CHAPTER XXXIX

THE MARRIAGE

Madame de Hansfeld was horror-struck at the change in M. de Morville's features, and the expression of despairing grief which agitated them.

"Alas! alas! what can thus distress you?" she exclaimed, throwing her mask at her feet.

"One word first," said De Morville; "I was not then deceived: this mysterious friend, who wrote to me without revealing her name----"

"Was I; yes, yes, your heart guessed rightly; but in heaven's name what disturbs you thus! is your life menaced?"

"Every thing is menaced,--my life, my reason, my love, my honour."

"What mean you?"

"I mean that I will kill myself,--I mean that the worst passions are contending within me,--I mean that I do not even recognise myself,--I mean that to my love for you I will sacrifice all that is most dear, most holy, most sacred amongst men, even if I become perjured and a parricide!"

"Oh! how you frighten me!"

"Paula, do you love me as I love you?"

"Am I not here?"

"Then you do love me?"

"Yes, oh yes!"

"Paula, let us fly; come--come."

"And your oaths?"

"Unheeded!"

"Your mother?"

"Forsaken!"

"Ah! what do you say?"

"Come--I say. This love is fatal; our destiny will be thus accomplished."

"For mercy's sake calm yourself; remember that it is but a few days since you wrote me, '_An insurmountable obstacle separates us._'"

"I can remember nothing but that I love you--I love you--I love you! This love has been subjected to every trial, it has increased in silence, it has resisted your affected indifference, it has penetrated your hidden tenderness, it has rendered me regardless of what I adored, disdainful of what I honoured. It burns my blood, it makes my reason wander, it overflows my heart. Paula, if you love me let us fly, or I die!"

"Alas! De Morville, and can you believe that you are suffering alone? Suffer--oh, no! I may now defy a life of torments; I can die; I have been loved, as I have dreamed of being loved--loved with madness, loved without calculation, scruple, or remorse--loved with such blindness that you do not even suspect the enormity of the sacrifices you offer to me, the depth of the abyss into which you would precipitate us."

"Paula, Paula, do not speak to me thus--you drive me mad: you do not know--no, you do not know, what is the seduction of a single thought, which absorbs all others in its current, always becoming deeper, wider, swifter. I, who until now could walk with head erect, dare no longer do so--there are looks I avoid--I dare not meet----"

"You? you?"

"Do you know what I have often said to myself--since an oath (which I will no longer observe) kept me estranged from you?"

"Do not speak thus."

"Well! first reflecting on the frail health of your husband, I said to myself, M. de Hansfeld may die--that would not afflict me; if his life depended on me, I should let him perish. Then I have advanced even farther; I have--but no, no--I dare not tell you this--no, not to you; I should overwhelm you with horror. Oh! cursed be the day when for the first time that thought came across my brain."

And De Morville hid his face in his hands.

The last words he had pronounced were destined long to find an echo in Paula's heart.

She was at once alarmed, and yet almost happy at the strange moral complicity with which De Morville, until then so generous and noble-minded, shared her homicidal wishes towards the prince. In this complete overthrow of the principles of the man by whom she was adored she saw a fresh proof of the influence she exercised.

Yet, by one of those contradictions, one of those feelings of devotion so common in the female mind, Madame de Hansfeld promised herself to do all in her power to remove henceforth and for ever such thoughts from De Morville's mind, and that because, perhaps, from that very moment she herself was taking the most criminal resolutions. Whatever might result, she determined that De Morville should never reproach himself hereafter for the wishes that had escaped him in a moment of frenzy.

De Morville's head was pressed in his two hands with agony, when Madame de Hansfeld said to him in a gentle but firm voice,--

"I will have courage for both of us. I will remind you of oaths formerly so binding with you, and which even the very violence of your love ought not to make you forget. Pray, De Morville, be yourself. You allude to fresh sorrows; what are they? Is your mother in worse health?"

"What if she were?"

"Oh! for mercy's sake do not talk thus. Believe me, a woman may be proud to see her influence for a moment superior to the noblest principles; but that is on condition that these principles resume their ascendancy. I should hate myself and you, if, instead of that generous heart which I have so proudly loved, I found now only a selfish and exclusive one. Would that be the proper fruit of our love?"

De Morville shook his head sorrowfully. "Alas! I fear," he said, in a gloomy tone, "I have no longer strength to resist the current which sweeps me along. Nothing of all that I formerly venerated is now strong enough to arrest my course. Your love before every thing! Perish all else!"

"Happily I have the courage you lack."

"Oh, you do not love me?"

"Not love you? But let us not talk of that at this moment, and tell me under what excitement you were when you wrote me the note which so much alarmed me, and has brought me hither this evening?"

"Not knowing how else to address you, I relied on the fidelity of your young companion; and besides, the billet was incomprehensible to all but you. Had it fallen into M. de Hansfeld's hands it could not have compromised you."

"I recognised in this your usual tact; but the cause of this note?"

"Your calmness makes me ashamed of myself. I, too, have courage; and I feel my obligation to you for recalling me to myself. Well, then, this it is which has now overwhelmed me. Yesterday my mother sent for me,— she was weaker, and suffering more than usual. I hardly dare to think that for some time past I have been less attentive to her."

"Ah! you do not know the pain you give me to hear you speak thus."

"She told me, after some hesitation, that she felt her strength exhausted; and that she knew she could not long survive. She expected from me a fresh proof of my submission to her wishes; it would make her last moment's tranquil. I begged her to explain, and she spoke to me of one of our most intimate connexions, whom she named to me, one of our oldest friends, who had a charming and accomplished daughter."

"I see it all," said Madame de Hansfeld, with firmness; "for heaven's sake, proceed."

"Proceed! Why should I tell you more? My mother urged me to promise her that I would be married whilst she was yet alive, that was, immediately. I refused. She asked me if I had any objection to make to the beauty, birth, and qualities of the young lady. I replied that I acknowledged them all, and that she was remarkably accomplished; but I told my mother, too, that I would not be married. Then she began to weep. Strong emotion is too distressing for her, weak as she is, and she fainted. I believed that I was going to lose her, and all my tenderness revived. When she came to herself, my mother pressed my hand, and with cutting tenderness begged my pardon for having sought to thwart me in my wishes; adding, that she would not again advert to the subject. But I know, I feel that I have struck her a deep blow by my refusal, the consequences of which I dare not even think of. She had built all her greatest, her final hopes on this marriage. Yesterday she was worse. I found her deeply dejected, but she did not say one word relative to this union. Yet, in spite of her soft and saddened smile, I read all her disappointment in her features, and left her with my heart rent in twain. Her failing health will not, I fear, withstand such violent shocks. Well, then, tell me, Paula, can any lot be more wretched than mine? My senses seem to have forsaken me. Was it not sufficient to be separated from you by a solemn oath? It interdicted me from the present, but then at least it left me the future. Now it is necessary, to render my mother's dying hours easy and tranquil, that I should resign myself to this hateful, impossible marriage, which will destroy even the faint hopes which remain to me. Once again, it shall not be! no, no, a thousand times no! Paula, if you love me--if you are capable of sacrificing as much as I sacrifice for you--and we shall not have to blush in each other's presence----"

"No; for both of us will then have trampled under foot our oaths and our duties," said Paula, interrupting De Morville.

"We will fly to the world's end, and----"

"And the first effervescence of love passed, the hatred and contempt we shall feel for each other will avenge those we have sacrificed. My dear De Morville, your reason wanders."

"What would you have me do?"

"Not perjure yourself; not hasten your mother's death."

"Renounce you! marry another! never--never!"

"Listen to me. I declare to you that I cannot love a man cowardly and perjured, not even if it were for my sake that he basely perjured himself. My self-love, as a woman, is satisfied when with you for a few moments passion has conquered duty. This is sufficing. You have sworn never to say a word which could induce me to forget my duty,--you will keep this oath."

"But----"

"I will keep it for you if you are ever tempted to break it."

"And this marriage?" said De Morville, with bitterness,--"this marriage, you advise me to consent to it, no doubt?"

"No."

"No? Ah! then I doubt no longer,--you do love me!"

"Love you! Oh, believe me, this marriage would be a blow even more severe to me than to you," said Paula, with emotion; "but," she added, "we must consider your poor mother, and not positively refuse to obey her; we must temporise; you must say you have re-considered your first refusal, and that you wish for time to reflect before you come to a determination so very serious; in fact, gain time."

"But what then--what then?"

"How do we know what the future may produce? Let us thank the destiny of the hour, the present moment--to-morrow is not ours."

"But when may I write to you--see you again? What will be the end of this love that burns, devours, kills me?"

"And it burns, devours, kills me also,--you do not suffer alone: is not that enough?"

"But what hope have I?"

"I know not. Does love for love go for nothing?"

"But if I could only see you sometimes at your own house or in society?"

"At my house,--oh, no! in society,--your oath forbids."

"You are pitiless."

"Soothe your mother, not by promises, but by delay. In a week I will write to you."

"To tell me----"

"You will see,--perhaps you will be more happy than you expect!"

"Indeed! Oh, tell me--tell me."

"Do not build any vain hopes on my words. Remember this: I will never permit you to fail in your oath,--but as I love you passionately----"

"Well?"

"The rest is my secret."

"Oh, how cruel you are!"

"Very cruel! for I wish you to write me to-morrow that your mother is in better health, as you have been able to tranquillise her mind. I shall be so happy to hear this,--for I reproach myself bitterly with her grief, as it is I who have involuntarily caused it."

"I promise you; and you?"

"In a week you shall know my secret. I the less regret not having received you at my own residence,--we are about, I fear, to break through our habits of solitude. M. de Hansfeld has begged me to receive several persons, amongst whom are M. and Madame de Brévannes. Do you know them?"

"I meet M. de Brévannes sometimes. They say his wife is a charming creature."

"Charming! and I fear for my husband's peace that he thinks so too."

"What do you say?"

"I believe he is deeply enamoured of Madame de Brévannes."

"The prince?"

"He is perfectly free in his actions, as I am in mine."

"And you refuse to receive me at your hotel, when your husband----"

Paula interrupted De Morville.

"I refuse you, in the first place, because you have sworn never to come to my residence; and then, blamable or not, my husband's conduct ought not to have any influence over mine. There are delicacies of position which no one can better appreciate than you. In a week you shall know more."

"In a week,--not earlier?"

"No."

"How wretched I shall be!"

"Very wretched, truly! You came here overwhelmed, despairing, reproaching yourself for your harshness to your mother, forgetting all that a man like you should never forget. I calm you, console you, offer you the means of at once conciliating your mother's wishes and our interests."

"Yes, yes, you are right. Pardon,--I came here with bad thoughts,--you made me blush, and have again raised me in my own esteem,--you have recalled me to my honour, my plighted word, and my duty to my mother. Thanks, thanks; you are right,--why should we think of to-morrow, when the present hour is so happy? Thanks for coming so immediately when I wrote you that I was overwhelmed by anguish and despair. But now I feel inspired with strength and hope,--my heart beats high: you have saved my life, my honour,--my courage recovers its temper in the fire of your love. I feel I am beloved! I shut my eyes,--I allow myself to be guided by you,--order and I obey, I have no longer any will of my own,--I intrust to you the fate of that love, which is my sole--your sole existence."

"Yes, my sole existence!" exclaimed Madame de Hansfeld, with repressed excitement. "Have implicit confidence in me, and you will see what a woman can do who loves. Write me to-morrow about your mother, and in a week you shall know my secret. Until then, except the letter I request, mind not a word--this I exact."

"Not a word! and why?"

"You shall know,--but promise me what I request, for the sake of our mutual love."

"I do promise."

"Now, then, adieu."

"Already?"

"It must be so. Am I not very imprudent to be here at all?"

"Adieu, then, Paula. Your hand,--one kiss--but one!"

"Your oath! your oath!" said Paula, resuming her mask, and refusing to take off her glove.

She left the box, passed through the crowd, and quitted the theatre.

Iris awaited her in a hackney-coach as before.

During their drive home, Madame de Hansfeld was gloomy and silent. She entered the Hôtel Lambert by the small secret door, and went to her apartments, accompanied by Iris.

Paula's impassioned love for De Morville was at its height,--she felt herself capable of the most desperate determinations--her reason nearly wandered. She feared, above all, that De Morville, in spite of his repugnance for the marriage which was proposed for him, would yield to the solicitations of his dying mother. He might, perhaps, gain some time, but in a week all would be decided for Paula.

Iris, seeing the sombre pre-occupation of her mistress, guessed its cause, and said to her, after a protracted silence, pointing to a long gold pin set with turquoises, and standing in a pincushion covered with lace,--

"Godmother, do you remember my words? When you desire that the thought which you dare not avow to yourself be realised, without either you or myself taking the slightest part in its execution, give me this pin,--a few days afterwards and there will be nothing left for you to desire. Since I spoke to you, the idea has taken root and sprung in the heart in which I had sown it,--it has blossomed, and now it is ripe,--once more, that pin and you shall marry M. de Morville."

"That pin?" said Madame de Hansfeld, turning pale, and taking from the pincushion the ornament, which she contemplated for some moments with anxiety and alarm.

"That pin!" replied Iris, extending her hand to take it, her eyes shining with savage brilliancy.

Madame de Hansfeld, without raising her eyes, said in a low and agitated voice,--

"What you say. Iris, is a wicked jest, is it not? It is impossible,--how could you?"

"Give me the pin, and do not you heed the rest."

"I should be mad to believe you."

And as she spoke, Paula, resting on her elbow on the mantel-piece, still retaining the pin, had mechanically, and, as if playing with it, placed it close to the hand of Iris extended on the marble slab.

The Bohemian seized it quickly.

The princess, alarmed, snatched it from her with violence, exclaiming,--

"No, no: that would be horrible. Oh, never, never! Die first all my dearest hopes!"