“Fatal blindness! I preferred his anger to his indifference! When I had once sinned, I cannot attempt to tell you what took place within me; I tried to deceive myself as to the enormity of my sin; I lived in a never-ending whirl of dissipation, afraid to reflect, doing my utmost to put Henri in the wrong, to convince myself that he had betrayed me a hundred times, and, for all that, realizing perfectly that I had destroyed my own peace of mind forever. When my husband learned the truth, I did not stoop to try to obtain forgiveness by tears. No, I preferred to try to deceive myself still.—Great heaven! what must he have thought of my heart on reading the two letters that I wrote him! A woman who detested him would not have written differently. But, as if I were not already guilty enough, I tried still to make him believe that I felt no repentance for what I had done. I continued to go into society. ‘He will know it,’ I said to myself; ‘he will think that I am happy without him;’ and that thought strengthened me to hold myself in check in the midst of the crowd and to affect a gayety which was so far from my heart. But I knew nothing of his duel and his illness. Those two things, which I learned at almost the same time, made it impossible for me to put any further constraint on myself; it seemed to me that a bandage fell from my eyes. The thought that I might have caused his death terrified me. From that moment the world became hateful to me! I realized the depth of my wrongdoing; when I knew you and heard what you said, I found that I had suspected Henri unjustly, that he really loved me when I believed that he was unfaithful to me. He loved me, and it was by my own fault that I lost his love! Oh! madame, that thought is killing me—and you expect me to cease weeping!”
“But why shouldn’t you consent to let us mention you to him, to let us try to move him?”
“Oh, no! that is impossible; somebody else has tried it already, and to no purpose, as I have told you. That young woman, Mademoiselle Caroline Derbin, whom he met, I believe, at Mont-d’Or,—that young woman, who thought that he was a bachelor at first, learned, I don’t know how, that he was my husband; then, believing that it was he who had abandoned me, she begged him, implored him, to return to me. I was near them, without their knowing it, in the courtyard of the inn; I overheard all their conversation. He was kind enough also to allow himself to be blamed for wrongs of which he was not guilty; he did not try to disabuse her with regard to me. But, when she begged him to return to me, I heard him say: ‘We are parted forever!’—Ah! those cruel words echoed in the depths of my heart, and I cannot understand why they did not kill me, although I had lost all hope of obtaining forgiveness.”
“There is nothing to prove that his answer to Mademoiselle Derbin represents his opinion to-day. I told you how he had changed to his son, poor little Eugène, whom he would hardly look at when he first came here; now he seems as fond of him as of his daughter.”
“Oh! since I first sinned, I have known but one moment’s happiness—that was when I learned that he no longer refused to take his son in his arms! Poor child! because your mother was guilty, could your father treat you as a stranger all your life? But I solemnly swear that I was without reproach when my son was born, and Henri can safely take him in his arms!”
What I had heard caused me such intense pleasure that I cannot describe it; I had to lean against the window; for joy often takes away all our strength. Luckily Marguerite continued the conversation; they did not hear the movement that I was unable to restrain.
“What makes me hope that Monsieur Blémont may yet forgive you, madame, is the pains that he has taken to conceal your wrongdoing. Nobody knows anything about it; he alone has incurred all the blame.”
“Oh! he has done that for the honor of his name, for his children; but do not infer from that that he will forgive me. Henri loved me too dearly—and I wrecked his life! No, I entreat you again, never speak to him about me! Let him forget me—but let him love his children! Is not that all that I can ask? Thanks to your kindness—to your compassion for me—I can at least see him. Hidden in the summer-house which you have given me, I can look into the garden through a hole in the shutters. Henri often walks there; sometimes I hear his voice, I see him with his children.—Then—oh! madame, such joy and such agony as I feel!—Had I not a place between my children and him?—And I can never occupy it again!”
“Poor Eugénie! Calm yourself, for heaven’s sake.”
“Oh, yes! I must restrain my sobs, for I don’t want to disturb my children’s sleep. I can kiss them every night; that is my sole consolation; but they do not call me their mother any more. Oh! madame, it is ghastly never to hear that name!”