III
One day, at Palmer’s request, Laurent went to the Hôtel Meurice, where the American lived, to see that the portrait was suitably framed and packed. The lid was nailed on in their presence, and Palmer himself wrote his mother’s name and address thereon with a brush; then, as the porters carried the box away to dispatch it on its long journey, Palmer grasped the artist’s hand, and said:
“I owe it to you that my dear mother is soon to have a very great pleasure, and I thank you again. Now will you allow me to talk with you a few moments? I have something to say to you.”
They went into a salon where Laurent saw several trunks.
“I start to-morrow for Italy,” said the American, offering him some excellent cigars and a taper, although he did not smoke himself; “and I do not choose to part with you without a few words touching a delicate matter, so delicate that, if you interrupt me, I shall not be able to find the proper French words for what I want to say.”
“I swear that I will be as mute as the tomb,” said Laurent, with a smile, surprised and considerably disturbed by this preamble.
“You love Mademoiselle Jacques,” continued Palmer, “and I think that she loves you. Perhaps you are her lover; if you are not, I feel certain that you will be sooner or later. Ah! you promised not to speak! Say nothing, for I ask you nothing. I consider you worthy of the honor I attribute to you; but I am afraid that you are not well enough acquainted with Thérèse to know that, if your love is an honor to her, hers is no less an honor to you. I am afraid of that because of the questions you asked me about her, and of certain remarks that have been made about her before us two, by which I saw that you were more moved than I was. That proves that you know nothing about her; now I, who know the whole story, propose to tell you the whole story, so that your attachment to Mademoiselle Jacques may be founded on the esteem and respect which she deserves.”
“Wait a moment, Palmer,” cried Laurent, who was burning to hear what was coming, but was restrained by an honorable scruple. “Do you propose to tell me this with Mademoiselle Jacques’s permission, or by her command?”
“Neither,” replied Palmer. “Thérèse will never tell you the story of her life.”
“Then say no more! I do not wish to know anything except what she wishes me to know.”
“Good, very good!” rejoined Palmer, shaking his hand; “but suppose that what I have to tell you clears her from all suspicion?”
“Then why does she conceal it?”
“From consideration for others.”
“Well, go on,” said Laurent, unable to resist the temptation.
“I shall mention no names,” said Palmer. “I will simply tell you that, in one of the large cities of France, there was once a rich banker who seduced a charming girl, his own daughter’s governess. He had by her a female child who was born twenty-eight years ago on Saint Jacques’s Day, was entered on the municipal register as born of unknown parents, and received no other family name than Jacques. Thérèse is that child.
“The governess received a sum of money from the banker, and, five years later, married one of his clerks, an honest fellow who had no suspicion of anything wrong, the whole affair having been kept very secret. The child was brought up in the country. Her father had taken charge of her. She was afterward placed in a convent, where she received a very fine education and was the object of much care and affection. Her mother saw her constantly during the first years; but after she was married, her husband became suspicious, and, resigning his position with the banker, took his wife to Belgium, where he went into business on his own account and made a fortune. The poor mother had to force back her tears and obey.
“That mother still lives a long way from her daughter; she has other children, and her conduct since her marriage has been beyond reproach; but she has never been happy. Her husband, who loves her dearly, keeps her almost under lock and key, and has never ceased to be jealous of her; which is in her eyes the merited penalty of her sin and her falsehood.
“It would seem that age should have brought confession on the one hand and forgiveness on the other. It would have been arranged so in a novel; but there is nothing less logical than real life, and that household is as disturbed as on the first day, the husband deep in love, uneasy and rough, the wife penitent, but silent and down-trodden.
“And so, under the difficult circumstances in which Thérèse was placed, she was deprived of the support, the assistance, the advice, and the consolation of her mother. But the mother loves her all the more dearly for being obliged to see her in secret, by stealth, when she succeeds in coming to Paris alone for two or three days, as has happened recently. But it is only within a few years that she has been able to devise pretexts of one sort or another, and obtain these occasional leaves of absence. Thérèse adores her mother, and will never make any admission that can possibly compromise her. That is why she will never endure a word of blame concerning the conduct of other women. You may well have thought that at such times she was indirectly claiming indulgence for herself. Nothing of the sort. Thérèse has nothing for which to seek forgiveness; but she has forgiven her mother everything; such is the story of their relations.
“I now have to tell you the story of the Comtesse de —— three stars. That is what you say in French, I believe, when you do not wish to call people by name. This countess, who bears neither her title nor her husband’s name, is Thérèse again.”
“So she is married? she is not a widow?”
“Patience! she is married, and she is not. You will see in a moment. Thérèse was fifteen years old when her father, the banker, became a widower and a free man; for his lawful children were all settled in life. He was an excellent man, and, despite the misstep of which I have told you and which I do not justify, it was impossible not to love him, he was so entertaining and generous. I was very intimate with him. He had told me in confidence the story of Thérèse’s birth, and on several occasions he took me with him when he went to see her at the convent where she was. She was beautiful, intelligent, lovable, high-spirited. He would have been glad, I think, to have me make up my mind to ask her hand in marriage; but my heart was not free at that time; otherwise—— But I could not think of it.
“He then asked me some questions about a young Portuguese nobleman who was a frequent visitor at his house, who had very large interests in Havana, and who was very handsome. I had met this Portuguese in Paris, but I did not really know him, and I abstained from giving any opinion about him. He was very fascinating; but, for my part, I would never have placed any confidence in his face. He was the Comte de ——, to whom Thérèse was married a year later.
“I was obliged to go to Russia; when I returned, the banker had died of apoplexy, and Thérèse was married, married to that foreigner, that madman, I will not say that villain, because he was able to retain her love, even after she discovered his crime: that man already had a wife in the colonies when he had the incredible audacity to seek Thérèse’s hand and to marry her.
“Do not ask me how Thérèse’s father, a man of sense and experience, had allowed himself to be so deceived. I could but repeat to you what my own experience has taught me, to wit: that in this world, the things that happen are at least half of the time the direct opposite of what seemed likely to happen.
“In the later years of his life the banker had done divers other foolish things which would lead one to think that his reason was slightly clouded. He had left Thérèse a legacy instead of giving her a marriage-portion outright in his life-time. This legacy was of no effect as against the lawful heirs, and Thérèse, who adored her father, would not have applied to the courts even if there had been any chance of success. She was left penniless, therefore, just as she became a mother, and, at the same time, a frantic woman made a descent upon her, demanding her rights and threatening to make a scandal: it was her husband’s first and only lawful wife.
“Thérèse had an extraordinary amount of courage: she pacified the unfortunate creature, and persuaded her not to apply to the courts; she induced the count to take back his wife and start for Havana with her. Because of Thérèse’s birth and the secrecy with which her father had chosen to encompass the manifestations of his affection, her marriage had taken place secretly, abroad, and the young couple had lived abroad ever since. Indeed, their life had been most mysterious. The count, unquestionably afraid of being unmasked if he should reappear in the world, made Thérèse believe that he had a passion for living in solitude with her, and the trustful young wife, in love with her husband and naturally romantic, considered it altogether natural that her husband should travel with her under a false name, to avoid meeting people who were indifferent to him.
“Thus when Thérèse awoke to the horror of her situation, it was not impossible that everything might be shrouded in silence. She consulted a discreet lawyer, and, having acquired the certainty that her marriage was null and void, but that it required a judgment to quash it, if she wished ever to make use of her liberty, she instantly and irrevocably made up her mind to be neither free nor married, rather than besmirch her child’s father with a degrading scandal and conviction. That made the child a bastard beyond recall; but it was better that he should have no name and should remain forever in ignorance of his birth, than that he should claim a tarnished name and bring dishonor upon his father.
“Thérèse still loved the wretch! she confessed as much to me, and he loved her with a diabolical passion. There were heart-rending struggles, indescribable scenes, in which Thérèse fought with an energy beyond her years, I will not say beyond her sex; a woman, when she is heroic, is not heroic by halves.
“At last, she carried the day; she kept her child, expelled the culprit from her arms, and saw him depart with her rival, who, although consumed by jealousy, was so far overcome by her magnanimity that she kissed her feet when they parted.
“Thérèse changed her abode and her name, passed as a widow, having resolved to be forgotten by the few people who had known her, and began to live for her child, with pitiful energy. The child was so dear to her, that she thought that she could find consolation with him; but this last joy was destined not to be of long duration.
“As the count was wealthy, and had no children by his first wife, Thérèse had been persuaded, at her rival’s earnest entreaty, to accept a reasonable allowance, in order to enable her to give her son a suitable education; but the count had no sooner taken his wife back to Havana than he abandoned her again, made his escape, returned to Europe, and threw himself at Thérèse’s feet, imploring her to fly with him and the child to the other side of the world.
“Thérèse was inexorable; she had reflected and prayed. Her heart had become strong, she no longer loved the count. On her son’s account, she did not propose that such a man as the count should become the master of her life. She had lost the right to be happy, but not the right to respect herself; she repulsed him, without reproaches, but without weakness. The count threatened to leave her penniless; she replied that she was not afraid to work for a living.
“The wretched madman thereupon devised an execrable scheme, to place Thérèse at his mercy, or to be revenged for her resistance. He kidnapped the child and disappeared. Thérèse hurried after him; but he had taken his measures so carefully that she went astray and did not overtake him. It was at that crisis that I met her in England, dying of despair and fatigue at an inn, almost insane, and so changed by unhappiness that I hardly recognized her.
“I persuaded her to rest, and let me act for her. My investigations were lamentably successful. The count had returned to America. The child had died of fatigue on arriving there.
“When I was obliged to convey that horrible news to the unhappy creature, I was terrified myself at the calmness she displayed. At last, she wept, and I saw that she was saved. I was forced to leave her; she told me that she proposed to settle where she was. I was distressed by her destitution; she deceived me by telling me that her mother would not allow her to lack anything. I learned later that her poor mother would have been powerless to help her; she had not a centime at her disposal for which she had not to account. Moreover, she was entirely ignorant of all her daughter’s misfortunes. Thérèse, who wrote to her in secret, had concealed them in order not to drive her to desperation.
“Thérèse lived on in England, giving lessons in French, drawing, and music, for she possessed talents which she had the courage to turn to account, that she might not have to accept compassion from any one.
“After a year, she returned to France, and settled in Paris, where she had never been, and where no one knew her. She was then but twenty years old; she was married at sixteen. She was no longer at all pretty, and it required eight years of repose and resignation to restore her health and her gentle gaiety of long ago.
“During all that time, I saw her only at rare intervals, for I am always travelling; but I always found her dignified and proud, working with invincible courage, and concealing her poverty behind miraculous neatness and cleanliness, never complaining of God, or of any mortal, refusing to talk of the past, sometimes caressing children by stealth and leaving them as soon as one looked at her, fearing, doubtless, that she might betray some emotion.
“I had not seen her for three years, when I came to ask you to paint my portrait, and I was trying to find her address, which I was on the point of asking you for when you mentioned her to me. Having arrived only the night before, I did not know that she had at last attained success, celebrity, and a comfortable income.
“It was only on finding her under such conditions, that it occurred to me that that heart, so long crushed, might live again, and suffer—or be happy. Try to make her happy, my dear Laurent, she has well earned it! And, if you are not sure that you will not make her suffer, blow out your brains to-night rather than return to her. That is all that I had to say to you.”
“Stay,” said Laurent, deeply moved; “this Comte de ——, is he still alive?”
“Unfortunately, yes. These men who drive other people to despair are always in good health and escape all dangers. They never hand in their resignations; why, this fellow recently had the presumption to send me a letter for Thérèse, which I handed to her in your presence, which she treated as it deserved.”
Laurent had thought of marrying Thérèse as he listened to Monsieur Palmer’s narrative. That narrative had produced a revolution in him. The monotonous tone, the pronounced accent, and a few curious grammatical lapses which we have not thought it worth our while to reproduce, had imparted to it, in his auditor’s vivid imagination, an indefinable something as strange and terrible as Thérèse’s destiny. That girl without kindred, that mother without children, that wife without a husband, was surely doomed to an exceptionally cruel fate! What depressing notions of love and life she must have retained! The sphinx reappeared before Laurent’s dazzled eyes. Thérèse unveiled seemed to him more mysterious than ever; had she ever been consoled? could she be for a single instant?
He embraced Palmer effusively, swore to him that he loved Thérèse, and that, if he ever succeeded in winning her love, he would remember every hour of his life the hour that had just passed and the story he had just heard. Then, having promised not to betray his knowledge of Mademoiselle Jacques’s history, he went home and wrote:
“THÉRÈSE:
“Do not believe a word of all I have been saying to you these last two months. Do not believe either what I said to you when you were afraid that I would fall in love with you. I am not amorous, it is not that; I love you madly. It is absurd, it is insane, it is wretched; but I, who thought that I never should or could say or write to a woman the words I love you! find them too cold and constrained to-day to express my feeling for you. I can live no longer with this secret which is choking me, and which you will not guess. I have tried a hundred times to leave you, to go to the end of the world, to forget you. In an hour I am at your door, and very often, at night, consumed with jealousy and almost frantic with rage against myself, I pray God to deliver me from my torment by summoning this unknown lover in whom I do not believe, and whom you invented to disgust me with the thought of you. Show me that man in your arms, or love me, Thérèse! Failing these alternatives, I can conceive but one other, and that is to kill myself and have done with it. This is cowardly, stupid, the commonplace threat worn threadbare by all despairing lovers; but is it my fault if there is a despair which makes all those who undergo it utter the same shriek, and am I mad because I happen to be a man like other men?
“Of what avail has been all that I have invented to protect myself from it, and to render my poor personality as harmless as it wished to be free?
“Have you anything to reproach me for in my dealings with you, Thérèse? Am I a conceited ass, a rake, I who prided myself upon making myself stupid so as to give you confidence in my friendship? But why do you wish that I should die without having loved, you who alone can teach me what love is, and who know it well? You have a treasure in your heart, and you smile as you sit beside a poor devil who is dying of hunger and thirst. You toss him a small coin from time to time; that means friendship in your eyes; it is not even pity, for you must know that the drop of water increases the thirst.
“And why do you not love me? You may have loved some one who was a worse man than I. I am not worth much, to be sure, but I love you, and is not that everything?
“You will not believe it; you will say again that I am mistaken, as you said before! No, you cannot say so, unless you lie to God and to yourself. You see that my torment gets the better of me, and that I am making an absurd declaration, I who dread nothing on earth so much as being laughed at by you!
“Thérèse, do not think me corrupt. You know very well that the bottom of my heart has never been sullied, and that from the abysses into which I have cast myself I have always, in spite of myself, raised my voice to Heaven. You know that with you I am as chaste as an infant, and you have not feared to take my head in your hands sometimes, as if you were about to kiss me on the forehead. And you would say: ‘Bad head! you deserve to be broken.’—And yet, instead of crushing it like the head of a snake, you would try to make the pure and burning breath of your mind penetrate it. Ah! well, you have succeeded only too well; and, now that you have kindled the fire on the altar, you turn away and say to me: ‘Place it in somebody’s else care! Marry; love some sweet, devoted, lovely girl; have children, be ambitious for them, live a virtuous life, have a happy home—have everything, except me!’
“But, Thérèse, it is you whom I love passionately, not myself. Since I have known you, you have been striving to make me believe in happiness and to cultivate my taste for it. It is not your fault if I have not become as selfish as a spoiled child. But I am worthy of a better fate. I do not ask if your love would mean happiness to me. I simply know that it would be life, and that, good or bad, it is that life, or death, that I must have.”