Within an Inch of His Life by Emile Gaboriau (latest novels to read txt) 📕

in dissembling and her profound perversity; and I was all the more proud of her. I felt the pride setting my cheeks aglow when I saw her at Brechy; for I came there every Sunday for her sake alone, to see her pass calm and serene in the imposing security of her lofty reputation. I laughed at the simplicity of all these honest, good people, who bowed so low to her, thinking they saluted a saint; and I congratulated myself with idiotic delight at being the only one who knew the true Countess Claudieuse,—she who took her revenge so bravely in our house in Passy!

“But such delights never last long.

“It had not taken me long to find out that I had given myself a master, and the most imperious and exacting master that ever lived. I had almost ceased to belong to myself. I had become her property; and I lived and breathed and thought and acted for her alone. She did not mind my tastes and my dislikes. She wished a thing, and that was enough. She wrote to me, ‘Come!’ and I had to be instantly on the spot: she said to me, ‘Go!’ an I had to leave at once. At first I accepted these evidences of her despotism with joy; but gradually I became tired of this perpetual abdication of my own will. I disliked to have no control over myself, to be unable to dispose of twenty-four hours in advance. I began to feel the pressure of the halter around my neck. I thought of flight. One of my friends was to set out on a voyage around the world, which was to last eighteen months or two years, and I had an idea of accompanying him. There was nothing to retain me. I was, by fortune and position, perfectly independent. Why should I not carry out my plan?

“Ah, why? The prism was not broken yet. I cursed the tyranny of the countess; but I still trembled when I heard her name mentioned. I thought of escaping from her; but a single glance moved me to the bottom of my heart. I was bound to her by the thousand tender threads of habit and of complicity,—those threads which seem to be more delicate than gossamer, but which are harder to break than a ship’s cable.

“Still, this idea which had occurred to me brought it about that I uttered for the first time the word ‘separation’ in her presence, asking her what she would do if I should leave her. She looked at me with a strange air and asked me, after a moment’s hesitation,—

“‘Are you serious? Is it a warning?’

“I dared not carry matters any farther, and, making an effort to smile, I said,—

“‘It is only a joke.’

“‘Then,’ she said, ‘let us not say any thing more about it. If you should ever come to that, you would soon see what I would do.’

“I did not insist; but that look remained long in my memory, and made me feel that I was far more closely bound than I had thought. From that day it became my fixed idea to break with her.”

“Well, you ought to have made an end of it,” said Magloire.

Jacques de Boiscoran shook his head.

“That is easily said,” he replied. “I tried it; but I could not do it. Ten times I went to her, determined to say, ‘Let us part;’ and ten times, at the last moment, my courage failed me. She irritated me. I almost began to hate her; but I could not forget how much I had loved her, and how much she had risked for my sake. Then—why should I not confess it?—I was afraid of her.

“This inflexible character, which I had so much admired, terrified me; and I shuddered, seized with vague and sombre apprehensions, when I thought what she was capable of doing. I was thus in the utmost perplexity, when my mother spoke to me of a match which she had long hoped for. This might be the pretext which I had so far failed to find. At all events, I asked for time to consider; and, the first time I saw the countess again, I gathered all my courage, and said to her,—

“‘Do you know what has happened? My mother wants me to marry.’

“She turned as pale as death; and looking me fixedly in the eyes, as if wanting to read my innermost thoughts, she asked,—

“‘And you, what do you want?’

“‘I,’ I replied with a forced laugh,—‘I want nothing just now. But the thing will have to be done sooner or later. A man must have a home, affections which the world acknowledges’—

“‘And I,’ she broke in; ‘what am I to you?’

“‘You,’ I exclaimed, ‘you, Genevieve! I love you with all the strength of my heart. But we are separated by a gulf: you are married.’

“She was still looking at me fixedly.

“‘In other words,’ she said, ‘you have loved me as a pastime. I have been the amusement of your youth, the poetry of twenty years, that love-romance which every man wants to have. But you are becoming serious; you want sober affections, and you leave me. Well, be it so. But what is to become of me when you are married?’

“I was suffering terribly.

“‘You have your husband,’ I stammered, ‘your children’—

“She stopped me.

“‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I shall go back go live at Valpinson, in that country full of associations, where every place recalls a rendezvous. I shall live with my husband, whom I have betrayed; with daughters, one of whom—That cannot be, Jacques.’

“I had a fit of courage.

“‘Still,’ I said, ‘I may have to marry. What would you do?’

“‘Oh! very little,’ she replied. ‘I should hand all your letters to Count Claudieuse.’”

During the thirty years which he had spent at the bar, M. Magloire had heard many a strange confession; but never in his life had all his ideas been overthrown as in this case.

“That is utterly confounding,” he murmured.

But Jacques went on,—

“Was this threat of the countess meant in earnest? I did not doubt it; but affecting great composure, I said,—

“‘You would not do that.’

“‘By all that I hold dear and sacred in this world,’ she replied, ‘I would do it.’

“Many months have passed by since that scene, Magloire, many events have happened; and still I feel as if it had taken place yesterday. I see the countess still, whiter than a ghost. I still hear her trembling voice; and I can repeat to you her words almost literally,—

“‘Ah! you are surprised at my determination, Jacques. I understand that. Wives who have betrayed their husbands have not accustomed their lovers to be held responsible by them. When they are betrayed, they dare not cry out; when they are abandoned, they submit; when they are sacrificed, they hide their tears, for to cry would be to avow their wrong. Who would pity