XIV
I was at my window busily watching the stars that bloomed joyously in the garden of the sky, and inhaling the sweet perfume of the mirabilis wafted to my nostrils by a dying breeze.—The wind blowing through the open window had extinguished my lamp, the last that remained lighted in the chateau. My thoughts degenerated into vague musing, and a sort of drowsiness began to steal over me; I remained, however, with my elbows resting on the stone balustrade, either because I was fascinated by the charm of the night, or through indifference and forgetfulness.—Rosette, seeing that my lamp was out, and being unable to distinguish my form because of a great wedge of shadow that fell exactly upon the window, had concluded, I presume, that I had gone to bed, and that was what she was waiting for, to risk one last, desperate attempt.—She opened the door so softly that I did not hear her come in, and she was within two steps of me before I discovered her. She was tremendously surprised to find me still up; but she soon recovered from her astonishment, came to me and grasped my arm, calling me twice by my name:—"Théodore, Théodore!"
"What! you, Rosette, here, at this hour, all alone, without a light, in such complete déshabillé!"
I must tell you that she had nothing on but a peignoir of the finest linen, and the glorious lace-trimmed chemise which I did not choose to see on the day of the famous scene in the little kiosk in the park. Her arms, as cold and smooth as marble, were entirely bare, and the garment that covered her body was so clinging and transparent that you could see her nipples through it, as in the statues of bathers covered with damp drapery.
"Do you mean that for a reproach, Théodore? or is it simply an exclamation? Yes, I, Rosette, la belle dame, here in your bedroom, not in my own where I should be, at eleven o'clock at night, perhaps midnight, without duenna or chaperone or maid, almost naked, in a simple night peignoir;—that is very surprising, is it not?—I am as surprised as you, and I hardly know what explanation to give you."
As she spoke, she put one arm around my body and sank down on the foot of my bed in such a way as to drag me with her.
"Rosette," I said to her, struggling to release myself, "I will try to light the lamp; nothing is so depressing as a dark room; and then, it is downright murder not to be able to see when you are here, and so be deprived of the sight of your charms.—Allow me, with the help of a bit of tinder and a match, to make a little portable sun which will put in relief all that the jealous darkness blots out beneath its shadow."
"It isn't worthwhile; I prefer that you should not see my blushes; I feel that my cheeks are burning hot, for it is quite enough to make me die of shame."
She put her face against my breast and remained some moments so, as if suffocated by her emotion.
Meanwhile, I was mechanically running my fingers through the long floating curls of her hair; I was cudgelling my brain in search of some honorable means of extricating myself from the scrape, but I could find none, for I was driven into my last entrenchments, and Rosette seemed firmly resolved not to leave the room as she had entered it.—There was a formidable negligence about her dress which promised nothing good. I had on an open robe-de-chambre myself, which would have defended my incognito but feebly, so that I was disturbed beyond measure concerning the result of the battle.
"Listen to me, Théodore," said Rosette, standing up and throwing the hair back from both sides of her face, as well as I could judge by the feeble light which the stars and a very slender crescent moon, just appearing above the horizon, cast into the room, the window being still open;—"this is a strange step I have taken; everybody would blame me for it.—But you are going away soon, and I love you! I cannot let you go thus without having an explanation with you.—Perhaps you will never come back; perhaps this is the first and last time that I am to see you.—Who knows where you will go? But wherever you go you will carry my heart and my life with you.—If you had remained, I should not have resorted to this extreme measure. The happiness I felt on seeing you, of listening to your voice, of living beside you, would have been enough for me; I would have asked for nothing more. I would have confined my love in my heart; you would have thought that you had simply a kind and affectionate friend in me; but that cannot be. You say that you absolutely must go.—It bores you, Théodore, to see me clinging to your footsteps like an amorous shadow which can only follow you, but would like to be blended with your body; it must annoy you always to find behind you imploring eyes and hands stretched out to grasp the hem of your cloak.—I know it, but I cannot refrain from doing it.—You cannot complain, however; it is your fault.—I was calm, peaceful, almost happy before I knew you.—You appeared, handsome, young, and smiling, like Phœbus, the charming god.—You paid me most marked, most gallant attention; never was cavalier more courteous and clever. Rubies and roses fell from your lips every moment; everything became for you an opportunity to turn a compliment, and you knew how to transform the most insignificant words into charming flattery.—A woman who had hated you mortally at first, would have ended by loving you, and for my part, I loved you the moment I saw you. Why, having made yourself so agreeable, do you seem surprised to be so loved? Isn't it a perfectly natural consequence? I am neither mad nor empty-headed, nor a romantic child who falls in love with the first sword she sees. I have seen society, and I know what life is. Any woman, even the most virtuous or the most prudish, would have done as much as I am doing.—What was your idea or your purpose? to please me, I imagine, for I cannot attribute any other to you. How does it happen, then, that you seem in some measure sorry because you have succeeded so well? Have I unintentionally done anything to displease you?—I ask your pardon.—Do you no longer think me beautiful, or have you discovered in me some defect that repels you?—You have the right to be exacting in the matter of beauty, but either you have lied outrageously, or I am beautiful!—I am young like yourself and I love you; why do you disdain me now? You used to be so attentive to me, you held my arm with such unfailing solicitude, you pressed so tenderly the hand I abandoned to you, your eyes were so languorous when you raised them to mine: if you did not love me, why all that manœuvring? Can it be that you are cruel enough to kindle love in a heart in order to laugh at it afterward? Ah! that would be a ghastly joke, impious and sacrilegious! only a wicked soul could be amused by it, and I cannot believe it of you, however inexplicable your conduct toward me. What is the cause, then, of this sudden change? As for me, I can imagine none.—What mystery is hidden by such coldness?—I cannot believe that you feel repugnance for me; what you have done proves that you do not, for a man does not pay court so earnestly to a woman for whom he has a feeling of disgust, though he were the greatest scoundrel on earth. O Théodore, what have you against me? what has changed you so? what have I done to you?—If the love you seemed to have for me has vanished, mine, alas! has remained, and I cannot tear it from my heart.—Have pity on me, Théodore, for I am very unhappy.—At least pretend to love me a little, and say a few kind words to me; they will not cost you much, unless you have an insurmountable horror of me."
At that pathetic point in her discourse, sobs completely choked her voice; she clasped her hands on my shoulder and rested her forehead upon them in an attitude of utter despair. All that she said was absolutely true, and I had nothing to say in reply.—I could not treat the matter as a jest. That would not have been decent.—Rosette was not one of the creatures one can treat so lightly; besides, I was too deeply touched to be able to do it. I felt guilty for having thus made a plaything of a charming woman's heart, and I was seized with the deepest and most sincere remorse.
Seeing that I made no reply, the dear child drew a long breath and made a movement as if to rise, but she fell back, crushed by her emotion; then she threw her arms about me—I could feel their cool touch through my doublet—laid her face against mine and began to weep silently.
It produced a strange effect upon me to feel that exhaustless current of tears that did not flow from my own eyes, rolling down my cheeks.—Mine were soon mingling with them, and there was a veritable rain of bitter tears, violent enough to cause another deluge, if it had lasted forty days.
At that instant the moon shone fairly on the window; a pale beam shot into the room and cast a bluish gleam upon our silent group.
With her white peignoir, her bare arms, her uncovered throat and breast, of almost the same color as the linen, her dishevelled hair and her sorrowful expression, Rosette had the aspect of an alabaster figure of Melancholy sitting on a tomb. As for myself, I have no very clear idea what I may have looked like, as I could not see myself and there was no mirror to reflect my image, but I fancy that I might very well have posed for a statue of Uncertainty personified.
I was moved, and I bestowed upon Rosette a caress or two rather more affectionate than usual; from her hair my hand descended to her velvety neck and thence to her round, smooth shoulder which I patted softly as I followed its shivering contour. The child quivered under my touch like a harpsichord under a musician's fingers; her flesh shuddered and leaped, and amorous thrills ran all over her body.
I myself was conscious of a sort of vague, confused desire, the object of which I could not make out, and I took a keen delight in running my hand over those pure, delicate lines.—I left her shoulder, and, taking advantage of an opening in the folds of her peignoir, I suddenly closed my hand upon her little, frightened breast, which palpitated madly like a turtle-dove surprised in its nest;—from the extreme edge of her cheek, upon which I breathed a hardly perceptible kiss, I arrived at her half-open mouth: we remained in that position for some time.—Upon my word, I have no idea whether it was two minutes or a quarter of an hour or an hour; for I had lost all idea of time, and I did not know whether I was in heaven or on earth, here or elsewhere, dead or alive. The heady wine of lust had so intoxicated me at the first mouthful I swallowed, that all the reason I possessed had fled.—Rosette wound her arms more and more tightly about me and enveloped me with her body; she leaned convulsively toward me and pressed me against her bare, palpitating breast; at every kiss all her life seemed to rush to the spot kissed and to abandon the rest of her person.—Strange ideas passed through my head; if I had not feared to betray my incognito, I would have given full scope to Rosette's passionate impulses, and perhaps I should have made some vain, mad attempt to impart a semblance of reality to the shadow of pleasure which my beautiful lover embraced so ardently; I had not yet had a lover; and those fierce attacks, those reiterated caresses, the touch of that lovely body, those sweet names drowned in kisses, excited me to the last degree—although they proceeded from a woman;—and then that nocturnal visit, that romantic passion, the moonlight, all had for me the refreshing charm of novelty, and made me forget that, after all, I was not a man.
However, making a great effort to control myself, I told Rosette that she was compromising herself terribly by coming to my room at such an hour and remaining there so long, that her women might notice her absence and see that she had not passed the night in her own room.
I said this in such a mild tone that Rosette's only reply was to let her peignoir and slippers fall to the floor and glide into my bed like a snake into a bowl of milk; for she fancied that my clothes alone prevented me from coming to more definite demonstrations, and that they were the only obstacle that held me back.
She believed, poor child, that the happy hour, so laboriously led up to, was about to strike for her; but the clock struck two instead.—I was in a most critical position, when suddenly the door turned on its hinges and gave passage to the Chevalier Alcibiades in person; he held a candlestick in one hand and his sword in the other.
He went straight to the bed and threw back the clothes, and, putting the light under poor, speechless Rosette's nose, said to her in a bantering tone:—"Good-morning, sister." Little Rosette had not the strength to say a word in reply.
"So it seems, my very dear and most virtuous sister, that, having considered in your wisdom that Seigneur Théodore's bed was more downy than your own, you came here to sleep in it? or perhaps there are ghosts in your room and you thought that you would be safer here, under the protection of the aforesaid seigneur?—It is very well thought of.—Aha! Monsieur le Chevalier de Sérannes, you have made soft eyes at Madame our sister, and you think that will be the end of it.—In my opinion, it would not be unhealthy for us to slash at each other a little, and if you would oblige me to that extent I should be infinitely grateful to you.—Théodore, you have abused my friendship for you, and you make me repent the good opinion I formed at first of the loyalty of your character; this is bad, very bad."
I could not defend myself in any valid way; appearances were against me. Who would have believed me if I had said, as the fact was, that Rosette had come to my room against my will, and that, far from trying to attract her, I was doing all I possibly could to turn her away from me.—There was but one thing for me to say, and I said it:—"Seigneur Alcibiades, we will slash at each other all you wish."
During this colloquy, Rosette had not failed to faint according to the most approved rules of the pathetic;—I went to a goblet filled with water which contained a great white rose, half withered, and I threw a few drops on her face, which restored her to consciousness at once.
Not knowing just what to do, she vanished in the passage beside the bed and buried her pretty head in the bedclothes, like a bird preparing to sleep.—She had piled cushions and clothes about her so that it would have been very hard to discover what was under the heap; a musical sigh that issued therefrom, now and then, was the only thing that denoted that it was naught but a repentant young sinner, or rather one who was excessively annoyed to be a sinner in intention only, not in fact: which was the unfortunate Rosette's plight.
Monsieur the brother, having no further anxiety concerning his sister, resumed the dialogue, and said to me in the sweetest of tones:—"It is not absolutely indispensable for us to cut each other's throats on the spot; that is an extreme method to which there is always time to resort.—Listen:—The game is not equal between us. You are very young and much less strong than I; if we should fight, I should kill you or maim you at the very least—and I am not anxious either to kill or disfigure you—it would be a great pity; Rosette, who is down there under the clothes and hasn't a word to say, would bear me a grudge for it all her life; for she is as unforgiving and wicked as a tigress when she puts her mind to it, the dear little dove. You, who are her Prince Galaor and receive only sweet words from her, know nothing about that; but it isn't pleasant. Rosette is free, so are you; it seems that you are not irreconcilable enemies; her widowhood is at an end and the thing turns out as well as possible. Marry her; she will not need to go back to her own room to sleep, and in that way, you see, I shall be relieved of the necessity of taking you for a sheath for my sword, which would be agreeable to neither of us;—what do you say?"
I must have made a horrible grimace, for what he proposed was of all things in the world the most impossible of execution by me; I would rather have crawled on all fours on the ceiling like the flies, or have unhooked the sun from the sky without taking anything to stand on, than do what he asked me, and yet the last proposition was incontestably more agreeable than the first.
He seemed surprised that I did not accept with transports of delight, and he repeated what he had said, as if to give me time to reply.
"An alliance with you would be most honorable for me, and I should never have dared to aspire to it; I know that it is an unheard-of good fortune for a young man who has as yet no position or footing in society, and that the most illustrious men would esteem themselves very fortunate;—but I can only persist in my refusal, and as I am free to choose between marriage and a duel, I prefer the duel.—It is a strange choice, and one which few people would make—but it is mine."
At that point Rosette uttered the most heart-broken sigh you can imagine, put her head out from behind the pillow, and instantly drew it back again, like a snail when you strike its horns, when she saw my impassive and determined countenance.
"It is not that I do not love Madame Rosette, I love her very dearly; but I have reasons for not marrying, reasons which you would consider satisfactory if it were possible for me to tell you what they are.—By the way, matters have not gone as far as you might judge from appearances; beyond a kiss or two which a very warm friendship is sufficient to explain and justify, there is nothing between us to which exception can be taken, and your sister's virtue is as pure and unsullied as virtue can be.—I owe her that testimony.—Now, when shall we fight, Monsieur Alcibiades, and where?"
"Here, and instantly!" cried Alcibiades, drunk with rage.
"Can you think of such a thing? before Rosette!"
"Draw your sword, villain, or I will murder you," he continued, brandishing his sword and whirling it around his head.
"At least, let us go out of the room."
"If you don't stand on guard, I will nail you to the wall like a bat, my handsome Celadon, and you will flap your wings in vain, for you won't release yourself, I warn you."—And he rushed at me with his sword in the air.
Chapter XIV — Rosette made a superhuman effort to throw herself between our swords, for both combatants were equally dear to her; but her strength failed her and she fell unconscious across the foot of the bed.
Our blades struck fire, and made a noise like a hammer striking an anvil, for the small space we had at our disposals compelled us to fight at very close quarters.
I drew my rapier, for he would have done as he said, and contented myself at first with parrying the thrusts he aimed at me.
Rosette made a superhuman effort to throw herself between our swords, for both combatants were equally dear to her; but her strength failed her and she fell unconscious across the foot of the bed.
Our blades struck fire, and made a noise like a hammer striking an anvil, for the small space we had at our disposals compelled us to fight at very close quarters.
Alcibiades came very near wounding me two or three times, and if I had not been a most expert fencer, my life would have been in the greatest danger; for his address was quite astonishing and his strength prodigious. He exhausted all the ruses and feints of the trade trying to touch me. Furious at his failure, he uncovered himself two or three times; I declined to take advantage of the opportunity; but he returned to the charge with such desperate, savage fury that I was forced to make the most of such openings as he gave me; and then the clashing of the steel and the whirl of sparks excited and dazzled me. I did not think of death, I was not in the least afraid; that keen, deadly blade that flashed in front of my eyes every second had no more effect on me than if we had been fighting with buttoned foils; but I was, however, indignant at Alcibiades's brutality, and my consciousness of perfect innocence increased my indignation. I determined just to prick him in the arm or shoulder so as to make him drop his sword, for I had tried in vain to knock it out of his hand.—He had a wrist of iron, and the devil himself could not have turned it.
At last he came at me with such a sharp, well-directed thrust that I could only half parry it; it passed through my sleeve, and I felt the cold steel against my arm; but I was not wounded. At that I became really angry, and instead of defending myself I assumed the offensive in my turn;—I forgot that he was Rosette's brother, and I rushed at him as if he were my mortal enemy. Taking advantage of a false position of his sword, I delivered a thrust in quarte so well directed that I pierced his side; he made an exclamation and fell back.
I thought that he was dead, but he was really only wounded, and his fall was caused by a misstep which he made in trying to parry.—I cannot describe the sensation I felt, Graciosa; certainly it is not difficult to understand that, if you stick a fine, sharp point into the flesh, you will make a hole and blood will flow from it. And yet I was stupefied when I saw the red stream trickling down Alcibiades's doublet.—Of course I did not imagine that bran would come out, as it does when you burst open a doll; but I know that I never was so surprised in my life, and it seemed to me as if something incredible had happened to me.
The incredible thing was not, as it seemed to me, that blood should flow from a wound, but that the wound should have been made by me, and that a girl of my age—I was going to write a young man, I have entered so fully into the spirit of my part—should have laid low a lusty captain, an expert in fencing, like Seigneur Alcibiades;—and all for the crime of seduction and refusing to marry a very rich woman, and a very charming one too!
I was really in a state of cruel embarrassment with the fainting sister, the wounded brother whom I believed to be dead, and I myself, who was not far from being dead or fainting, like one or the other of them.—I seized the bell-rope and I jangled the bell in a way to wake the dead, so long as the rope remained in my hand; and leaving to the unconscious Rosette and the disemboweled Alcibiades the duty of explaining matters to the servants and the old aunt, I went straight to the stable.—The air restored my self-possession instantly; I led out my horse, saddled and bridled him myself, made sure that the straps were all right, the curb in good condition, and the stirrup leathers of the same length, and took up a hole in the girth; in short, I harnessed him completely, with a care that was at least remarkable at such a moment, and a tranquillity that was almost inconceivable after a combat with such an ending.
I mounted my steed and rode away through the park by a bridle-path that I was familiar with. The branches of the trees, all laden with dew, lashed me and wet my face; you would have said that the old trees were putting out their arms to detain me and keep me for love of their chatelaine.—If I had been in any other frame of mind, or in the least degree superstitious, it would have been easy for me to believe that they were ghosts trying to seize me and shaking their fists at me.
But the truth is that I had no idea at all, neither that nor any other; a leaden stupor, so heavy that I was hardly conscious of it, was pressing on my brain, like a helmet that was too small; but I had a vague feeling that I had killed some one and that that was why I was going away. I had an intense longing to sleep, whether because it was so late or because the violent emotions of the night had reacted on me physically and wearied my body.
I reached a small postern gate, which opened into the fields by a secret spring that Rosette had shown me during our rides. I dismounted, touched the button and opened the gate: after leading, my horse through, I remounted and galloped as far as the high road to C——, where I arrived at daybreak.
This is a true and circumstantial account of my first love-affair and my first duel.