monsieur de Bauvan, to preach you a little sermon from a woman’s point of view. Are you too juvenile to know that of all the creatures of my sex the most difficult to subdue is that same adventuress,—she whose price is ticketed and who is weary of pleasure. That sort of woman requires, they tell me, constant seduction; she yields only to her own caprices; any attempt to please her argues, I should suppose, great conceit on the part of a man. But let us put aside that class of women, among whom you have been good enough to rank me; you ought to understand that a young woman, handsome, brilliant, and of noble birth (for, I suppose, you will grant me those advantages), does not sell herself, and can only be won by the man who loves her in one way. You understand me? If she loves him and is willing to commit a folly, she must be justified by great and heroic reasons. Forgive me this logic, rare in my sex; but for the sake of your happiness,—and my own,” she added, dropping her head,—“I will not allow either of us to deceive the other, nor will I permit you to think that Mademoiselle de Verneuil, angel or devil, maid or wife, is capable of being seduced by commonplace gallantry.”

“Mademoiselle,” said the marquis, whose surprise, though he concealed it, was extreme, and who at once became a man of the great world, “I entreat you to believe that I take you to be a very noble person, full of the highest sentiments, or—a charming girl, as you please.”

“I don’t ask all that,” she said, laughing. “Allow me to keep my incognito. My mask is better than yours, and it pleases me to wear it,—if only to discover whether those who talk to me of love are sincere. Therefore, beware of me! Monsieur,” she cried, catching his arm vehemently, “listen to me; if you were able to prove that your love is true, nothing, no human power, could part us. Yes, I would fain unite myself to the noble destiny of some great man, and marry a vast ambition, glorious hopes! Noble hearts are never faithless, for constancy is in their fibre; I should be forever loved, forever happy,—I would make my body a stepping-stone by which to raise the man who loved me; I would sacrifice all things to him, bear all things from him, and love him forever,—even if he ceased to love me. I have never before dared to confess to another heart the secrets of mine, nor the passionate enthusiasms which exhaust me; but I tell you something of them now because, as soon as I have seen you in safety, we shall part forever.”

“Part? never!” he cried, electrified by the tones of that vigorous soul which seemed to be fighting against some overwhelming thought.

“Are you free?” she said, with a haughty glance which subdued him.

“Free! yes, except for the sentence of death which hangs over me.”

She added presently, in a voice full of bitter feeling: “If all this were not a dream, a glorious life might indeed be ours. But I have been talking folly; let us beware of committing any. When I think of all you would have to be before you could rate me at my proper value I doubt everything—”

“I doubt nothing if you will only grant me—”

“Hush!” she cried, hearing a note of true passion in his voice, “the open air is decidedly disagreeing with us; let us return to the coach.”

That vehicle soon came up; they took their places and drove on several miles in total silence. Both had matter for reflection, but henceforth their eyes no longer feared to meet. Each now seemed to have an equal interest in observing the other, and in mutually hiding important secrets; but for all that they were drawn together by one and the same impulse, which now, as a result of this interview, assumed the dimensions of a passion. They recognized in each other qualities which promised to heighten all the pleasures to be derived from either their contest or their union. Perhaps both of them, living a life of adventure, had reached the singular moral condition in which, either from weariness or in defiance of fate, the mind rejects serious reflection and flings itself on chance in pursuing an enterprise precisely because the issues of chance are unknown, and the interest of expecting them vivid. The moral nature, like the physical nature, has its abysses into which strong souls love to