"You understand that I would not wish to have to be sorry for you, in my turn, for a reason like this. It was to avoid it that I came here, as much humiliated by my apprehensions as I was proud on the day of the marriage. You have no plan of the sort, you tell me, my child? So much the better! But I have become excessively apprehensive; I am afraid of characters like yours, which may be inclined to do too well. Sometimes a little pride enters into the good or the noble things that we do. Do you understand?"
[XXXV]
Mme. de Blauve had taken her leave with these words, and Odette, still breathless at the thought that there could be any question of her marrying, a little ruffled, even, remembered only the secret discomfiture confessed to by the mother of the poor little bride. It was one more cause of horror added to all those of which she was the daily witness. Her calamity had doubtless shaken Mme. de Blauve's spirit to the point of causing in her mind a sort of hallucination as to the fate which might be threatening the young widow. Or else Mme. de Blauve had made the most of slight rumors with no basis of truth, as a pretext for coming to confess her own anxiety. Or else—a conjecture which barely touched Odette's mind—Mme. de Blauve, as she had herself intimated, always erring through pride, felt a frightful satisfaction in the dangers with which she and her family were perpetually menaced, jealously guarding this bitter eminence, lest it might be seized upon by others! For one can come even to such a point.
What analogy could there be between the marriage of the little de Blauve girl, an ignorant child, with one of the most horribly mutilated of soldiers, and an imaginary marriage between her, Odette, who was going on to her thirtieth year, with a blinded man who was not disfigured? Young girls, women, were marrying blinded men every day; many more of them would do so, one must hope! The case might indeed be peculiarly delicate for her, a widow still in love with her husband, and who was peculiarly sensitive to blindness; but if the case ever occurred it was she alone who had the right to judge of it. No one knew either the lasting nature of her grief or her personal repugnances; the matter in no slightest degree deserved attention.
In fact, at the point that Odette had reached, she could imagine no limit to devotion. In the marriages now in question, there was no mention of anything that had formerly been called happiness; the only thought was of kindliness toward most deserving beings who were suffering under the greatest of misfortunes, and the greater their misfortune, the greater, it appeared, ought to be the pleasure of alleviating it. She did not approve of Mme. de Blauve, if it was she who had urged her daughter to a marriage of charity, but she could perfectly understand the daughter's having made such a marriage. If a temporary check now and then occurred, it was due to a pathological condition which would eventually cease. She recalled to mind one of her friends, a perfectly well-balanced girl, married to a very fine man whom she adored, who had taken a dislike to her husband during the whole period of her pregnancy, without in the least knowing why.
A few days later Odette received a letter from Mme. de Calouas, still in Surville, alluding to the prospect of her marriage to a blinded officer. So the utterly unfounded rumor had made its way to the depths of Normandy! And Mme. de Calouas, who was wisdom itself, and utterly removed from any suggestion that might have acted upon Mme. de Blauve, wrote to her as Mme. de Blauve had spoken: "Yes, dear friend, marry; I have never concealed from you that it is almost your duty. But beware of an excess of zeal! Take care not to undertake more than a woman of your temperament, brought up as you have been, attached to a beloved memory as you still are, will be able to endure. Remember that many of us can be heroic for a few seconds, a few hours, a few days, but that is very different from a whole lifetime."
Odette smiled, not only at the thought of what people were thinking of her, but at the solicitude which they expressed for her, and that sort of obsession for heroic acts which every one seemed to cherish. Odette had not the slightest intention of performing a heroic act. Nothing in her character had ever inclined her in that direction. Her heart was made for loving. She loved, she was sure that she loved. The one whom she loved was her husband—her Jean. She could ill analyze the character of the tenderness which at the same time she felt for every suffering creature on earth. And that was all. What would they have of her?
[XXXVI]
Nevertheless she continued to be disturbed by the strange rumor which had been set afloat, which was still afloat, and she promised herself to speak about it to Clotilde, who without doubt had been the cause of its diffusion.
On drawing near to the house in which Clotilde lived, she met Lieutenant Avvogade guiding his blinded man by the arm. She had not so much as thought of avoiding such an encounter.