Part 11

“Then some one has done something to you? You are not as you usually are.”

“No one has done anything to me,” I answered, shaking my head; “but it is true,” I added, “that I have reasons for being sad, very sad, to-day. It is the anniversary of a great grief, which I cannot tell you.”

She looked at me again, and I could follow in her eyes the movements which agitated her, as one follows the movements of a watch through a glass case. I had seen her so uneasy at my attitude that she lost her feeling for the divine landscape. I saw her now, comforted that I had no cause for grief against her, but touched by my melancholy, curious to know the cause, and not daring to ask me. She only said:

“Pardon me for questioning you.” Then she was silent.

These few minutes sufficed to show me the place which I already occupied in her thoughts. Ah! before the proof of this delicate and noble interest, I should have been ashamed of my falsehood, for so it was, this _soi-disant_ recollection of a great grief--a gratuitous and instantaneous falsehood whose sudden invention has often astonished myself.

Why had I suddenly thought to clothe myself in the poetry of a great grief, I whose life, since the death of my father, had been so quiet, so free from any sacrifices? Had I yielded to the innate taste for duplicating myself always so strong? This romantic affectation, did it show the hysteria of vanity which urges some children to lie, without reason and with so much unexpectedness? Did a vague intuition cause me to see in this play of deception and melancholy the surest means of interesting the Count’s sister?

I cannot tell the precise motives which governed me at that moment. Assuredly I did not foresee either the effect of my assumed sadness or of my falsehood, but I remember that as soon as the effect was known a resolution was formed in my mind to go on to the end and see what impression I could produce on the soul of this young girl, by continuing, with consciousness and calculation, the comedy half-instinctively begun in this luminous afternoon of January in presence of a magnificent landscape, which should have served as a frame for other dreams.

Now that the irreparable is accomplished, and by a retrospective penetration, horribly painful--for it convicts me of ignorance and of cruelty--I understand that I had already inspired Charlotte with the truest and the tenderest feelings. All the diplomatic psychology which I employed was only the odious and ridiculous work of a scholar in the science of the heart. I understand that I did not know how to inhale the flowers which bloomed naturally for me in this soul. I had only to let myself know and enjoy the emotions which presented themselves, to live a sentimental life as exalted and extended as that of my intellect.

Instead, I paralyzed my heart by ideas. I wished to conquer a soul already conquered, to play a game of chess, where I needed only to be simple, and I have not even the proud consolation of saying to myself that I have, at least, directed the drama of my destiny as I pleased, that I have combined the scenes, provoked the episodes, conducted the intrigue.

It was played entirely in her, and without my comprehending it in the least, this drama in which Death and Love, the two faithful workers of implacable nature, acted without my order while mocking at the complications of my analysis.

Charlotte loved me for reasons quite different from those which my ingenious psychology had arranged. She died in despair, when by the light of a tragic explanation she saw me in my true nature. Then I was so horrible to her that she thus gave me irrefutable proof that my subtle reflections were nothing to her.

I believed I could solve in this amour a problem of mental mechanism. Alas! I had simply met, without feeling its charm, a sincere and profound tenderness. Why did I not then divine what I see to-day with the clearness of the most cruel evidence?

Misled by the romantic side of her character, it was natural that this child should be deceived in me. My long studies had given me the appearance of not being quite well, which always interests a woman who is truly feminine. Having been brought up by my mother, my manners were gentle, my voice and gestures refined, and I was scrupulously careful of my person.

I had been introduced by the old master who recommended me, as a person of irreproachable nobility of ideas and character. This was enough to cause a very sensitive young girl to become interested in me in a very particular manner. Ah, well! I had no sooner recognized this interest than I thought how to abuse it instead of being touched by it.

Any one who had seen me in my room on the evening which followed this afternoon, seated at my table and writing, with a big book of analysis near me, would never have believed that this was a young man of scarcely twenty-two years, meditating on the sentiments which he inspired or wished to inspire in a young girl of twenty.

The château was asleep. I could hear only the steps of the footman as he extinguished the lamps on the staircase and in the corridors. The wind enveloped the vast building in its groanings, now plaintive, now soothing. The west wind is terrible on these heights, where, sometimes, it carries away in a single breath all the slates of a roof.

This lamentation of the wind has always increased in me the feeling of internal solitude. My fire burned gently, and I scribbled in my notebook, which I burned before my arrest, the occurrences of the day and the programme of the experience which I proposed to attempt upon the mind of Mlle. de Jussat. I had copied the passage on pity which is found in your “Theory of the Passions;” you remember it, my dear master, it begins:

“There is in the phenomenon of pity a physical element, and which, especially in women, is confined to the sexual emotion.”

It was through pity then, that I proposed to act first upon Charlotte. I would profit by the first falsehood by which I had already moved her, combining with it a succession of others, and thus make her love me by making her pity me. There was, in this use of the most respected of human sentiments for the profit of my curious fancy, something particularly contrary to the general prejudice, which flattered my pride most exquisitely.

While I wrote out this plan with philosophical text to support it, I imagined what Count André would think, if he could, as in the old legends, from the depths of his garrison town decipher the words which I had traced with my pen.

At the same time, the idea alone of directing at will the subtle movements of a woman’s brain, all this sentimental and intellectual clockwork so complicated and so tenuous, made me compare myself to Claude Bernard, to Pasteur and to their pupils. These savants vivisected animals. Was not I going to vivisect at length, a human soul?

In order to draw from this pity which had been surprised rather than provoked, all the result demanded, it must first be prolonged. To this end, I resolved to keep up the comedy of sadness by preparing for the day of an explanatory conversation, more or less distant, a long, touching romance of false confidences.

I devoted myself, during the week following our walk, to feigning a melancholy more or less absorbing, and to feigning it, not only in the presence of Charlotte, but also during the hours in which I was alone with my pupil, sure that the child would report to his sister the impressions of our _tête-à-tête_.

You see here, my dear master, the proof of the useless machinery I was preparing to employ. Was there any need of involving this boy, who had been confided to me, in this sad intrigue, and why should I join this ruse with the others, when Mlle. de Jussat did not for a moment doubt my sincerity?

We had our lessons, Lucien and I, in a large room dignified by the name of library, because of the shelves which furnished one side of the wall. There, behind the gratings lined with green linen, were innumerable volumes bound in sheepskin, notably all the volumes of the Encyclopedia. This was a legacy from the founder of the château, a great philosopher, who had built this habitation among the mountains for the purpose of bringing up his children in the midst of nature and after the precepts of Emile.

The portrait of this gentleman free-thinker, a mediocre painting in the taste of the period, with its powder, and a smile both sceptical and sensible, adorned one side of the door; on the other side was that of his wife, quite coquettish under a high coiffure and with patches on her cheeks.

In looking at these two paintings, while Lucien translated a bit from Ovid or from Titus Livius, I asked myself what my ancestors were doing for me during the century in which these two persons lived who were represented in these portraits. I imagined, these rustics from whom I am descended pushing the plow, pruning the vine, harrowing the ground in the foggy plains of Lorraine, like the peasants who passed on the road in front of the château, in all weathers, and who with boots to their knees, dragged a metal-tipped stick fastened to the wrist by a strap.

This mental picture gave the charm of a kind of lawful vengeance to the care I took to compose my physiognomy. It is a singular thing, that although I might detest in theory the doctrines of the Revolution and the mediocre spiritualism which they conceal, I became again a plebeian in my profound joy in thinking that I, the great-grandson of these farmers, should perhaps by the force of my mind alone bring to disgrace the great-granddaughter of this great lord and this great lady.

I leaned my chin upon my hand, I forced my brow and my eyes to look sad, knowing that Lucien was watching the expression of my face, in the hope of interrupting his task by a talk. When he had several times observed that he did not see the welcoming smile, nor the indulgent look, he himself became very anxious. As is natural, the poor boy took my sadness for severity, my silence for displeasure One morning he ventured to ask:

“Are you angry with me, monsieur?”

“No, my child,” I replied, patting his fresh cheek with my hand; and I continued to preserve my troubled look, while contemplating the snow which beat against the panes. It fell now from morning till evening in large whirling stars, covering and putting to sleep the whole country, and in the warm rooms of the château there was the silent charm of intimacy, a distant death of all the noises of the mountains; while through the window panes, covered with frost on the outside and a vapor within, the light sifted languorously.

This gave a background of mystery to the figure of melancholy which I made, and which I imposed on the observation of Charlotte whenever we met. When the breakfast bell reunited us in the dining-room, I surprised in the eyes with which she received me the same timid and compassionate curiosity which I had noticed during our walk, whence dated what I called in my journal my entrance into my laboratory.

She regarded me with the same look when we were all again together, in the salon at tea, under the light of the early lamps, then at the dinner table and again in the long solitude of the evening, unless, under pretext of having work to finish, I retired to my room.

The monotony of life and of conversation was so complete that there was nothing to help her to shake off the impression of mournful mystery which I had inflicted upon her.

The marquis, a prey to the contrasts of his character, cursed his fatal resolution to remain in this isolation. He announced for the next clear day a departure which he knew would be impossible. It would cost too much now, and beside, where could he go? He calculated the chances of seeing his Clermont friends who had several times breakfasted with him, but it was before the four hours between Aydat and the city had been doubled by the bad weather.

Then he installed himself at the card table, while the marquise, the governess and the _religieuse_ applied themselves to their unending work.

It was my duty to look after Lucien who turned the leaves of a book of engravings or played at patience. I placed myself so that when she raised her eyes from the cards which she held in her hands while playing with her father, the young girl was obliged to see me. I had been interested in hypnotism, and I had in particular studied in all its details, in your “Anatomy of the Will,” the chapter devoted to the singular phenomena of certain moral denominations, which you have entitled: “Some demi-suggestions.” I depended on taking possession of this unoccupied mind, until the propitious moment in which, to complete this work of daily intercourse, I should decide to relate to her my story which, justifying my sadness, should end by engrossing her imagination.

This story I had manufactured upon two principles which you lay down, my dear master, in your beautiful chapter on Love. This chapter, the theories of the Ethics on the passions, and M. Ribot’s book on the “Maladies of the Will,” had become my breviaries. Permit me to recall these two principles, at least in their essence.

The first is that the majority of beings have sentiment only by imitation; abandoned to simple nature, love, for example, would be for them as for the animals, only a sensual instinct, dissipated as soon as satiated.

The second is that jealously may exist before love; consequently it may sometimes create it, and may often survive it. Much struck by the justness of this double remark, I argued that the romance which I should relate to Mlle. de Jussat ought to excite her imagination and irritate her vanity. I had succeeded in touching the cord of pity, I wished to touch that of sentimental emulation and that of self-love.

I had then, founded my story on this idea, that every woman interested in a man, is wounded in her vanity if this man shows that he is thinking of another woman. But twenty pages would be necessary to show you how I studied over the problem of the invention of this fable.

The occasion to relate it to her was furnished by the victim herself, fifteen days after I had begun to put at work what I proudly called my experience. The marquis had been told that one volume of the Encyclopedia was devoted to cards. He wished to find there how to play some old games such as Imperiale, Ombre, and Manilla. This brilliant idea had come to him after breakfast, on seeing in a journal a report of a new game called Poker, apropos of which the journalist gave a list of old-fashioned games.

When this maniac had conceived a fancy he could not wait, and his daughter was obliged to go at once to the library, where I was occupied in taking notes. I laid aside Helvétius upon the “Mind,” which I had discovered among some other books of the eighteenth century. I placed myself at the disposition of Mlle. de Jussat to take down the volume which she desired, and, when she took it from my hands, she said with her habitual grace:

“I hope that we shall find here some game in which you can take a hand with us. We are so afraid that you do not feel at home here, you are always so sad.”

She said these words as if asking pardon for an indelicacy, which had impressed me before, and escaping the familiarity of her remark by a “we” which I too well knew to be untruthful. Her voice was so gentle, we were so alone that the time seemed to have come to explain my feigned sadness.

“Ah! mademoiselle,” I answered, “if you only knew my history.”

If Charlotte had not been the credulous creature, the romantic child that she was, in spite of her two or three seasons in Paris, she would have seen that I was beginning a tale prepared beforehand, by this introduction, by the turn of the sentences with which I continued. I was too clumsy, too awkwardly affected.

I told her then that I had been betrothed at Clermont to a young girl, but secretly. I thought to make this adventure more poetical in her eyes by insinuating that this girl was a foreigner, a Russian visiting one of her relations. I added that this girl had allowed me to tell her that I loved her, and she had also told me that she loved me. We had exchanged vows, then she had gone away. A rich marriage offered, and she had betrayed me for money.

I was careful to insist on my poverty, and let her understand that my mother lived almost entirely on what I earned. This was a detail invented on the spot, for hypocrisy doubles itself in expression. In truth this was a scene of a childish and rascally comedy, which I played with very little skill. But the reasons which determined me to lie in this fashion were so special that they exacted an extraordinary penetration to be comprehended, a total attention of my mind, almost your genius, my dear master. The visible embarrassment of my position could so easily be attributed to the trouble inseparable from such remembrances. As I was perfectly cool while I was telling this fable, I could observe Charlotte. She listened without any sign of emotion, her eyes lowered on the big book which supported her hand. She took the book when I had finished, and replied in a blank voice, as they say, one of those voices which betrays no sentiment of the speaker:

“I do not understand how you could have had any confidence in this young girl, since she listened to you without the knowledge of her parents.”

And she went away with a simple inclination of her graceful head, carrying the book with her. How pretty she was in her dress of fine, light cloth, with her slender form, her small waist, her face quite long and lighted up by her thoughtful gray eyes! She was like a Madonna engraved after Memling, whose profile I had formerly so much admired, fervent, lovely and mournful, on the first page of a large copy of the “Imitation,” belonging to the Abbé Martel.

Explain to me this other enigma of the heart, you, the great psychologist; never have I felt more the charm of this pure and gentle being than at the moment when I had just lied to her, and lied so uselessly as I imagined from her response.

Yes, I took this response literally, which, on the contrary, should have encouraged me to hope. I did not guess that to have only listened to a confidence so intimate was for a being so proud and so reserved, so far above me, a proof of a very powerful sympathy. I did not consider that this almost severe remark was dictated in part by the secret jealousy which I had desired to arouse in her, in part by a need to strengthen herself in her own principles so as to justify to herself her excessive familiarity.

As she had not been able to read the falsehood in my story, so I had not seen the truth behind her reply.

I felt all the hopes which I had been building up for the past fortnight crumble before me. No. She was not interested in me with a genuine interest which I could transform into passion. I drew up the balance sheet of our relations. What proof had I of this interest? The delicacy of the material cares with which she had surrounded me? This was a simple effect of her goodness. Her attempt to find out the cause of my melancholy? Ah, well! she had been curious, that was all. The timid accent of her voice when she questioned me? I had been a fool not to recognize the habitual modesty of a delicate girl. Conclusion: my comedy of these two weeks, my grimaces _à la_ Chatterton, the falsehood of my so-called drama, so many ridiculous maneuvers, had not advanced me a line in the heart I wished to conquer.

I turned again to my book, but I was no longer capable of fixing my attention on the abstract text of Helvétius. I recall this childishness, my dear master, that you may the better perceive what a strange mixture of innocence and depravity was elaborated in my mind.

What did this unexpected deception prove, if not that I had imagined I could direct the thought of Charlotte, by applying to her the laws of psychology borrowed from the philosophers, as absolutely as her brother directed the billiard balls? The white touches the red a little to the left, goes on the cushions, and returns to the other white. That is outlined by the hand on the paper, that is explained by a formula, that is foreseen and is done ten times, twenty times, a hundred times, ten thousand times.

In spite of my enormous reading, perhaps because of it, I saw the play of the passions in this state of ideal simplicity. I did not comprehend till later how much I was deceived. In order to define the phenomena of the heart we must go to the vegetable, and not to the mechanical world for analogies, and to direct these phenomena we must employ the methods of the botanist, patient graftings, long waiting, careful training.

A sentiment is born, grows, expands, withers like a plant, by an evolution sometimes retarded, sometimes rapid, but always unconscious. The germ of pity, of jealousy, and of dangerous example planted by my ruse in the soul of Charlotte must develop its action, but only after days and days, and this action would be the more irresistible as she believed me to be in love with another and that in consequence she would not think to defend herself against me.

But to account in advance for this work and to discount the hope of it, one would have to be a Ribot, a Horwicz, an Adrien Sixte, that is, a connoisseur of souls, instead of one like me, ignorant that the plain over which he is walking will be covered with grain and not suspecting the approaching harvest.

The conviction that I had definitely failed in my first effort increased during the days which followed this false confidence. For Charlotte scarcely spoke to me.

I know now, from her own confession, that she concealed under this coldness a growing agitation which disconcerted her by its novelty, its force and its depth. In the meantime she appeared absorbed in the game of backgammon which the marquis had discovered in the Encyclopedia.

Recollecting that this had been the favorite pastime of his grandfather, the _emigré_, he had given up all other games. A merchant of Clermont had been able to send him the necessary articles with which to satisfy this caprice.

The backgammon table was installed in the salon and father and daughter passed their evenings in throwing the dice, which made a dry noise against the wooden ledge. The cabalistic terms of little table, big table, outer table, double ace, double threes, two fives, were intermingled now with the words of the marquise and her two companions.

Sometimes the curé of Aydat, the Abbé Barthomeuf, an old priest who said mass in the chapel of the château on Thursdays when the weather was very severe, would relieve Charlotte by playing with the marquis. Although the marquis treated me with irreproachable politeness, he had never asked me if I wished to learn to play. The difference which he established between the abbé and myself humiliated me, by the oddest contradiction, for I much preferred to remain in my low chair reading a book, or observing the character of the different persons from their physiognomies.

Is it not always so when one is in a position which is thought to be inferior? Any inequality of treatment wounds the self-love. I took my revenge in observing the ridiculousness of the abbé, who professed, for the château in general and the marquis in particular, an almost idolatrous admiration. His face which was always red became apoplectic when he took his seat opposite the marquis, and the prospect of winning the silver coins designed to make the game more interesting made the dice-cup tremble in his hand at the decisive throws.

This observation did not occupy me long, and I turned to follow the young girl, who seated herself at her work near her mother.