CHAPTER VII

MADAME DE BRÉVANNES

The house in which M. de Brévannes occupied the first floor was situated in the Rue Saint Florentin. Utterly indifferent to the enjoyments or little comforts of a well-arranged home, he had simply commanded the upholsterer who furnished them to see no expense spared; and with this unrestricted permission before him, the tradesman employed had done his best to produce the very _beau idéal_ of a furnished lodging, that is to say, he had given to the residence of M. de Brévannes the most chill, comfortless, and commonplace aspect imaginable. Nothing that marked a taste, pursuit, or personal convenience, was to be seen in the dreary chambers; not a portrait, a picture,--not a vestige of the fine arts embellished the spacious rooms. The only one exempted from the triste vulgarity that predominated over the others was a small drawing-room especially appropriated to Bertha, and in which she passed her entire days.

Spite of the advanced hour of the night, or rather morning, for it was now four o'clock, it is into this very chamber we are about to introduce the reader.

Although the continual absences of M. de Brévannes might well have accustomed his gentle partner to them, yet Madame de Brévannes still experienced too much anxiety on his account ever to retire to rest until well assured of his safe return.

It was then four o'clock in the morning, and Bertha, seated in an arm-chair, her clasped hands reposing on her lap, was mechanically gazing on the expiring embers which flickered on the hearth. A lamp placed on a small table beside her, on which lay a half open book, shone full on the delicate features of the pensive wife, and cast a soft glow upon the glossy bands of her rich chestnut hair, which, braided so as merely to display the finely formed ear, with its roseate tip, was plaited in with the luxuriant masses, ornamenting the back of her small and classically shaped head.

The most striking characteristic of the lovely countenance of Bertha was its look of almost angelic sweetness, and when she raised her beautiful, large, blue eyes, it was impossible to resist their gentle influence. Her somewhat serious mouth seemed rather intended to express the smile of affection and universal benevolence than the noisy laugh of extreme gaiety, while the meditative attitude in which she sat displayed to advantage the graceful roundness of her long white throat.

Bertha wore a dress of light grey silk, whose subdued shade harmonised admirably with the delicacy of her transparent complexion. On one side of the fire-place stood a pianoforte loaded with music, and over the mantel-piece were suspended two portraits of unequal sizes, representing the father and mother of Bertha. A considerable number of plain black frames, containing copper-plate engravings, the works of Pierre Raimond, were hung around the small chamber, the walls of which were covered with embossed red paper, that gave it an air of lightness and cheerfulness very different from the rest of the apartments; and on the chimney-piece stood an old enamelled clock and two small blue and white candlesticks of Limoges enamel, which had once belonged to Bertha's mother, who had received them from her husband as a wedding present.

A tear which had long hung suspended from the thick lashes of Bertha's eyelid fell on her cheek like a liquid pearl. Her bosom heaved convulsively--a sudden tremor seized her frame, while a deep flush suffused her countenance, as again she sunk into her former gloomy abstraction.

Let us briefly explain the cause both of Bertha's sadness and utter dejection.

During her last residence in Lorraine, M. de Brévannes had bestowed the most marked attention on one of the female attendants belonging to his wife. The insolence displayed by the creature thus improperly distinguished opened the eyes of Madame de Brévannes as to its real cause, or, at least, infused into her mind such strong suspicions as to call for the immediate dismissal of the guilty woman.

This trying circumstance had occurred a few days before the return of M. de Brévannes to Paris, and had left a bitter feeling of injury in the mind of Bertha, who, however she might previously have smarted under her husband's infidelity, had never experienced a similar humiliation.

Four o'clock struck, and aroused Madame de Brévannes from her reverie. Absorbed in her deep and painful meditation, she had taken no note of the hours, and was surprised to find the night so completely gone.

At this moment a carriage stopped at the door, and Bertha began to regret having sat up so late. Her husband had peremptorily forbidden her ever awaiting his return. The servants, also, by his orders, retired to rest whether their master were in or not. He usually entered by a small side door, of which he alone had the key, but he was compelled to pass through Bertha's sitting-room in order to reach one of the two sleeping-apartments which communicated with it.

At the sight of her husband, Bertha rose to meet him, endeavouring, by a forced smile, to deprecate the storm she dreaded and anticipated.

The contraction of M. de Brévannes' features indicated the evil passions which at that moment possessed him. The few words spoken at random by Madame Beauvoisis respecting his journey to Italy had awakened within him a crowd of painful ideas, which he had been compelled to restrain during the hall and supper; it was, therefore, with considerable pleasure he promised himself a means of venting the wrath and bitterness with which he was filled, by quarrelling with his wife for sitting up for him.

"How is this, madam?" exclaimed he, as he entered; "four o'clock in the morning, and you not yet retired to bed! May I inquire the meaning of such strange conduct? Or is it that you may know at what hour I return home? Am I, or am I not, master of my own actions? Is your inquisitorial system to recommence the instant I set my foot in this place? Perhaps it may be as well, since we are upon the subject, to go into it at full length, in order that we may have no further occasion to revert to it during the whole of the winter."

So saying, he threw himself abruptly into the chair Bertha had just quitted, while she remained standing by the piano, utterly overcome with surprise at this abrupt torrent of reproach.

"You know," answered she, timidly, "your wishes are at all times mine; only tell me what you wish me to do, and rest assured of my implicit obedience. Indeed, it was with no thought of watching your conduct that I sat up so late; I was amusing myself by arranging this little apartment, and that occupied me so deeply that, before I was aware of it, I found it was one o'clock in the morning; then, fancying that you would soon be home, I thought I would wait for you. I slept a little, and so four o'clock struck before I was aware how the time had passed. That is how I came to offend you, Charles;" then smiling sweetly, and raising her lovely face towards her husband, she added, "And will you not forgive me for having unintentionally done so?"

But this angelic mildness disarmed not M. de Brévannes.

"What folly is this?" exclaimed he; "you really waste, a vast many fine words, madam, most unnecessarily. I am not arraigning your conduct as though you had committed a crime, and it is more than absurd to put such a construction upon what I did say; but of this be assured, I am not to be cheated as to the real motive that kept you from your bed to-night. Why not be candid, and admit that you chose to sit up that you might satisfy yourself as to the precise hour and minute I came home? You will oblige me, however, by not doing so again. I do not intend, I can tell you, to allow a repetition of the scenes of last year, or that, either by sullenness or assuming the air and appearance of a victim, you shall presume to imply a censure upon whatever I may think proper to do or to say."

"Oh, Charles! have I ever uttered one word?--except, indeed----"

"Upon my life," cried M. de Brévannes, interrupting his wife, "some persons possess the happy art of making their looks, and even silence, more expressive than words themselves."

"Alas, Charles, it is not always possible to prevent myself from being sad!"

"And wherefore should you be so? Do you want for any thing?--are you not elevated to a rank and station you never could have ventured to hope for?--have I not done all that human ability admits for you?"

"Charles, you well know I am not unmindful of all your benefits; my only regret is that I cannot better prove my gratitude to you."

"Yet all I require of you is simply to render my home agreeable to me, and to put on a smiling look of happiness instead of perpetually censuring my conduct by your melancholy and other affectations. If I thought fit to indulge my inclinations by marrying you, it was because, first, I was in love, and, secondly----"

"To have a wife submissive to your commands--I am perfectly sensible of that. You preferred me to a richer bride, because gratitude for the sacrifice you had made for me would necessarily render my duties still more binding and sacred in my eyes; and I should have been extremely sorry had you not so considered it, as it would have left me no means of repaying you for your kindness. But let me assure you, Charles, that you are greatly mistaken in ascribing my sadness (which is frequently involuntary) to any desire on my part to criticise your actions, which it becomes not me to question."

"But what is the meaning of this sadness?"

After a moment's hesitation, Bertha, with downcast eyes, replied,--

"There may be among your actions some that render me sad, without my venturing to complain of them."

"Upon my word, you are too deep a casuist for me! Come now, I will render the subject more clear, and disclose to you what your real thoughts are, though you dare not own them even to yourself. Why, instead of employing all these hypocritical circumlocutions, can you not come boldly to the point, and candidly confess that jealousy is the main-spring of your conduct?"

"Let me beseech you not to refer to that."

"And why not? On the contrary, I consider it most advantageous to weigh well our present position in all its relative bearings. And first, for the grand question you long to propose, but dare not, have I, or have I not, mistresses to occupy my time and thoughts? Now, that is the very thing of which you ought either to be entirely ignorant, or, at least, to feign ignorance. Such would be the conduct of a sensible woman, instead of tormenting herself to death with ridiculous jealousy."

"Charles, is it for you to assert that we may reason ourselves out of such a feeling as jealousy, no matter however unfounded, or whether the object that excites it be worthy or otherwise?"

"Capital, indeed, madam! Then it seems you accuse me of being jealous?"

"Oh, no!--I accuse you not--that would be to imply that jealousy were a crime, and Heaven knows I had need be indulgent towards a sentiment under whose bitterest torments I have myself writhed."

"You are under a gross error, madam, if you suppose that we stand upon equal grounds as regards the indulging such a passion as jealousy? Whether I am faithful to you or not, in no degree affects your consideration with society. But that I, who have sacrificed every thing for you, should be exposed to fresh ridicule!--I tell you," continued M. de Brévannes, rising from his chair, his teeth clenched, and his hands compressed with rage,--"that at the very supposition I can no longer command myself!" and as though unable to master the boiling rage which shook his frame and inflamed every feature, he commenced rapidly pacing the room.

"You speak truly, Charles," said Bertha, sorrowfully, "our jealousy is not the same. Mine springs from my heart, yours from your pride; but it matters not, and I respect it equally. Have you ever once heard me complain of the seclusion in which I live? Except my father, whom you permit me to visit twice a-week, and a few members of your own family it is your pleasure I should receive, I live entirely alone. Oh, let me hasten to thank you for granting me the happiness of communing with my own thoughts undisturbed by the great and the gay!"

"Yet all this enjoyment does not prevent your finding the time long and tedious; and every body knows the effects solitude and want of occupation produce in the minds of females."

"But I am never unoccupied--never for an instant. You know how passionately fond I am of music; then I draw, I read. As for the solitude, your being more at home does not depend upon me."

While Madame de Brévannes was speaking, her husband had approached the window, and mechanically opened the curtains drawn before it. He observed on the other side of the street, on the first floor of the house opposite his own, lights in the window corresponding to the one by which he stood, and through the glass he could discern the outline of a man attentively gazing from that window.

It was now nearly five o'clock in the morning, all was dark without, and the street was perfectly deserted; what object of interest, then, could the individual opposite have in thus keeping watch, unless it were to reconnoiter the windows of Madame de Brévannes' apartment, doubtless the only one throughout the house in which a light was burning at that unusual hour?

One of those absurd suspicions which enter only into the brain of jealous _deceivers_ (a class essentially distinct from that of jealous _deceived_)--we repeat that a suspicion of the most absurd description all at once entered the mind of M. de Brévannes, who, turning quickly round towards his wife, and looking at her with angry glances and threatening countenance, exclaimed,--

"Madam, I insist upon knowing wherefore that light is burning in the opposite house?" then suddenly interrupting himself, to give way to a suggestion equally ridiculous with his jealousy, he abruptly drew back the curtain, opened the window, and went out upon the balcony, where he took up his station with an air of proud defiance.

At this unexpected apparition, the curtains of the opposite windows were hastily closed, the shadow disappeared, and almost immediately the light was extinguished.

Madame de Brévannes, wholly ignorant of her husband's fury, and still less able to comprehend his fancy for throwing open the windows in the month of January, was advancing towards the balcony, when M. de Brévannes turned sharply round, and, jerking the window-curtains back to their places, exclaimed,--

"So, madam, it is thus, then, you occupy your leisure hours while awaiting my return?"

"Indeed, Charles, I understand not what you mean."

"You do not? Ah, false woman, tell me why was the window of the first floor in the house facing this lighted up just now?"

"Just now?--the window?--in the opposite house?" repeated Bertha, with increasing surprise.

"Oh, you feign astonishment admirably, madam; but it will not do. Just this minute, some person opposite was attentively watching your window, but disappeared the instant I presented myself."

"Very probably, Charles. I know nothing about it: but why do you tell me of so trifling a circumstance?"

"Why?"

"Yes, I ask you again, why?"

"Because, doubtless there is a mutually good understanding between yourself and this person opposite, and that some disgraceful intrigue is carried on by means of signal-lights in your respective windows. I cease now to feel the smallest astonishment at your having kept watch to-night, instead of retiring to rest."

To an accusation so abrupt, so brutal, and so utterly incomprehensible, Bertha found it impossible to frame any reply: but, clasping her hands, she raised her eyes to heaven.

"All those tragedy airs are no answers to my question," cried M. de Brévannes, more and more excited; "and I ask you again, madam, why that light burned in the window directly facing yours; and wherefore that man gazed so attentively over here?"

"How is it possible I can know?" cried Bertha.

"Ah, madam, this is not replying, but meanly equivocating."

"But what other answer can I give?"

"Have a care! have a care!" exclaimed M. de Brévannes, almost foaming with rage, "do not imagine me fool enough to be duped by your hypocrisy. I have seen what I state with my own eyes. I am not blind, whatever you may think. I insist upon knowing who lives opposite to us?"

"For Heaven's sake, Charles, how should I know? We have only been here since yesterday morning----"

Interrupting his wife with increased fury, and violently striking his forehead, M. de Brévannes exclaimed,--

"I have it! Now, I remember, a post-chaise arrived almost at the same time we did, and stopped before the opposite house. We are followed--perhaps, even from Lorraine. Oh, I am sure--quite, quite sure, some disgraceful mystery is attached to all these circumstances; but depend upon it, wretched creature! that I will discover it, and drag the infamous participators to the shame and ignominy they deserve."

So much brutality and insult, expressed in a tone and manner so undeserved, stung Bertha to the quick. Spite of her quietness and habitual resignation, her self-pride, her delicacy, seemed outraged; and, with a firm and dignified manner, she said to her husband,--

"You are wrong, Charles, to speak to me thus. You may exhaust my patience, and force me to say things that, for the sake of your self-respect, I would fain be silent upon."

"Oh! oh! what! threats, too?"

"No, Charles, I utter no threats; but it is scarcely generous in you, who have given me so many just causes of complaint and sorrow, to accuse me, and treat me thus ignominiously, only from an absurd suspicion."

"Upon my word, madam, you are coming out quite a new character, as well as with language."

"Charles, I am weary of suffering your unjust reproaches in silence, when I might myself prefer against you causes of complaint, unfortunately too well founded."

"Better, and better, I protest!"

"You tell me, Charles, that I ought to shut my eyes to your conduct. I have always done so; but is it my fault if the account of your irregularities has reached my ears, even amid the solitude in which I live? Is it not the voice of public report, and the insolence of the wretched creature I drove from my house a week ago, that----"

"Not another word, madam!"

"Pardon me, Charles, but I must and will speak. I wish not to presume upon the position my devotion to my duties had obtained for me, I merely desire that you should respect it. I am willing to shut my eyes on errors so low, so degrading, that they are beneath my anger; but I will not suffer you thus unjustly to trample me in the dust."

"Upon my word, madam, your audacity confounds me. You, doubtless, wish me to understand, that four years of fidelity and respect for your duties have fully repaid all obligation to me, and that now you are free to act as you think proper. Is it possible that you can have effaced from your memory all I have done for you and yours; that I took you from absolute beggary; that your father exists upon my generosity; and that I have even carried my goodness so far as to have once offered to allow him to reside under my roof?"

"I have never forgotten, Charles, that you raised me from the poverty you speak of; and this recollection is the more meritorious on my part, as the poverty you allude to had no terrors for me: on the contrary, I neither felt nor heeded them, and ere I gave you, as a rich man, my heart, I had, perhaps, as many scruples to get over as you were obliged to vanquish, ere you could make up your mind to bestow your affections upon a poor girl like me."

"Really, what extreme condescension on your part to accept the hand, spite of my obnoxious 40,000 livres per annum!"

"As for your taunt of my father being maintained by your bounty! 'tis the first time you have uttered it--it shall be the last. For nearly the last twelvemonth, my poor father's sight has become so weakened, that he has been compelled to relinquish the labour by which he had hitherto supported himself; by dint of prayers and entreaties, I prevailed on him to accept a small annuity, he consented to receive it."

"In order not to be outdone by you in condescension, acting, no doubt, upon that principle, M. Raimond has also vouchsafed to honour me by accepting the means of living comfortably, instead of dying in an hospital."

"Say, rather, that my father was desirous of sparing your vanity by not going into an hospital. According to his notions, there would have been no dishonour in accepting such an asylum: old, infirm, unable to maintain himself, as he had hitherto done, by the work of his own hands, he would, without any feeling of degradation, have availed himself of the refuge public charity offers to the honest but unfortunate sufferer. However----"

"You would say that, since I so ill appreciate the great kindness of your respectable parent, he will no longer afford me the extreme happiness of maintaining him any longer, but will punish me by going and establishing himself in the hospital?"

"Most assuredly; for, certainly, I will not conceal from him the remarks you have made."

As she uttered these last words, the voice of Bertha, which, until then, had been firm and collected, began to falter; her powers of endurance were exhausted. She had for some time restrained the swelling tears which nearly choked her; but she could no longer retain her self-command,--she sank back into her chair, and, covering her face with her hands, wept bitterly.

M. de Brévannes was hard-hearted, selfish, and proud, yet he possessed considerable intelligence; and spite of the sarcasms on the singular principles of Bertha's father, with regard to the favours of the rich, he was perfectly well aware, that reasonable or otherwise, the conviction of his wife and Pierre Raimond on this subject was deep and sincere. His jokes had merely been a species of cruel sport.

The grief of Bertha touched him the more, as he remembered the recent wrongs he had done her, and all the humiliating things he had said to her rose in mental array; and he could not conceal from himself, that his conduct was by no means what it should he. The more she appeared dependent on him, the more incumbent was it on him to spare her delicacy, and not load her with coarse and cruel reproaches. And, if the whole truth must be told, we would endeavour to lay open one of the thousand hidden folds of the human heart, or rather of human organisation, and induce the reader to believe in one of those sudden brutal rekindlings of passion peculiar to man alone; and that, too, after the most bitter, degrading, and insulting recriminations.

Bertha, overwhelmed by the painful emotions produced by the late cruel scene, had fallen back into her chair. As she sat with drooping head, her beautifully formed shoulders, white and polished as ivory, yet tinged with the warm flush of her recently excited feelings, suddenly fixed the attention of M. de Brévannes.

As is frequently the case, he had a thousand times forgotten the lovely being he called his wife for creatures unworthy of a comparison with her, even as regarded the mere matter of beauty. Since the scene to which Bertha had alluded, when speaking of the _femme-de-chambre_ she had been compelled to dismiss, the married pair had observed a mixture of coldness and restraint towards each other; but the love of Bertha for her husband had received its death-blow.

At the sight of his wife's deep distress, M. de Brévannes, by one of those gross ideas inherent in the minds of such men, imagined, that by complimenting the poor victim of his brutality, upon the power and brilliancy of her beauty, she would readily pardon him his late unfeeling conduct; he, therefore, silently approached his weeping wife, and, throwing his arm around her waist, exclaimed,--

"Come, my pretty Bertha, be a good girl--give me a kiss--and let's be friends."

It is impossible to depict the expression of mingled disgust, shame, and profound grief, exhibited in the countenance of the suffering wife; she, however, hastily freed herself from the hold of M. de Brévannes, and rising, exclaimed,--

"Surely I might have been spared this last insult! It is, however, one I neither can nor will endure." And with these words Bertha rushed into her chamber, doubly locking the door after her.

We shall not attempt to paint the rage of M. de Brévannes, or the mingled wrath and hatred with which he pursued his unfortunate wife.