To the man who loves her, a woman has a sort of divinity of which no other man knows the secret, which belongs only to her lover, and to see even the threshold of this mystery profaned by another gives us a strange and indescribable shock—a horror, as of sacrilege. It is not merely that a precious possession is taken from you; it is an altar polluted, a mystery violated, a god defiled! This is jealousy. At least, it is mine. In all sincerity it seemed to me that in the whole world I only had eyes to see, intelligence to understand, and a heart to worship in its full perfection the beauty of this angel. With any other she would be cast away, and lost; body and soul, she was destined for me from all eternity. So vast was my pride! I expiated it with suffering as immeasurable.
Nevertheless, some mocking demon whispered that in all probability Marguerite would find more peace and real happiness in the kindly friendship of a judicious husband, than she would have enjoyed in the poetic passion of a romantic lover. Is it true? Is it possible? I do not believe it. She will have peace! Granted. But peace, after all, is not the best thing in life, nor the highest kind of happiness. If insensibility and a petrified heart sufficed to make us happy, too many people who do not deserve it would be happy. By dint of reasoning and calculation we come to blaspheme against God, and to degrade his work. God gives peace to the dead; to the living he gives passion! Yes, in addition to the vulgar interests of daily life, which I am not so foolish as to expect to set aside, a certain poetry is permitted, nay, enjoined. That is the heritage of the immortal soul. And this soul must feel, and sometimes reveal itself, whether by visions that transcend the real, by aspirations that out-soar the possible, by storms, or by tears. Yes, there is suffering which is better than happiness, or, rather, which is itself happiness—that of a living creature who knows all the agonies of the heart, and all the illusions of the mind, and who accepts these noble torments with an equable mind and a fraternal heart. That is the romance which every one who claims to be a man, and to justify that claim, may, and indeed is bound to put into his life.
And, after all, this boasted peace will not be hers. The marriage of two stolid hearts, of two frozen imaginations, may produce the calm of lifelessness. I can believe that, but the union of life with death cannot be endured without a horrible oppression and ceaseless anguish.
In the midst of these personal miseries, which increased each day in intensity, my only refuge was my poor old friend, Mlle. de Porhoët. She did not know, or pretended not to know, the state of my heart; but with her remote and perhaps involuntary allusions she touched my bleeding wounds with a woman's light and delicate hand. And this soul, the living symbol of sacrifice and resignation, which seemed already to float above our earth, had a detachment, a calmness, and a gentle firmness, which seemed to descend on me. I came to understand her innocent delusion, and to share it with something of the same simplicity. Bent over the album, I wandered with her for hours through the cloisters of her cathedral, and breathed for a while the vague perfumes of an ideal serenity.
I further found at the old lady's house another kind of distraction. Habit gives an interest to every kind of work. To prevent Mlle. de Porhoët from suspecting the final loss of her case, I regularly continued the exploration of the family archives. Among the confused mass I occasionally came across traditions, legends, and traces of old-world customs which awakened my curiosity and carried back my thoughts to far-off days remote from the crushing reality of life. My perseverance maintained Mlle. de Porhoët in her illusions, and she was grateful to me beyond my deserts. For I had come to take an interest in this work—-now practically useless—which repaid me for all my trouble, and gave me a wholesome distraction from my grief.
As the fateful day approached, Mlle. Marguerite lost the feverish vivacity which had seemed to inspire her since the date of the marriage had been fixed, and relapsed at times into the fits of indolence and sombre reverie formerly habitual to her. Once or twice I surprised her watching me in wondering perplexity. Mme. Laroque, too, often looked at me with an anxious and hesitating air, as if she wished and yet feared to discuss some painful subject with me. The day before yesterday I found myself by chance alone with her in the salon, which Mlle. Hélouin had just left to give some order. The trivial conversation in which we had been engaged ceased suddenly, as by common consent. After a short silence, Mme. Laroque said, in a voice full of emotion:
"M. Odiot, you are not wise in your choice of confidants."
"Confidants, madame? I do not follow you. Except Mlle. de Porhoët, I have had no confidant in this place."
"Alas!" she replied, "I wish to believe you ... I do believe you ... but that is not enough——"
At this moment Mlle. Hélouin came in, and no more could be said.