Mauprat Part 13

"I can't say; probably grief, as you suggest. The truth is my life here is unbearable; my heart is breaking. I must leave you, Edmee, and go and live in the middle of the woods. I cannot stay here any longer."

"Why is life unbearable? Explain yourself, Bernard. Now is our opportunity for an explanation."

"Yes, with a wall between us. I can understand that you are not afraid of me now."

"And yet it seems to me that I am only showing an interest in you; and was I not as affectionate an hour ago when there was no wall between us?"

"I begin to see why you are fearless, Edmee; you always find some means of avoiding people, or of winning them over with pretty words. Ah, they were right when they told me that all women are false, and that I must love none of them."

"And who told you that? Your Uncle John, I suppose, or your Uncle Walter; or was it your grandfather, Tristan?"

"You can jeer--jeer at me as much as you like. It is not my fault that I was brought up by them. There were times, however, when they spoke the truth."

"Bernard, would you like me to tell you why they thought women false?"

"Yes, tell me."

"Because they were brutes and tyrants to creatures weaker than themselves. Whenever one makes one's self feared one runs the risk of being deceived. In your childhood, when John used to beat you, did you never try to escape his brutal punishment by disguising your little faults?"

"I did; that was my only resource."

"You can understand, then, that deception is, if not the right, at least the resource of the oppressed."

"I understand that I love you, and in that at any rate there can be no excuse for your deceiving me."

"And who says that I have deceived you?"

"But you have; you said you loved me; you did not love me."

"I loved you, because at a time when you were wavering between detestable principles and the impulses of a generous heart I saw that you were inclining towards justice and honesty. And I love you now, because I see that you are triumphing over these vile principles, and that your evil inspirations are followed by tears of honest regret. This I say before G.o.d, with my hand on my heart, at a time when I can see your real self. There are other times when you appear to me so below yourself that I no longer recognise you and I think I no longer love you. It rests with you, Bernard, to free me from all doubts, either about you or myself."

"And what must I do?"

"You must amend your bad habits, open your ears to good counsel and your heart to the precepts of morality. You are a savage, Bernard; and, believe me, it is neither your awkwardness in making a bow, nor your inability to turn a compliment that shocks me. On the contrary, this roughness of manner would be a very great charm in my eyes, if only there were some great ideas and n.o.ble feelings beneath it. But your ideas and your feelings are like your manners, that is what I cannot endure. I know it is not your fault, and if I only saw you resolute to improve I should love you as much for your defects as for your qualities. Compa.s.sion brings affection in its train. But I do not love evil, I never loved it; and, if you cultivate it in yourself instead of uprooting it, I can never love you. Do you understand me?"

"No."

"What, no!"

"No, I say. I am not aware that there is any evil in me. If you are not displeased at the lack of grace in my legs, or the lack of whiteness in my hands, or the lack of elegance in my words, I fail to see what you find to hate in me. From my childhood I have had to listen to evil precepts, but I have not accepted them. I have never considered it permissible to do a bad deed; or, at least, I have never found it pleasurable. If I have done wrong, it is because I have been forced to do it. I have always detested my uncles and their ways. I do not like to see others suffer; I do not rob a fellow-creature; I despise money, of which they made a G.o.d at Roche-Mauprat; I know how to keep sober, and, though I am fond of wine, I would drink water all my life if, like my uncles, I had to shed blood to get a good supper. Yet I fought for them; yet I drank with them. How could I do otherwise? But now, when I am my own master, what harm am I doing? Does your abbe, who is always prating of virtue, take me for a murderer or a thief? Come, Edmee, confess now; you know well enough that I am an honest man; you do not really think me wicked; but I am displeasing to you because I am not clever, and you like M. de la Marche because he has a knack of making unmeaning speeches which I should blush to utter."

"And if, to be pleasing to me," she said with a smile, after listening most attentively, and without withdrawing her hand which I had taken through the bars, "if, in order to be preferred to M. de la Marche, it were necessary to acquire more wit, as you say, would you not try?"

"I don't know," I replied, after hesitating a moment; "perhaps I should be fool enough; for the power you have over me is more than I can understand; but it would be a sorry piece of cowardice and a great folly."

"Why, Bernard?"

"Because a woman who could love a man, not for his honest heart, but for his pretty wit, would be hardly worth the pains I should have to take; at least so it seems to me."

She remained silent in her turn, and then said to me as she pressed my hand:

"You have much more sense and wit than one might think. And since you force me to be quite frank with you, I will own that, as you now are and even should you never change, I have an esteem and an affection for you which will last as long as my life. Rest a.s.sured of that, Bernard, whatever I may say in a moment of anger. You know I have a quick temper--that runs in the family. The blood of the Mauprats will never flow as smoothly as other people's. Have a care for my pride, then, you know so well what pride is, and do not ever presume upon rights you have acquired. Affection cannot be commanded; it must be implored or inspired. Act so that I may always love you; never tell me that I am forced to love you."

"That is reasonable enough," I answered; "but why do you sometimes speak to me as if I were forced to obey you? Why, for instance, this evening did you _forbid_ me to drink and _order_ me to study?"

"Because if one cannot command affection which does not exist, one can at least command affection which does exist; and it is because I am sure yours exists that I commanded it."

"Good!" I cried, in a transport of joy; "I have a right then to order yours also, since you have told me that it certainly exists. . . .

Edmee, I order you to kiss me."

"Let go, Bernard!" she cried; "you are breaking my arm. Look, you have sc.r.a.ped it against the bars."

"Why have you intrenched yourself against me?" I said, putting my lips to the little scratch I had made on her arm. "Ah, woe is me! Confound the bars! Edmee, if you would only bend your head down I should be able to kiss you . . . kiss you as my sister. Edmee, what are you afraid of?"

"My good Bernard," she replied, "in the world in which I live one does not kiss even a sister, and nowhere does one kiss in secret. I will kiss you every day before my father, if you like; but never here."

"You will never kiss me!" I cried, relapsing into my usual pa.s.sion.

"What of your promise? What of my rights?"

"If we marry," she said, in an embarra.s.sed tone, "when you have received the education I implore you to receive, . . ."

"Death of my life! Is this a jest? Is there any question of marriage between us? None at all. I don't want your fortune, as I have told you."

"My fortune and yours are one," she replied. "Bernard, between near relations as we are, mine and thine are words without meaning. I should never suspect you of being mercenary. I know that you love me, that you will work to give me proof of this, and that a day will come when your love will no longer make me fear, because I shall be able to accept it in the face of heaven and earth."

"If that is your idea," I replied, completely drawn away from my wild pa.s.sion by the new turn she was giving to my thoughts, "my position is very different; but, to tell you the truth, I must reflect on this; I had not realized that this was your meaning."

"And how should I have meant otherwise?" she answered. "Is not a woman dishonoured by giving herself to a man who is not her husband? I do not wish to dishonour myself; and, since you love me, you would not wish it either. You would not do me an irreparable wrong. If such were your intention you would be my deadliest enemy."

"Stay, Edmee, stay!" I answered. "I can tell you nothing about my intentions in regard to you, for I have never had any very definite.

I have felt nothing but wild desires, nor have I ever thought of you without going mad. You wish me to marry you? But why--why?"

"Because a girl who respects herself cannot be any man's except with the thought, with the intention, with the certainty of being his forever. Do you not know that?"

"There are so many things I do not know or have never thought of."

"Education will teach you, Bernard, what you ought to think about the things which must concern you--about your position, your duties, your feelings. At present you see but dimly into your heart and conscience.

And I, who am accustomed to question myself on all subjects and to discipline my life, how can I take for master a man governed by instinct and guided by chance?"

"For master! For husband! Yes, I understand that you cannot surrender your whole life to an animal such as myself . . . but that is what I have never asked of you. No, I tremble to think of it."

"And yet, Bernard, you must think of it. Think of it frequently, and when you have done so you will realize the necessity of following my advice, and of bringing your mind into harmony with the new life upon which you have entered since quitting Roche-Mauprat. When you have perceived this necessity you must tell me, and then we will make several necessary resolutions."

She withdrew her hand from mine quickly, and I fancy she bade me good-night; but this I did not hear. I stood buried in my thoughts, and when I raised my head to speak to her she was no longer there. I went into the chapel, but she had returned to her room by an upper gallery which communicated with her apartments.

I went back into the garden, walked far into the park, and remained there all night. This conversation with Edmee had opened a new world to me. Hitherto I had not ceased to be the Roche-Mauprat man, nor had I ever contemplated that it was possible or desirable to cease to be so.

Except for some habits which had changed with circ.u.mstances, I had never moved out of the narrow circle of my old thoughts. I felt annoyed that these new surroundings of mine should have any real power over me, and I secretly braced my will so that I should not be humbled. Such was my perseverance and strength of character that I believed nothing would ever have driven me from my intrenchment of obstinacy, had not Edmee's influence been brought to bear upon me. The vulgar comforts of life, the satisfactions of luxury, had no attraction for me beyond their novelty.

Bodily repose was a burden to me, and the calm that reigned in this house, so full of order and silence, would have been unbearable, had not Edmee's presence and the tumult of my own desires communicated to it some of my disorder, and peopled it with some of my visions. Never for a single moment had I desired to become the head of this house, the possessor of this property; and it was with genuine pleasure that I had just heard Edmee do justice to my disinterestedness. The thought of coupling two ends so entirely distinct as my pa.s.sion and my interests was still more repugnant to me. I roamed about the park a prey to a thousand doubts, and then wandered into the open country unconsciously.

It was a glorious night. The full moon was pouring down floods of soft light upon the ploughed lands, all parched by the heat of the sun.