The Lily of the Valley

by Honoré de Balzac

When she ceased to speak, prayers were said again, and the curate of Sache gave her the viaticum. A few moments later her breathing became difficult; a film overspread her eyes, but soon they cleared again; she gave me a last look and died to the eyes of earth, hearing perhaps the symphony of our sobs. As her last sigh issued from her lips,—the effort of a life that was one long anguish,—I felt a blow within me that struck on all my faculties. The count and I remained beside the bier all night with the two abbes and the curate, watching, in the glimmer of the tapers, the body of the departed, now so calm, laid upon the mattress of her bed, where once she had suffered cruelly. It was my first communion with death. I remained the whole of that night with my eyes fixed on Henriette, spell-bound by the pure expression that came from the stilling of all tempests, by the whiteness of that face where still I saw the traces of her innumerable affections, although it made no answer to my love. What majesty in that silence, in that coldness! How many thoughts they expressed! What beauty in that cold repose, what power in that immobility! All the past was there and futurity had begun. Ah! I loved her dead as much as I had loved her living. In the morning the count went to bed; the three wearied priests fell asleep in that heavy hour of dawn so well known to those who watch. I could then, without witnesses, kiss that sacred brow with all the love I had never been allowed to utter.

The third day, in a cool autumn morning, we followed the countess to her last home. She was carried by the old huntsman, the two Martineaus, and Manette’s husband. We went down by the road I had so joyously ascended the day I first returned to her. We crossed the valley of the Indre to the little cemetery of Sache—a poor village graveyard, placed behind the church on the slope of the hill, where with true humility she had asked to be buried beneath a simple cross of black wood, “like a poor country-woman,” she said. When I saw, from the centre of the valley, the village church and the place of the graveyard a convulsive shudder seized me. Alas! we have all our Golgothas, where we leave the first thirty-three years of our lives, with the lance-wound in our side, the crown of thorns and not of roses on our brow—that hill-slope was to me the mount of expiation.

We were followed by an immense crowd, seeking to express the grief of the valley where she had silently buried so many noble actions. Manette, her faithful woman, told me that when her savings did not suffice to help the poor she economized upon her dress. There were babes to be provided for, naked children to be clothed, mothers succored in their need, sacks of flour brought to the millers in winter for helpless old men, a cow sent to some poor home,—deeds of a Christian woman, a mother, and the lady of the manor. Besides these things, there were dowries paid to enable loving hearts to marry; substitutes bought for youths to whom the draft had brought despair, tender offerings of the loving woman who had said: “The happiness of others is the consolation of those who cannot themselves be happy.” Such things, related at the “veillees,” made the crowd immense. I walked with Jacques and the two abbes behind the coffin. According to custom neither the count nor Madeleine were present; they remained alone at Clochegourde. But Manette insisted in coming with us. “Poor madame! poor madame! she is happy now,” I heard her saying to herself amid her sobs.

As the procession left the road to the mills I heard a simultaneous moan and a sound of weeping as though the valley were lamenting for its soul. The church was filled with people. After the service was over we went to the graveyard where she wished to be buried near the cross. When I heard the pebbles and the gravel falling upon the coffin my courage gave way; I staggered and asked the two Martineaus to steady me. They took me, half-dead, to the chateau of Sache, where the owners very kindly invited me to stay, and I accepted. I will own to you that I dreaded a return to Clochegourde, and it was equally repugnant to me to go to Frapesle, where I could see my Henriette’s windows. Here, at Sache, I was near her. I lived for some days in a room which looked on the tranquil, solitary valley I have mentioned to you. It is a deep recess among the hills, bordered by oaks that are doubly centenarian, through which a torrent rushes after rain. The scene was in keeping with the stern and solemn meditations to which I desired to abandon myself.

I had perceived, during the day which followed the fatal night, how unwelcome my presence might be at Clochegourde. The count had gone through violent emotions at the death of his wife; but he had expected the event; his mind was made up to it in a way that was something like indifference. I had noticed this several times, and when the countess gave me that letter (which I still dared not read) and when she spoke of her affection for me, I remarked that the count, usually so quick to take offence, made no sign of feeling any. He attributed Henriette’s wording to the extreme sensitiveness of a conscience which he knew to be pure. This selfish insensibility was natural to him. The souls of these two beings were no more married than their bodies; they had never had the intimate communion which keeps feeling alive; they had shared neither pains nor pleasures, those strong links which tear us by a thousand edges when broken, because they touch on all our fibers, and are fastened to the inmost recesses of our hearts.

Another consideration forbade my return to Clochegourde,—Madeleine’s hostility. That hard young girl was not disposed to modify her hatred beside her mother’s coffin. Between the count, who would have talked to me incessantly of himself, and the new mistress of the house, who would have shown me invincible dislike, I should have found myself horribly annoyed. To be treated thus where once the very flowers welcomed me, where the steps of the portico had a voice, where my memory clothed with poetry the balconies, the fountains, the balustrades, the trees, the glimpses of the valleys! to be hated where I once was loved—the thought was intolerable to me. So, from the first, my mind was made up.

Alas! alas! was this the end of the keenest love that ever entered the heart of man? To the eyes of strangers my conduct might be reprehensible, but it had the sanction of my own conscience. It is thus that the noblest feelings, the sublimest dramas of our youth must end. We start at dawn, as I from Tours to Clochegourde, we clutch the world, our hearts hungry for love; then, when our treasure is in the crucible, when we mingle with men and circumstances, all becomes gradually debased and we find but little gold among the ashes. Such is life! life as it is; great pretensions, small realities. I meditated long about myself, debating what I could do after a blow like this which had mown down every flower of my soul. I resolved to rush into the science of politics, into the labyrinth of ambition, to cast woman from my life and to make myself a statesman, cold and passionless, and so remain true to the saint I loved. My thoughts wandered into far-off regions while my eyes were fastened on the splendid tapestry of the yellowing oaks, the stern summits, the bronzed foothills. I asked myself if Henriette’s virtue were not, after all, that of ignorance, and if I were indeed guilty of her death. I fought against remorse. At last, in the sweetness of an autumn midday, one of those last smiles of heaven which are so beautiful in Touraine, I read the letter which at her request I was not to open before her death. Judge of my feelings as I read it.

Madame de Mortsauf to the Vicomte Felix de Vandenesse:
Felix, friend, loved too well, I must now lay bare my heart to
you,—not so much to prove my love as to show you the weight of
obligation you have incurred by the depth and gravity of the
wounds you have inflicted on it. At this moment, when I sink
exhausted by the toils of life, worn out by the shocks of its
battle, the woman within me is, mercifully, dead; the mother alone
survives. Dear, you are now to see how it was that you were the
original cause of all my sufferings. Later, I willingly received
your blows; to-day I am dying of the final wound your hand has
given,—but there is joy, excessive joy in feeling myself
destroyed by him I love.
My physical sufferings will soon put an end to my mental strength;
I therefore use the last clear gleams of intelligence to implore
you to befriend my children and replace the heart of which you
have deprived them. I would solemnly impose this duty upon you if
I loved you less; but I prefer to let you choose it for yourself
as an act of sacred repentance, and also in faithful continuance
of your love—love, for us, was ever mingled with repentant
thoughts and expiatory fears! but—I know it well—we shall
forever love each other. Your wrong to me was not so fatal an act
in itself as the power which I let it have within me. Did I not
tell you I was jealous, jealous unto death? Well, I die of it.
But, be comforted, we have kept all human laws. The Church has
told me, by one of her purest voices, that God will be forgiving
to those who subdue their natural desires to His commandments. My
beloved, you are now to know all, for I would not leave you in
ignorance of any thought of mine. What I confide to God in my last
hour you, too, must know,—you, king of my heart as He is King of
Heaven.
Until the ball given to the Duc d’Angouleme (the only ball at
which I was ever present), marriage had left me in that ignorance
which gives to the soul of a young girl the beauty of the angels.
True, I was a mother, but love had never surrounded me with its
permitted pleasures. How did this happen? I do not know; neither
do I know by what law everything within me changed in a moment.
You remember your kisses? they have mastered my life, they have
furrowed my soul; the ardor of your blood awoke the ardor of mine;
your youth entered my youth, your desires my soul. When I rose and
left you proudly I was filled with an emotion for which I know no
name in any language—for children have not yet found a word to
express the marriage of their eyes with light, nor the kiss of
life laid upon their lips. Yes, it was sound coming in the echo,
light flashing through the darkness, motion shaking the universe;
at least, it was rapid like all these things, but far more
beautiful, for it was the birth of the soul! I comprehended then
that something, I knew not what, existed for me in the world,—a
force nobler than thought; for it was all thoughts, all forces, it
was the future itself in a shared emotion. I felt I was but half a
mother. Falling thus upon my heart this thunderbolt awoke desires
which slumbered there without my knowledge; suddenly I divined all
that my aunt had meant when she kissed my forehead, murmuring,
“Poor Henriette!”
When I returned to Clochegourde, the springtime, the first leaves,
the fragrance of the flowers, the white and fleecy clouds, the
Indre, the sky, all spoke to me in a language till then unknown.
If you have forgotten those terrible kisses, I have never been
able to efface them from my memory,—I am dying of them! Yes, each
time that I have met you since, their impress is revived. I was
shaken from head to foot when I first saw you; the mere
presentiment of your coming overcame me. Neither time nor my firm
will has enabled me to conquer that imperious sense of pleasure. I
asked myself involuntarily, “What must be such joys?” Our mutual
looks, the respectful kisses you laid upon my hand, the pressure
of my arm on yours, your voice with its tender tones,—all, even
the slightest things, shook me so violently that clouds obscured
my sight; the murmur of rebellious senses filled my ears. Ah! if
in those moments when outwardly I increased my coldness you had
taken me in your arms I should have died of happiness. Sometimes I
desired it, but prayer subdued the evil thought. Your name uttered
by my children filled my heart with warmer blood, which gave color
to my cheeks; I laid snares for my poor Madeleine to induce her to
say it, so much did I love the tumults of that sensation. Ah! what
shall I say to you? Your writing had a charm; I gazed at your
letters as we look at a portrait.
If on that first day you obtained some fatal power over me,
conceive, dear friend, how infinite that power became when it was
given to me to read your soul. What delights filled me when I
found you so pure, so absolutely truthful, gifted with noble
qualities, capable of noblest things, and already so tried! Man
and child, timid yet brave! What joy to find we both were
consecrated by a common grief! Ever since that evening when we
confided our childhoods to each other, I have known that to lose
you would be death,—yes, I have kept you by me selfishly. The
certainty felt by Monsieur de la Berge that I should die if I lost
you touched him deeply, for he read my soul. He knew how necessary
I was to my children and the count; he did not command me to
forbid you my house, for I promised to continue pure in deed and
thought. “Thought,” he said to me, “is involuntary, but it can be
watched even in the midst of anguish.” “If I think,” I replied,
“all will be lost; save me from myself. Let him remain beside me
and keep me pure!” The good old man, though stern, was moved by my
sincerity. “Love him as you would a son, and give him your
daughter,” he said. I accepted bravely that life of suffering that
I might not lose you, and I suffered joyfully, seeing that we were
called to bear the same yoke—My God! I have been firm, faithful
to my husband; I have given you no foothold, Felix, in your
kingdom. The grandeur of my passion has reacted on my character; I
have regarded the tortures Monsieur de Mortsauf has inflicted on
me as expiations; I bore them proudly in condemnation of my faulty
desires. Formerly I was disposed to murmur at my life, but since
you entered it I have recovered some gaiety, and this has been the
better for the count. Without this strength, which I derived
through you, I should long since have succumbed to the inward life
of which I told you.
If you have counted for much in the exercise of my duty so have my
children also. I felt I had deprived them of something, and I
feared I could never do enough to make amends to them; my life was
thus a continual struggle which I loved. Feeling that I was less a
mother, less an honest wife, remorse entered my heart; fearing to
fail in my obligations, I constantly went beyond them. Often have
I put Madeleine between you and me, giving you to each other,
raising barriers between us,—barriers that were powerless! for
what could stifle the emotions which you caused me? Absent or
present, you had the same power. I preferred Madeleine to Jacques
because Madeleine was sometime to be yours. But I did not yield
you to my daughter without a struggle. I told myself that I was
only twenty-eight when I first met you, and you were nearly
twenty-two; I shortened the distance between us; I gave myself up
to delusive hopes. Oh, Felix! I tell you these things to save you
from remorse; also, perhaps, to show you that I was not cold and
insensible, that our sufferings were cruelly mutual; that Arabella
had no superiority of love over mine. I too am the daughter of a
fallen race, such as men love well.
There came a moment when the struggle was so terrible that I wept
the long nights through; my hair fell off,—you have it! Do you
remember the count’s illness? Your nobility of soul far from
raising my soul belittled it. Alas! I dreamed of giving myself to
you some day as the reward of so much heroism; but the folly was a
brief one. I laid it at the feet of God during the mass that day
when you refused to be with me. Jacques’ illness and Madeleine’s
sufferings seemed to me the warnings of God calling back to Him
His lost sheep.
Then your love—which is so natural—for that Englishwoman
revealed to me secrets of which I had no knowledge. I loved you
better than I knew. The constant emotions of this stormy life, the
efforts that I made to subdue myself with no other succor than
that religion gave me, all, all has brought about the malady of
which I die. The terrible shocks I have undergone brought on
attacks about which I kept silence. I saw in death the sole
solution of this hidden tragedy. A lifetime of anger, jealousy,
and rage lay in those two months between the time my mother told
me of your relations with Lady Dudley, and your return to
Clochegourde. I wished to go to Paris; murder was in my heart; I
desired that woman’s death; I was indifferent to my children.
Prayer, which had hitherto been to me a balm, was now without
influence on my soul. Jealousy made the breach through which death
has entered. And yet I have kept a placid brow. Yes, that period
of struggle was a secret between God and myself. After your return
and when I saw that I was loved, even as I loved you, that nature
had betrayed me and not your thought, I wished to live,—it was
then too late! God had taken me under His protection, filled no
doubt with pity for a being true with herself, true with Him,
whose sufferings had often led her to the gates of the sanctuary.
My beloved! God has judged me, Monsieur de Mortsauf will pardon
me, but you—will you be merciful? Will you listen to this voice
which now issues from my tomb? Will you repair the evils of which
we are equally guilty?—you, perhaps, less than I. You know what I
wish to ask of you. Be to Monsieur de Mortsauf what a sister of
charity is to a sick man; listen to him, love him—no one loves
him. Interpose between him and his children as I have done. Your
task will not be a long one. Jacques will soon leave home to be in
Paris near his grandfather, and you have long promised me to guide
him through the dangers of that life. As for Madeleine, she will
marry; I pray that you may please her. She is all myself, but
stronger; she has the will in which I am lacking; the energy
necessary for the companion of a man whose career destines him to
the storms of political life; she is clever and perceptive. If
your lives are united she will be happier than her mother. By
acquiring the right to continue my work at Clochegourde you will
blot out the faults I have not sufficiently expiated, though they
are pardoned in heaven and also on earth, for he is generous and
will forgive me. You see I am ever selfish; is it not the proof of
a despotic love? I wish you to still love me in mine. Unable to be
yours in life, I bequeath to you my thoughts and also my duties.
If you do not wish to marry Madeleine you will at least seek the
repose of my soul by making Monsieur de Mortsauf as happy as he
ever can be.
Farewell, dear child of my heart; this is the farewell of a mind
absolutely sane, still full of life; the farewell of a spirit on
which thou hast shed too many and too great joys to suffer thee to
feel remorse for the catastrophe they have caused. I use that word
“catastrophe” thinking of you and how you love me; as for me, I
reach the haven of my rest, sacrificed to duty and not without
regret—ah! I tremble at that thought. God knows better than I
whether I have fulfilled his holy laws in accordance with their
spirit. Often, no doubt, I have tottered, but I have not fallen;
the most potent cause of my wrong-doing lay in the grandeur of the
seductions that encompassed me. The Lord will behold me trembling
when I enter His presence as though I had succumbed. Farewell
again, a long farewell like that I gave last night to our dear
valley, where I soon shall rest and where you will often—will you
not?—return.

Henriette.

I fell into an abyss of terrible reflections, as I perceived the depths unknown of the life now lighted up by this expiring flame. The clouds of my egotism rolled away. She had suffered as much as I—more than I, for she was dead. She believed that others would be kind to her friend; she was so blinded by love that she had never so much as suspected the enmity of her daughter. That last proof of her tenderness pained me terribly. Poor Henriette wished to give me Clochegourde and her daughter.