“Truly a misfortune, for which all other women would envy you,” said the major, laughing.
“Then they would make a great mistake,” sighed Camilla. “I for my part am weary of this homage; I have no desire to be, I will not consent to be an angel; I wish only to be a beautiful, rich young woman and to enjoy my life—. Do what I will, my husband looks at every act of folly from an ideal stand-point, and finds thus new material for worship; he will force me at last to some wild, insane act in order to convince him that I am no angel, but a weak child of earth.”
“You were almost in the act of committing such a folly this evening,” said her mother, sternly.
“Ah, you mean that I wished to dance. But only think, mamma, with whom I wished to dance, with my cousin, whom all the world calls ‘the handsome Kindar,’ and who dances so gloriously, that it is a delight to see him, and bliss to float about with him. He only returned this evening, and he came at once to me and greeted me so lovingly, so tenderly; you know, mamma, we have always loved each other fondly. When I told him I was married, he turned pale and looked at me so sorrowfully, and tears were in his eyes. Oh, mamma, why was I obliged to wed Lord Elliot, who is so grave, so wise, so learned, so virtuous, and with whom it is ever wearisome? Why did you not let me wait till Kindar returned, who is so handsome, so gay, so ignorant, before whom I should never have been forced to blush, no matter how foolish I had been, and with whom I should never have been weary?”
“But how did you know that the handsome Kindar wished to marry you?” said Louise, laughing.
“Oh, yes, mamma, I knew it well; he has often told me so, even when I was a little girl and he was a cadet. This dreadful war is the cause of all my misery; it led to his promotion, then he must join his regiment; then, alas! I must marry another before his return.”
“Yes, but a noble, intellectual, and honorable cavalier, who does honor to your choice,” said Du Trouffle.
“Lord Elliot has red hair, squints with both eyes, and is so long and meagre that he looks more like an exclamation-point than a man. When he appears before me in his yellow-gray riding costume, I am always reminded of the great windspeil you gave me once, stepfather, who had such long, high legs, I used to creep under them; and when he lies like a windspeil at my feet, and squints at me, his eyes seem tied up in knots, and I never know if he is really looking at me, or is about to fall into a swoon. Now, stepfather, do you not find that Lord Elliot does honor to my taste?”
“Certainly, and all the more because your choice proves that you appreciate the true dignity and beauty of a man, and his outward appearance seems to you comparatively insignificant.”
“Alas, alas! now you begin also to attribute noble and exalted motives to me,” said Camilla pathetically. “No, no, stepfather, I am not so sublime as you think, and I should not have married Lord Elliot if mamma and myself had not both indulged the ardent wish to be released from each other. Mamma is too young and too beautiful to be willing to have a grown-up daughter who is not ugly by her side, and I was too old to be locked up any longer in the nursery, so I stepped literally from the nursery to the altar, and became the wife of Lord Elliot; so mamma and myself were freed from the presence of each other, and I thought that a time of joy and liberty would bloom for me. But, alas, I have only changed my cage; formerly I was confined in a nursery, now my prison is a temple, because my husband says I am too elevated, too angelic to come in contact with the pitiful world. Ah. I long so for the world; I am so thirsty for its pleasures, I would so gladly take full draughts of joy from its golden cup! My husband comes and offers me a crystal shell, filled with heavenly dew and ether dust, which is, I suppose, angels’ food, but he does not remark that I am hungering and thirsting to death. Like King Midas, before whose thirsty lips every thing turned to gold, and who was starving in the midst of all his glory, I beseech you, stepfather, undertake the role of the barber, bore a hole and cry out in it that I have ass’s ears—ears as long as those of King Midas. Perhaps the rushes would grow again and make known to my lord the simple fact, which up to this time he refuses to believe, that I am indeed no angel, and he would cease to worship me, and allow me to be gay and happy upon the earth like every other woman. But come, come, stepfather, I hear the earnest voice of my husband in conversation with my merry, handsome cousin. Let us go to meet them, and grant me the pleasure of introducing Lord Elliot to you—not here, but in the brilliantly lighted saloon. Afterward I will ask you, on your word of honor, if you still find I have made a happy choice, and if my windspeil of a husband is of more value than my handsome cousin?”