The Marquis de Villemer

by George Sand

"Alas! no, not yet; but if you would believe in me—"

"Don't tire yourself by talking, trying to convince me," said Caroline, with something imperious in her warmth. "I believe in you, but not in my own destiny. Well! I accept it, such as you make it for me. Good or ill, it shall be dear to me, since I can accept no other. Now listen, listen to me! Perhaps I have only an instant to tell you this in. I don't know what events your conscience and mine will have to meet; I know your mother to be inexorable. I have felt the chill of her contempt; and we have nothing to hope from God if we break her heart. We must submit, then, and that forever. You yourself have said that to form any scheme of being happy upon the loss of a mother is placing the dream of happiness among the most criminal of thoughts, and such happiness would be under the ban of a hundred curses; we ourselves should curse it in our hearts."

"Why do you remind me of all this?" asked the Marquis, sorrowfully; "do you think I have forgotten? But you believe a change in my mother to be impossible; and I see from this that you would not have me try to bring it about, and that pity alone—"

"You see nothing at all," cried Caroline, putting her hand on his mouth; "you see nothing, if you don't see that I love you."

"O Heaven!" said the Marquis, sinking to her feet; "say that again! It seems like a dream. This is the first time you have said it. I have thought I divined it, but I dare not believe it now. Tell me so again,—tell me, and then let me die!"

"Yes; I love you more than my own life," she replied, pressing to her heart the noble brow, seat of a soul so brave and true; "I love you more than my pride, more than my pride of womanhood. I have denied it to myself this long time; I have denied it in my prayers to God, and I lied to God and to myself! At last I understood, and I fled through a cowardly weakness. I felt all was lost, and so it is. Well, what matters it, after all? It only involves myself. While I cherished the hope of learning to forget, I could struggle; but you love me too well,—I see that now,—and you will die, if I forsake you. I thought you were dead a few hours ago, and then I saw clearly into our lives; I had killed you! I might have saved you,—you, the noblest and best of beings,—but I made you the victim of my vain self-respect. And what am I to let you die so, when all that is not your regard is nothing to me? No, no! I have resisted long enough. I have been proud enough, cruel enough, and you have suffered too much from my wrong-doing. I love you, do you hear? I will not become your wife, because that would be to plunge you into bitter remorse, into a woe beyond remedy; but I will be your friend, your servant, a mother to your child, your faithful companion. The purity of our lives may be misunderstood; I shall be mistaken for Didier's actual mother perhaps. Well, I consent even to that. I accept the scorn I have dreaded; and it seems to me drinking of this cup, poured out by you, will give me a new life."

"O noble heart! as pure as heaven!" cried the Marquis. "I accept, for my part, this divine sacrifice. Pray do not scorn me for that! You make me feel worthy of it, and I will soon put an end to it. Yes, yes! I shall work miracles. I feel strong enough now. My mother will yield without a regret. In my heart I feel now the faith and the power that shall persuade her to it. But even if the whole world should rise up to condemn you,—do you see?—you, my sister and my daughter, my pure-minded companion, my dearest friend,—you will only stand the higher in my regard. I shall only be more and more proud of you. What is the world, what is public opinion, to a man who has penetrated the social life of past ages and that of the present as well, fathoming the mysteries of their selfishness and the nothingness of their deceit? Such a man knows full well that, at all times, by the side of one poor truth which floats safely, a thousand truths go under with the mark of infamy upon them. He well knows that the best and most unselfish spirits have walked in the footprints of their Lord, on a thorny path, where wounds and insults fall like rain. Well, we will walk there, if need be; love will keep us from feeling these base attacks. Yes, I can answer for that, at least, and this is what I can swear in defiance of all threats from that destiny the world would make for us: you shall be loved, and you shall be happy! You knew me well, cruel one, shutting your eyes as you ran away. You knew perfectly that my whole life, my whole soul is love and nothing else. You knew perfectly that, if I have sometimes been eager in pursuit of truth, it was from love of her alone; and not for the vain glory of proclaiming her in person. I am not myself a scholar; I am not an author. I am an unknown soldier, who, of my own free will, avoid the noise and smoke of the conflict, fighting unsupported and in the background, not through lack of courage, but that my mother and brother may not be wounded in the struggle. I have accepted this obscure position without a pang to my vanity. I felt that my heart stood in need, not of praise, but of love. All the ambition of my fellows, all their immoderate vanities, their thirst for power, their needs of luxury, their continual hunger for notoriety,—what did all these matter to me? I could not be amused with toys like these. I was myself only a poor, single-hearted man, enamored of an ideal,—an ingenuous child, if you will, seeking love and feeling it alive within him long before meeting her who was to develop its power. I kept silence, knowing I should have to bear raillery,—a thing indifferent, as far as I am concerned personally, but one which would have pained me as an outrage to my inmost, sacred religion. Once, only once in my life,—I should like to tell you this, Caroline,—I have loved—"

"Don't tell me!" cried she, "I don't want to know."

"Nevertheless, you ought to know all. She was good and gentle, and, in recalling her, I can without an effort respect and bless her in her tomb; but she could not love me. It was the fault of her destiny, and not her own. There is not a reproach in my heart for her; there are many for myself. I have hated myself bitterly, and done heavy penance for having yielded to a passion which was never encouraged or really shared. I was only reconciled to life when I saw life blooming into its fairest and purest form in you. I then understood why I was born in tears, why I had been fated to love, and condemned to love too early,—with sorrow, and in sin,—because I sought the one dream and aim of my life too eagerly. And now I feel restored forever and saved. I feel that my character will regain its balance, my youth its hopes, my heart its natural sustenance. Have faith in me,—you whom Heaven has sent me! You know for a certainty that we are made for each other. You have felt a thousand times, in spite of yourself that we had but one mind and one thought; that we loved the same principles, the same art, the same names, the same people, and the same things without influencing each other, except to strengthen and develop what was already there,—to make the germs of our deepest feelings bud and blossom. Do you remember, Caroline, do you remember Séval? And our sunny hours in the valley? And the hours of delicious coolness beneath the arches of the library, where, with lovely vases of flowers, you paid festive honors to this deep, mysterious union of our souls? Was it not an indissoluble marriage which our hands consecrated every morning in their pure touch of greeting! Did not our first glance every single day give us to each other, and that for all time? And can all this be lost utterly, flown forever? Did you yourself believe for one instant that this man could live without you, deprived of air and sunlight,—that he would consent to fall back into darkness again? No, no! you never believed it. He would have followed you to the end of the earth; he would have gone through fire and water and ice to rejoin you. And if you had left me to die in the snow to-day, can't you feel that my spirit set free would have still, like a desperate spectre, pursued you through the mountain storm?"

"Listen to him, just listen!" said Caroline to Peyraque, who had come in and was stupidly looking at the Marquis, now seemingly transfigured by passion; "hear what he says, and do not wonder if I love him better than myself. Do not be frightened, do not worry, do not go away, pitying us. Stay with us and see how happy we are. The presence of a good old man like you will not trouble us. Perhaps you will not understand us,—you who would listen to nothing beyond a certain duty, which I understood yesterday, but no longer admit to-day; yet, against your will even, you will love me again and give me your blessing, for you will feel the rightful authority of this man, who is more to me than all other men, and to whom God has given only the words of truth. Yes, I love him.—I love you, you whom I came near losing to-day, and I will never leave you again. I will follow you everywhere; your child shall be mine, as your country is my country, your faith my faith. There is no higher honor in this world, there is no other virtue before God, than loving you, serving you, and comforting you."