"Yes, yes," replied Mlle. Marguerite, continuing to laugh with a woman's implacable barbarity. "it was a great success. I congratulate you!"
When she was a little more serious, she asked me how we should recover the capsized boat, which, by-the-bye, was the best we had. I promised to bring some men the next day, and superintend the rescue. Then we struck across the fields towards the château. M. de Bévallan, not being in swimming costume, could not rejoin us. With a melancholy air he disappeared behind the rocks above the farther bank.
August 20th.
At last this extraordinary girl has revealed the secret of her stormy soul to me. Would that she had preserved it forever!
During the day that followed the scenes I have just described, Mlle. Marguerite, as if ashamed of the impulses of youthful frankness to which she had yielded, wrapped herself more closely than ever in her veil of mournful pride, disdain, and mistrust. In the midst of the noisy pleasures, the fêtes, and dances that succeeded one another, she passed like a ghost, indifferent, icy, and sometimes angry.
Her irony vented itself with inconceivable bitterness, sometimes on the purest pleasures of the mind, those that come from contemplation and study, sometimes on the noblest and most sacred sentiments. If an instance of courage or virtue was mentioned in her presence, she examined it minutely in search of its selfish motive; or if by chance one burned the smallest grain of incense on the altar of art, she extinguished it with a disdainful wave of her hand. With her short, abrupt, and terrible laugh, like the mocking of a fallen angel, she seemed determined to blight (wherever she saw a trace of them) the most generous faculties of the human soul—enthusiasm and passion. I noticed that this strange spirit of disparagement took on a special character of persecution—positive hostility—when directed against me. I did not understand, and even now I do not quite understand, why I have attracted these particular attentions. True, I carry in my heart the worship of things ideal and eternal, which only death can tear from me (great God, what would be left me if I had not that!); but I am not given to public ecstasies, and my admiration, like my love, will never be obtrusive. In vain I maintained more scrupulously than ever the modesty which springs from real feeling. I gained nothing by it. The most romantic fancies were attributed to me just for the pleasure of combating them, and perpetually some kind of grotesque harp was thrust into my hands, solely for the amusement of breaking its strings.
Although this open warfare against anything higher than the material interests and sordid realities of life, was not a new trait in Mlle. Marguerite's character, it had been suddenly exaggerated and embittered to the point of wounding the hearts most devoted to this young girl. One day Mlle. de Porhoët, weary of this incessant mocking, said to her in my presence:
"My darling, for some time past you have been possessed by a devil which you would do well to cast out as soon as possible, or you will finish by making up a trio with Mme. Aubry and Mme. de Saint-Cast. For my part, I do not pride myself on being, or ever having been, particularly romantic, but I like to think that there are still some people in the world who are capable of generous sentiments; I believe in disinterestedness, if only in my own, and I even believe in heroism, because I have known heroes. More, I love to hear the little birds singing under my arbour, and I like to build my cathedral in the drifting clouds. All this may sound very ridiculous, my dear, but I venture to remind you that these illusions are the riches of the poor, that M. Odiot and I have no other kind of wealth, and that we are so singular as not to complain."
On another occasion, when I had just received Mlle. Marguerite's sarcasm with my usual impassibility, her mother drew me aside.
"M. Maxime," she said, "my daughter teases you a little, but I hope you will excuse her. You must have noticed that she has changed very much lately."