Chapter 5

“So you are not deaf, you young rogue!” said Chabert, taking the gutter-jumper by the ear and twisting it, to the delight of the other clerks, who began to laugh, looking at the Colonel with the curious attention due to so singular a personage.

Comte Chabert was in Derville’s private room at the moment when his wife came in by the door of the office.

“I say, Boucard, there is going to be a queer scene in the chief’s room! There is a woman who can spend her days alternately, the odd with Comte Ferraud, and the even with Comte Chabert.”

“And in leap year,” said Godeschal, “they must settle the _count_ between them.”

“Silence, gentlemen, you can be heard!” said Boucard severely. “I never was in an office where there was so much jesting as there is here over the clients.”

Derville had made the Colonel retire to the bedroom when the Countess was admitted.

“Madame,” he said, “not knowing whether it would be agreeable to you to meet M. le Comte Chabert, I have placed you apart. If, however, you should wish it--”

“It is an attention for which I am obliged to you.”

“I have drawn up the memorandum of an agreement of which you and M. Chabert can discuss the conditions, here, and now. I will go alternately to him and to you, and explain your views respectively.”

“Let me see, monsieur,” said the Countess impatiently.

Derville read aloud:

“‘Between the undersigned:

“‘M. Hyacinthe Chabert, Count, Marechal de Camp, and Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor, living in Paris, Rue du Petit-Banquier, on the one part;

“‘And Madame Rose Chapotel, wife of the aforesaid M. le Comte Chabert, _nee_--’”

“Pass over the preliminaries,” said she. “Come to the conditions.”

“Madame,” said the lawyer, “the preamble briefly sets forth the position in which you stand to each other. Then, by the first clause, you acknowledge, in the presence of three witnesses, of whom two shall be notaries, and one the dairyman with whom your husband has been lodging, to all of whom your secret is known, and who will be absolutely silent--you acknowledge, I say, that the individual designated in the documents subjoined to the deed, and whose identity is to be further proved by an act of recognition prepared by your notary, Alexandre Crottat, is your first husband, Comte Chabert. By the second clause Comte Chabert, to secure your happiness, will undertake to assert his rights only under certain circumstances set forth in the deed.--And these,” said Derville, in a parenthesis, “are none other than a failure to carry out the conditions of this secret agreement.--M. Chabert, on his part, agrees to accept judgment on a friendly suit, by which his certificate of death shall be annulled, and his marriage dissolved.”

“That will not suit me in the least,” said the Countess with surprise. “I will be a party to no suit; you know why.”

“By the third clause,” Derville went on, with imperturbable coolness, “you pledge yourself to secure to Hyacinthe Comte Chabert an income of twenty-four thousand francs on government stock held in his name, to revert to you at his death--”

“But it is much too dear!” exclaimed the Countess.

“Can you compromise the matter cheaper?”

“Possibly.”

“But what do you want, madame?”

“I want--I will not have a lawsuit. I want--”

“You want him to remain dead?” said Derville, interrupting her hastily.

“Monsieur,” said the Countess, “if twenty-four thousand francs a year are necessary, we will go to law--”

“Yes, we will go to law,” said the Colonel in a deep voice, as he opened the door and stood before his wife, with one hand in his waistcoat and the other hanging by his side--an attitude to which the recollection of his adventure gave horrible significance.

“It is he,” said the Countess to herself.

“Too dear!” the old soldier exclaimed. “I have given you near on a million, and you are cheapening my misfortunes. Very well; now I will have you--you and your fortune. Our goods are in common, our marriage is not dissolved--”

“But monsieur is not Colonel Chabert!” cried the Countess, in feigned amazement.

“Indeed!” said the old man, in a tone of intense irony. “Do you want proofs? I found you in the Palais Royal----”

The Countess turned pale. Seeing her grow white under her rouge, the old soldier paused, touched by the acute suffering he was inflicting on the woman he had once so ardently loved; but she shot such a venomous glance at him that he abruptly went on:

“You were with La--”

“Allow me, Monsieur Derville,” said the Countess to the lawyer. “You must give me leave to retire. I did not come here to listen to such dreadful things.”

She rose and went out. Derville rushed after her; but the Countess had taken wings, and seemed to have flown from the place.

On returning to his private room, he found the Colonel in a towering rage, striding up and down.

“In those times a man took his wife where he chose,” said he. “But I was foolish and chose badly; I trusted to appearances. She has no heart.”

“Well, Colonel, was I not right to beg you not to come?--I am now positive of your identity; when you came in, the Countess gave a little start, of which the meaning was unequivocal. But you have lost your chances. Your wife knows that you are unrecognizable.”

“I will kill her!”

“Madness! you will be caught and executed like any common wretch. Besides you might miss! That would be unpardonable. A man must not miss his shot when he wants to kill his wife.--Let me set things straight; you are only a big child. Go now. Take care of yourself; she is capable of setting some trap for you and shutting you up in Charenton. I will notify her of our proceedings to protect you against a surprise.”

The unhappy Colonel obeyed his young benefactor, and went away, stammering apologies. He slowly went down the dark staircase, lost in gloomy thoughts, and crushed perhaps by the blow just dealt him--the most cruel he could feel, the thrust that could most deeply pierce his heart--when he heard the rustle of a woman’s dress on the lowest landing, and his wife stood before him.

“Come, monsieur,” said she, taking his arm with a gesture like those familiar to him of old. Her action and the accent of her voice, which had recovered its graciousness, were enough to allay the Colonel’s wrath, and he allowed himself to be led to the carriage.

“Well, get in!” said she, when the footman had let down the step.

And as if by magic, he found himself sitting by his wife in the brougham.

“Where to?” asked the servant.

“To Groslay,” said she.

The horses started at once, and carried them all across Paris.

“Monsieur,” said the Countess, in a tone of voice which betrayed one of those emotions which are rare in our lives, and which agitate every part of our being. At such moments the heart, fibres, nerves, countenance, soul, and body, everything, every pore even, feels a thrill. Life no longer seems to be within us; it flows out, springs forth, is communicated as if by contagion, transmitted by a look, a tone of voice, a gesture, impressing our will on others. The old soldier started on hearing this single word, this first, terrible “monsieur!” But still it was at once a reproach and a pardon, a hope and a despair, a question and an answer. This word included them all; none but an actress could have thrown so much eloquence, so many feelings into a single word. Truth is less complete in its utterance; it does not put everything on the outside; it allows us to see what is within. The Colonel was filled with remorse for his suspicions, his demands, and his anger; he looked down not to betray his agitation.

“Monsieur,” repeated she, after an imperceptible pause, “I knew you at once.”

“Rosine,” said the old soldier, “those words contain the only balm that can help me to forget my misfortunes.”

Two large tears rolled hot on to his wife’s hands, which he pressed to show his paternal affection.

“Monsieur,” she went on, “could you not have guessed what it cost me to appear before a stranger in a position so false as mine now is? If I have to blush for it, at least let it be in the privacy of my family. Ought not such a secret to remain buried in our hearts? You will forgive me, I hope, for my apparent indifference to the woes of a Chabert in whose existence I could not possibly believe. I received your letters,” she hastily added, seeing in his face the objection it expressed, “but they did not reach me till thirteen months after the battle of Eylau. They were opened, dirty, the writing was unrecognizable; and after obtaining Napoleon’s signature to my second marriage contract, I could not help believing that some clever swindler wanted to make a fool of me. Therefore, to avoid disturbing Monsieur Ferraud’s peace of mind, and disturbing family ties, I was obliged to take precautions against a pretended Chabert. Was I not right, I ask you?”

“Yes, you were right. It was I who was the idiot, the owl, the dolt, not to have calculated better what the consequences of such a position might be.--But where are we going?” he asked, seeing that they had reached the barrier of La Chapelle.

“To my country house near Groslay, in the valley of Montmorency. There, monsieur, we will consider the steps to be taken. I know my duties. Though I am yours by right, I am no longer yours in fact. Can you wish that we should become the talk of Paris? We need not inform the public of a situation, which for me has its ridiculous side, and let us preserve our dignity. You still love me,” she said, with a sad, sweet gaze at the Colonel, “but have not I been authorized to form other ties? In so strange a position, a secret voice bids me trust to your kindness, which is so well known to me. Can I be wrong in taking you as the sole arbiter of my fate? Be at once judge and party to the suit. I trust in your noble character; you will be generous enough to forgive me for the consequences of faults committed in innocence. I may then confess to you: I love M. Ferraud. I believed that I had a right to love him. I do not blush to make this confession to you; even if it offends you, it does not disgrace us. I cannot conceal the facts. When fate made me a widow, I was not a mother.”

The Colonel with a wave of his hand bid his wife be silent, and for a mile and a half they sat without speaking a single word. Chabert could fancy he saw the two little ones before him.

“Rosine.”

“Monsieur?”

“The dead are very wrong to come to life again.”

“Oh, monsieur, no, no! Do not think me ungrateful. Only, you find me a lover, a mother, while you left me merely a wife. Though it is no longer in my power to love, I know how much I owe you, and I can still offer you all the affection of a daughter.”

“Rosine,” said the old man in a softened tone, “I no longer feel any resentment against you. We will forget anything,” he added, with one of those smiles which always reflect a noble soul; “I have not so little delicacy as to demand the mockery of love from a wife who no longer loves me.”

The Countess gave him a flashing look full of such deep gratitude that poor Chabert would have been glad to sink again into his grave at Eylau. Some men have a soul strong enough for such self-devotion, of which the whole reward consists in the assurance that they have made the person they love happy.

“My dear friend, we will talk all this over later when our hearts have rested,” said the Countess.

The conversation turned to other subjects, for it was impossible to dwell very long on this one. Though the couple came back again and again to their singular position, either by some allusion or of serious purpose, they had a delightful drive, recalling the events of their former life together and the times of the Empire. The Countess knew how to lend peculiar charm to her reminiscences, and gave the conversation the tinge of melancholy that was needed to keep it serious. She revived his love without awakening his desires, and allowed her first husband to discern the mental wealth she had acquired while trying to accustom him to moderate his pleasure to that which a father may feel in the society of a favorite daughter.

The Colonel had known the Countess of the Empire; he found her a Countess of the Restoration.

At last, by a cross-road, they arrived at the entrance to a large park lying in the little valley which divides the heights of Margency from the pretty village of Groslay. The Countess had there a delightful house, where the Colonel on arriving found everything in readiness for his stay there, as well as for his wife’s. Misfortune is a kind of talisman whose virtue consists in its power to confirm our original nature; in some men it increases their distrust and malignancy, just as it improves the goodness of those who have a kind heart.

Sorrow had made the Colonel even more helpful and good than he had always been, and he could understand some secrets of womanly distress which are unrevealed to most men. Nevertheless, in spite of his loyal trustfulness, he could not help saying to his wife:

“Then you felt quite sure you would bring me here?”

“Yes,” replied she, “if I found Colonel Chabert in Derville’s client.”

The appearance of truth she contrived to give to this answer dissipated the slight suspicions which the Colonel was ashamed to have felt. For three days the Countess was quite charming to her first husband. By tender attentions and unfailing sweetness she seemed anxious to wipe out the memory of the sufferings he had endured, and to earn forgiveness for the woes which, as she confessed, she had innocently caused him. She delighted in displaying for him the charms she knew he took pleasure in, while at the same time she assumed a kind of melancholy; for men are more especially accessible to certain ways, certain graces of the heart or of the mind which they cannot resist. She aimed at interesting him in her position, and appealing to his feelings so far as to take possession of his mind and control him despotically.

Ready for anything to attain her ends, she did not yet know what she was to do with this man; but at any rate she meant to annihilate him socially. On the evening of the third day she felt that in spite of her efforts she could not conceal her uneasiness as to the results of her manoeuvres. To give herself a minute’s reprieve she went up to her room, sat down before her writing-table, and laid aside the mask of composure which she wore in Chabert’s presence, like an actress who, returning to her dressing-room after a fatiguing fifth act, drops half dead, leaving with the audience an image of herself which she no longer resembles. She proceeded to finish a letter she had begun to Delbecq, whom she desired to go in her name and demand of Derville the deeds relating to Colonel Chabert, to copy them, and to come to her at once to Groslay. She had hardly finished when she heard the Colonel’s step in the passage; uneasy at her absence, he had come to look for her.

“Alas!” she exclaimed, “I wish I were dead! My position is intolerable...”

“Why, what is the matter?” asked the good man.

“Nothing, nothing!” she replied.

She rose, left the Colonel, and went down to speak privately to her maid, whom she sent off to Paris, impressing on her that she was herself to deliver to Delbecq the letter just written, and to bring it back to the writer as soon as he had read it. Then the Countess went out to sit on a bench sufficiently in sight for the Colonel to join her as soon as he might choose. The Colonel, who was looking for her, hastened up and sat down by her.

“Rosine,” said he, “what is the matter with you?”

She did not answer.

It was one of those glorious, calm evenings in the month of June, whose secret harmonies infuse such sweetness into the sunset. The air was clear, the stillness perfect, so that far away in the park they could hear the voices of some children, which added a kind of melody to the sublimity of the scene.

“You do not answer me?” the Colonel said to his wife.

“My husband----” said the Countess, who broke off, started a little, and with a blush stopped to ask him, “What am I to say when I speak of M. Ferraud?”

“Call him your husband, my poor child,” replied the Colonel, in a kind voice. “Is he not the father of your children?”

“Well, then,” she said, “if he should ask what I came here for, if he finds out that I came here, alone, with a stranger, what am I to say to him? Listen, monsieur,” she went on, assuming a dignified attitude, “decide my fate, I am resigned to anything--”

“My dear,” said the Colonel, taking possession of his wife’s hands, “I have made up my mind to sacrifice myself entirely for your happiness--”

“That is impossible!” she exclaimed, with a sudden spasmodic movement. “Remember that you would have to renounce your identity, and in an authenticated form.”

“What?” said the Colonel. “Is not my word enough for you?”

The word “authenticated” fell on the old man’s heart, and roused involuntary distrust. He looked at his wife in a way that made her color, she cast down her eyes, and he feared that he might find himself compelled to despise her. The Countess was afraid lest she had scared the shy modesty, the stern honesty, of a man whose generous temper and primitive virtues were known to her. Though these feelings had brought the clouds to her brow, they immediately recovered their harmony. This was the way of it. A child’s cry was heard in the distance.

“Jules, leave your sister in peace,” the Countess called out.

“What, are your children here?” said Chabert.

“Yes, but I told them not to trouble you.”

The old soldier understood the delicacy, the womanly tact of so gracious a precaution, and took the Countess’ hand to kiss it.

“But let them come,” said he.

The little girl ran up to complain of her brother.

“Mamma!”

“Mamma!”

“It was Jules--”

“It was her--”

Their little hands were held out to their mother, and the two childish voices mingled; it was an unexpected and charming picture.

“Poor little things!” cried the Countess, no longer restraining her tears, “I shall have to leave them. To whom will the law assign them? A mother’s heart cannot be divided; I want them, I want them.”

“Are you making mamma cry?” said Jules, looking fiercely at the Colonel.

“Silence, Jules!” said the mother in a decided tone.

The two children stood speechless, examining their mother and the stranger with a curiosity which it is impossible to express in words.

“Oh yes!” she cried. “If I am separated from the Count, only leave me my children, and I will submit to anything...”

This was the decisive speech which gained all that she had hoped from it.

“Yes,” exclaimed the Colonel, as if he were ending a sentence already begun in his mind, “I must return underground again. I had told myself so already.”

“Can I accept such a sacrifice?” replied his wife. “If some men have died to save a mistress’ honor, they gave their life but once. But in this case you would be giving your life every day. No, no. It is impossible. If it were only your life, it would be nothing; but to sign a declaration that you are not Colonel Chabert, to acknowledge yourself an imposter, to sacrifice your honor, and live a lie every hour of the day! Human devotion cannot go so far. Only think!--No. But for my poor children I would have fled with you by this time to the other end of the world.”

“But,” said Chabert, “cannot I live here in your little lodge as one of your relations? I am as worn out as a cracked cannon; I want nothing but a little tobacco and the _Constitutionnel_.”

The Countess melted into tears. There was a contest of generosity between the Comtesse Ferraud and Colonel Chabert, and the soldier came out victorious. One evening, seeing this mother with her children, the soldier was bewitched by the touching grace of a family picture in the country, in the shade and the silence; he made a resolution to remain dead, and, frightened no longer at the authentication of a deed, he asked what he could do to secure beyond all risk the happiness of this family.

“Do exactly as you like,” said the Countess. “I declare to you that I will have nothing to do with this affair. I ought not.”

Delbecq had arrived some days before, and in obedience to the Countess’ verbal instructions, the intendant had succeeded in gaining the old soldier’s confidence. So on the following morning Colonel Chabert went with the erewhile attorney to Saint-Leu-Taverny, where Delbecq had caused the notary to draw up an affidavit in such terms that, after hearing it read, the Colonel started up and walked out of the office.

“Turf and thunder! What a fool you must think me! Why, I should make myself out a swindler!” he exclaimed.

“Indeed, monsieur,” said Delbecq, “I should advise you not to sign in haste. In your place I would get at least thirty thousand francs a year out of the bargain. Madame would pay them.”

After annihilating this scoundrel _emeritus_ by the lightning look of an honest man insulted, the Colonel rushed off, carried away by a thousand contrary emotions. He was suspicious, indignant, and calm again by turns.

Finally he made his way back into the park of Groslay by a gap in a fence, and slowly walked on to sit down and rest, and meditate at his ease, in a little room under a gazebo, from which the road to Saint-Leu could be seen. The path being strewn with the yellowish sand which is used instead of river-gravel, the Countess, who was sitting in the upper room of this little summer-house, did not hear the Colonel’s approach, for she was too much preoccupied with the success of her business to pay the smallest attention to the slight noise made by her husband. Nor did the old man notice that his wife was in the room over him.

“Well, Monsieur Delbecq, has he signed?” the Countess asked her secretary, whom she saw alone on the road beyond the hedge of a haha.

“No, madame. I do not even know what has become of our man. The old horse reared.”

“Then we shall be obliged to put him into Charenton,” said she, “since we have got him.”

The Colonel, who recovered the elasticity of youth to leap the haha, in the twinkling of an eye was standing in front of Delbecq, on whom he bestowed the two finest slaps that ever a scoundrel’s cheeks received.

“And you may add that old horses can kick!” said he.

His rage spent, the Colonel no longer felt vigorous enough to leap the ditch. He had seen the truth in all its nakedness. The Countess’ speech and Delbecq’s reply had revealed the conspiracy of which he was to be the victim. The care taken of him was but a bait to entrap him in a snare. That speech was like a drop of subtle poison, bringing on in the old soldier a return of all his sufferings, physical and moral. He came back to the summer-house through the park gate, walking slowly like a broken man.

Then for him there was to be neither peace nor truce. From this moment he must begin the odious warfare with this woman of which Derville had spoken, enter on a life of litigation, feed on gall, drink every morning of the cup of bitterness. And then--fearful thought!--where was he to find the money needful to pay the cost of the first proceedings? He felt such disgust of life, that if there had been any water at hand he would have thrown himself into it; that if he had had a pistol, he would have blown out his brains. Then he relapsed into the indecision of mind which, since his conversation with Derville at the dairyman’s had changed his character.