Part 9

Conversing thus we entered a hall, the walls of which were hung with high warp Flemish tapestry.--Tall trees with pointed leaves were covered with flocks of fanciful birds; the colors, faded by time, presented strange transpositions of shades; the sky was green, the trees royal blue with yellow streaks, and in the draperies of the figures the shadow was often of a directly opposite color to that of the background of the material;--the flesh resembled wood, and the nymphs walking under the faded shadows of the forest looked like unswathed mummies; their mouths alone, which had retained their original purple tint, smiled with an appearance of life. In the foreground were tall plants of a strange shade of green with great striped flowers, whose pistils resembled a peacock's crest. Sober-faced, pensive herons, their heads buried in their shoulders, their long beaks resting on their swollen crops, stood philosophically on one of their slim legs, in stagnant, black water, streaked with lines of tarnished silver; through the vistas in the foliage, one could see in the distance small chateaux with turrets like pepper-boxes and balconies crowded with lovely women in grand attire, watching processions or hunting-parties pass.

Fantastically-jagged rocks, over which foamed torrents of white wool, blended insensibly with fleecy clouds at the horizon line.

One of the things that impressed me most was the figure of a huntress shooting a bird.--Her open fingers had just released the string, and the arrow had flown; but as that part of the tapestry was in a corner, the arrow was on the other wall, having described a great curve; as for the bird, he was flying away on motionless wings and seemed to be headed for a neighboring branch.

That feathered arrow, armed with a golden tip, always in the air and never reaching its destination, had a most curious effect; it was like a melancholy, sorrowful symbol of human destiny, and the more I looked at it the more mysterious and sinister meanings I discovered in it.--The huntress stood there, her foot put forward, her leg bent, her eye with its silken lid wide open, and yet unable to see her arrow which had deviated from its path; she seemed to be looking anxiously for the flamingo with the gorgeous plumage, that she desired to bring down and expected to see fall at her feet, pierced through and through.--I do not know whether it is an error on the part of my imagination, but I detected upon that face an expression as forlorn and desperate as that of a poet who dies without having written the work upon which he expected to found his reputation, and who is seized with the pitiless death-rattle just as he is trying to dictate it.

I have written at great length about this tapestry, at greater length certainly than it deserves;--but the fanciful world created by those who work on the high warp has always had a strange fascination for me.

I am passionately fond of the imaginary vegetation, the flowers and plants that have no real existence, the forests of strange trees peopled with unicorns, _caprimulgæ_. and snow-white stags with a golden crucifix between their horns, generally pursued by red-bearded huntsmen in the costumes of Saracens.

When I was small I hardly ever entered a room hung with tapestry without a sort of shudder, and I hardly dared move.

All those figures standing against the wall, to which the undulation of the material and the play of the light imparted a sort of fantastic life, seemed to me like so many spies watching my actions in order to report them at the proper time and place, and I would not have eaten a stolen apple or cake in their presence.

What tales those solemn creatures would have to tell if they could open their red silk lips, and if sounds could penetrate the drum of their embroidered ears. Of how many murders, treasons, infamous adulteries and monstrous deeds of all sorts have they been silent, impassive witnesses!--

But let us leave the tapestry and return to our story.

"Alcibiades, I will go and tell my aunt of your arrival."

"Oh! there's no hurry about that, sister; let us sit down and talk a little while first. Allow me to introduce my young friend Théodore de Sérannes, who will pass some time here. I do not need to urge you to make him welcome;--he is his own sufficient recommendation."--I tell you what he said; do not be in a hurry to accuse me of self-conceit.--

The young lady nodded slightly as if in assent, and we talked of other things.

As we talked I made a more detailed and more careful examination of her than I had been able to do before.

She seemed to be some twenty-three or twenty-four years old and her mourning was most becoming to her; to tell the truth, her manner was not very lugubrious or desolate and I suspect that she had eaten the ashes of her Mausolus in her soup by way of rhubarb.--I do not know whether she had grieved overmuch for her defunct spouse; if she had done it, she hardly showed it now, at all events, and the pretty cambric handkerchief she had in her hand was as perfectly dry as possible.

Her eyes were not red, on the contrary they were the clearest and brightest eyes in the world, and you would have sought in vain on her cheeks the furrow through which tears had flowed; indeed, there was nothing there save two little dimples formed by the habit of smiling, and it is fair to say that, for a widow, she displayed her teeth very frequently; and it was certainly not an unpleasant spectacle, for they were small and even. I esteemed her, first of all, for not having felt obliged, just because some poor devil of a husband had died, to blacken her eyes and make her nose red: I was grateful to her also for not affecting any little mournful airs and for talking naturally with her silvery, ringing voice, without dragging out her words and interlarding her sentences with virtuous sighs.

It seemed to me in extremely good taste; I set her down at once as a woman of intelligence, which she is in fact.

She was well built, with a foot and hand well suited to her figure; her black dress was arranged with all possible coquetry and so daintily that you entirely forgot the lugubriousness of the color, and she might have gone to a ball in that costume without causing any remark. If I ever marry and am left a widow, I shall ask her for a pattern of her dress, for she looks like an angel in it.

After some little talk, we went up to the old aunt's room.

We found her sitting in a great easy-chair with a sloping back, a little stool under her feet and beside her an old blear-eyed, ugly-looking dog, who raised his black muzzle when we appeared and welcomed us with a far from amiable growl.

I have always looked upon old women with horror. My mother died very young; doubtless, if I had seen her grow old slowly, and her features change imperceptibly, I should have become accustomed to it without a shock.--In my childhood I was surrounded by none but youthful, laughing faces, so that I have retained an insurmountable antipathy for old people. So it was that I shuddered when the lovely widow touched the dowager's yellow brow with her pure vermilion lips.--It was something I wouldn't have taken upon myself to do. I know that I shall look like that when I am sixty; but I can do nothing to prevent it, and I pray God that I may die young like my mother.

However, the old lady had retained some simple and majestic features of her former beauty which prevented her from attaining the baked-apple stage of ugliness that is the lot of women who have been simply pretty or fresh and healthy: her eyes, although they had crow's feet at the corners and were covered by great, flabby lids, still retained some sparks of their former fire, and you could see that, under the reign of the late king, they might have emitted dazzling flashes of passion. Her fine and thin nose, slightly hooked like the beak of a bird of prey, gave to her profile a sort of solemn grandeur, tempered by the indulgent smile upon her protruding Austrian lip, which was touched with carmine according to the fashion of the last generation.

Her costume was old-fashioned without being absurd, and was in perfect harmony with her face; her head-dress was a simple white cap with a narrow lace border; her long, emaciated hands, which you could see had once been beautiful, were encased in mittens with no fingers or thumbs; a dress of the color of dead leaves, with flowered work of a deeper shade, a black mantle and a paduasoy apron of changing color completed her toilet.

Old women ought always to dress in that way and respect their approaching death sufficiently to avoid decking themselves out with feathers and wreaths of flowers, ribbons of delicate shades and the countless gewgaws that are suited only to extreme youth. It is of no use for them to make advances to life; life will have nothing to do with them; they have their pains for their trouble, like the superannuated courtesans who plaster themselves with red and white paint and whom drunken mule-drivers repulse with insults and kicks.

The old lady welcomed us with the ease of manner and exquisite courtesy characteristic of those people who were of the old court, the secret of which we seem to be losing from day to day, like so many other valuable secrets--and in a voice which, though broken and trembling, was still extremely sweet.

She seemed much pleased with me and looked at me very attentively for a long while, apparently much moved.--A tear gathered in the corner of her eye and rolled slowly down one of the deep wrinkles, where it dried up and disappeared. She begged me to excuse her and said that I greatly resembled a son who was killed in the army.

All the time that I remained at the chateau, I was treated by the dear old lady with extraordinary, altogether motherly kindness because of that resemblance, real or imaginary. I found more charm in that condition of things than I anticipated at first, for the greatest favor that elderly people can confer upon me is never to speak to me and to leave the room when I enter it.

I will not tell you in detail what I did each day at R--. If I have lingered a little over all this preliminary matter and have drawn with some care these two or three physiognomies of persons and of places, it is because I had there some very strange adventures, albeit very natural and just what I ought to have foreseen when I donned the garb of a man.

My natural light-headedness led me into an imprudence which I bitterly repent, for it has brought trouble to a kind and loving heart, trouble which I cannot allay without disclosing what I am and compromising myself seriously.

In order to acquire masculine manners perfectly and to divert myself a little, I could think of nothing better than to pay court to my friend's sister.--It seemed very amusing to me to fall upon all fours when she dropped her glove and to return it to her with humble reverences, to lean over the back of her chair with an adorably languorous expression, to whisper in her ear a thousand and one flattering speeches of the most seductive description. Whenever she passed from one room to another I gracefully offered my hand; if she rode, I held her stirrup, and in walking I was always at her side; in the evening I read to her and sang with her;--in short, I performed with scrupulous accuracy all the functions of a cicisbeo.

I did everything that I had seen young men in love do, which amused me and made me laugh like the genuine madcap that I am, when I was alone in my chamber and reflected on all the impertinent remarks I had made in the most serious tone imaginable.

Alcibiades and the old marchioness seemed to look upon the intimacy with pleasure and left us together very often. I sometimes regretted that I was not a man in order to take advantage of the tête-à-tête; if I had been, it would have depended entirely upon me, for our charming widow seemed to have forgotten the defunct entirely, or, if she remembered him, she would readily have been unfaithful to his memory.

Having begun upon that line I could hardly draw back with honor, and it was very difficult to effect a retreat with arms and stores; I could not go beyond a certain limit, however, and I could hardly be affectionate except in words:--I hoped to reach without mishap the end of the month I was to pass at R--, and to retire with a promise to return, intending to do nothing of the kind.--I thought that when I had gone the fair widow would readily be consoled, and would soon forget me when I was out of her sight.

But, while seeking only my own amusement, I had aroused a serious passion, and things turned out differently:--which goes to prove a truth that has long been well known, to wit, that one must never play with fire or with love.

Before she fell in with me, Rosette had not known what love is. Married very young to a man many years her senior, she had felt only a sort of filial affection for him;--courted she had been, I doubt not, but she had had no lover, incredible as it may appear: either the gallants who had hitherto shown her attention were but moderately attractive, or else, which is more probable, her hour had not yet come.--The petty aristocrats and country squires who talked of nothing but fertilizers and fumets, young boars and seven-year stags, hunting cries and antlers, with an admixture of charades out of the almanac and compliments moss-grown with age, were certainly not made to commend themselves to her, and her virtue had not had to exert itself overmuch in order not to yield to them.--Moreover, the natural gaiety and playfulness of her disposition were a sufficient defence against love, that sentimental passion that takes such strong hold of dreamers and melancholy folk; the idea of sensual pleasure that her old Tithonus had been able to give her was probably not sufficient to arouse any great temptation to try it again, and she enjoyed in a mild way the pleasure of being left a widow so early in life and of having so many years to be pretty.

But on my arrival, there was a great change.--I thought at first that if I had kept strictly within the limits of cold and scrupulous courtesy, she would not have taken any notice of me; but really I was obliged to admit afterward that it would have made no difference at all, and that that supposition, although very modest, was entirely without foundation.--Alas! nothing can turn aside the fatal horoscope, and no one can avoid the influence, whether benignant or malignant, of his star.

It was Rosette's destiny to love but once in her life, and with an impossible passion; she must and she will accomplish her destiny.

I have been loved, O Graciosa, and it is a sweet experience, although I have been loved only by a woman, and in such an unnatural love there is something painful that there certainly cannot be in the other;--oh! it is a very sweet experience!--When you wake in the night and rest upon your elbow, to say to yourself: "Some one is thinking or dreaming of me; my life is of interest to somebody; a movement of my eyes or my mouth causes joy or sadness to another creature; a word I have let fall at random is carefully treasured up, commented upon and dissected for hours at a time; I am the pole toward which a restless magnet tends; my eye is a heaven, my mouth a paradise more ardently longed for than the real; if I should die, a warm shower of tears would keep my ashes warm, my grave would be brighter with flowers than a wedding-feast; if I were in danger, some one would throw himself between the point of the sword and my breast and sacrifice himself for me!"--it is lovely, and I cannot think what more one can desire in this world.

This thought caused me a feeling of pleasure for which I blamed myself, for I had nothing to give in exchange for it all, and I was in the position of a poor person who accepts presents from a rich and generous friend, with no hope of ever being able to repay them. It delighted me to be so adored and at times I gave myself up to it with strange complaisance. By dint of hearing everybody call me _monsieur_ and of being treated as if I were a man, I gradually forgot that I was a woman; my disguise seemed to be my natural attire, and I forgot that I had ever worn any other; I ceased to reflect that I was, after all, only a little empty-headed creature who had made a sword of her needle and a pair of breeches out of one of her petticoats.

Many men are more like women than I am.--There is little of the woman about me except the breast, some more rounded outlines and more delicate hands; the petticoat is on my hips, not in my mind. It often happens that the sex of the mind is different from that of the body, and that is a contradiction that cannot fail to produce much confusion.--For example, if I myself had not made this resolution, insane in appearance but very wise in reality, to renounce the costume of a sex which is mine only materially and by accident, I should have been very unhappy: I love horses, fencing, all violent exercises, I like to climb and run about like a young boy; it tires me to sit with my feet close together, my elbows glued to my sides, to lower my eyes modestly, to speak in a little soft, sweet voice, and to pass worsted through the holes in a piece of canvas ten million times;--I do not like to obey the laws of society, and the words that are most frequently on my tongue are: "I will."--Behind my smooth brow and beneath my silky hair, strong and virile thoughts are constantly in motion; all the precious nonsense that generally is most attractive to women has never produced any but the slightest effect upon me, and, like Achilles disguised as a girl, I would gladly lay aside my mirror for a sword.--The only thing about women that attracts me is their beauty;--notwithstanding the inconveniences that result from it, I would not willingly give up my figure, although it is ill-sorted with the spirit it encloses.

Such an intrigue was something novel and alluring, and I should have been greatly entertained by it if it had not been taken so seriously by poor Rosette. She set about loving me with admirable _naïveté_ and earnestness, with all the force of her dear, loving heart--with a love of the sort that men do not understand, of which they cannot form even a remote idea, a refined, ardent love; she loved me as I would like to be loved if I should ever meet the reality of my dream. What a priceless treasure wasted, what white, transparent pearls, such as divers will never find in the jewel-chest of the sea! what sweet breath, what soft sighs scattered through the air, which might have been gathered by pure, loving lips!

That passion might have made a young man so happy! so many unfortunate youths, handsome, charming, well endowed, full of heart and spirit, have pleaded vainly on their knees with insensible, lifeless idols! so many loving, tender souls have thrown themselves in despair into the arms of prostitutes, or have burned out silently like a lamp in a tomb, who might have been saved from debauchery and death by a sincere passion!

What a strange thing is human destiny! and what an inveterate joker is chance.

The thing that so many others had ardently desired came to me, who did not, could not, want it. A whimsical young woman takes a fancy to travel about the country in a man's clothes in order to find out a little something as to what she is to expect on the part of her future lovers; she sleeps at an inn with an excellent brother who leads her by the end of the finger to his sister, who has nothing better to do than to fall in love with her like a cat, like a dove, like whatever is most amorous and languorous on earth.--It is very clear that, if I had been a young man, and this condition of things could have been of any service to me, it would have turned out very differently and the lady would have taken a violent dislike to me.--Fortune loves to give slippers to those who have wooden legs and gloves to those who have no hands;--the inheritance that would have enabled you to live at your ease, ordinarily falls in on the day of your death.

I went sometimes, not as often as she would have liked, to see Rosette in her bed; although she does not usually receive until she is dressed, an exception is made in my favor.--An exception would have been made in my favor in many other respects, if I had wished;--but, as the saying is, the most beautiful woman can give only what she has, and what I had would have been of little service to Rosette.

She would give me her little hand to kiss;--I confess that it afforded me some pleasure to kiss it, for it is very smooth, very white, exquisitely perfumed, and made softer by a nascent moisture; I felt it shiver and contract under my lips, whose pressure I maliciously prolonged.--Thereupon Rosette, deeply moved and with a supplicating air, would look up at me with her great eyes laden with desire and flooded with a humid, transparent light, then she would let her pretty head, which she had raised a little, the better to receive me, fall back upon the pillow.--I could see her restless bosom rise and fall under the sheet and her whole body suddenly begin to tremble.--Certainly any one who was in a condition to dare might have dared much, and it is equally certain that she would have been grateful to him for his daring and would have thanked him for skipping a few chapters of the novel.

I remained an hour or two with her, not releasing her hand which I had rested on the coverlid; we had interminable, fascinating conversations; for, although Rosette was much engrossed by her love, she believed herself to be too sure of success, not to retain almost all her freedom and playfulness of mind.--From time to time, however, her passion cast a transparent veil of gentle melancholy over her gaiety, which made her even more seductive.

Indeed, it might well have seemed an incredible thing that a young beginner, as I seemed to be, should not be overjoyed at such good fortune and profit by it to the utmost. Rosette was not so made that she was likely to meet with very cruel rebuffs, and knowing no more than she did about me, she relied upon her charms and upon my youth, in default of my love.

However, as the situation was beginning to be prolonged a little beyond the natural limits, she became anxious, and I had difficulty in restoring her former feeling of security by redoubling my flattering phrases and fine protestations. Two things about me surprised her, and she noticed contradictions in my conduct which she could not reconcile:--those two things were the warmth of my words and the coldness of my actions.

You know better than any one, my dear Graciosa, that my friendship has all the characteristics of a passion; it is sudden, ardent, intense, exclusive, it has almost everything of love even to jealousy, and I had for Rosette a friendship almost equal to my friendship for you.--One might easily misunderstand it.--Rosette misunderstood it the more completely because the coat I wore made it impossible for her to have any other idea.

As I have never loved any man, the overflow of my affection has in some sort spread through my friendships with girls and young men; I plunge into them with the same earnestness and exaltation that I put into everything I do, for it is impossible for me to be moderate in anything, especially in anything touching the heart. In my eyes there are only two classes of people, those I adore and those I abhor; all others are to me as if they did not exist, and I would drive my horse over them as I drive him over the high road; in my mind they stand on the same footing with pavements and milestones.