While she was talking, all the princess’ resentment vanished, and changed gradually to profound gratitude. Looking at Fleurange as she stood before her, she realized, if she had wished to abuse her ascendency or even take advantage of it, no filial respect would have sufficed to bring George to submission: no maternal authority have succeeded in restraining him. Whatever it might cost her to acknowledge it, she could not deny that, if this double wound was spared her pride and her affection, it was due to the generous disinterestedness of her whom she had just treated with so much haughtiness, as well as to her clear judgment. Yes, she was perfectly right in thinking it would not do to disappear and suddenly tear herself away, as it were, from George. The princess knew, better than any one else, to what degree of tenacity this kind of contradiction might lead her son, and it was precisely this knowledge of his character alone that had just given her the power of restraining herself in his presence. The means suggested by Fleurange was therefore the best to ensure his future safety. The princess’ great hope was in the mobility of George’s nature, provided, on the one hand, he were withdrawn from the dangerous charm of Fleurange’s presence, and, on the other, they did not appear separated by the prestige of a great obstacle. Nothing, in fact, could be more judicious than the advice this young girl gave contrary to her own interests. She was too much a woman of the world not to comprehend this, and was grateful to her for it. Once more she might hope to attain the aim of her whole life, and with this end in view she yielded without remorse to the necessity of trampling under foot the noble heart that was immolating itself. We will even venture to affirm that, if she was preoccupied with anything beyond the present danger, it was not Fleurange’s crushed life, but rather the effect of this unfortunate occurrence on her own comfort and habits. Nevertheless, when they separated at the end of this long conversation, the princess folded Fleurange in her arms with many demonstrations of affection, and when the latter was once more alone in her chamber she felt comparatively happy. She abhorred all dissimulation, and the important step she had just taken in the path of courageous frankness seemed to have removed a burden from her heart. She was still in that state of somewhat excessive satisfaction which succeeds a great effort, when, in entering her chamber, she threw down the bouquet she had in her hand. In doing so, a paper she had not noticed fell from it to the floor. She picked it up with some surprise, opened it mechanically, saw the writing was unknown to her, and read it without comprehending it at first:
“To live without the power of reparation: to suffer without being able to expiate: are these torments that belong to earth, or hell? Not far from you a man lives and suffers thus. You who pray, pray for him!”
Fleurange read and re-read these words two or three times without attaching any special importance to them. Suddenly she shuddered and began to tremble. The concluding words were the refrain of a song sung at one of the soirées at the Old Mansion in the hearing of the only person she knew in the world who had reason to write the other part of the note she had just read.
But was it possible! Could it have been Felix, her guilty and unhappy cousin, who wrote it, and this very evening placed it in her bouquet? Was it his hand that threw it? At this thought she shivered as if the shadow of one dead had fallen upon her. Or was it simply a mystification? The history of the Dornthals’ ruin was not wholly unknown at Florence. Perhaps some one wished to frighten or puzzle her. She grew bewildered in trying to unravel this new mystery. How solve the doubt? How even speak of it without reviving a hateful remembrance, or making a painful revelation?
She finally bethought herself of Julian’s presence at Florence, and this relieved her mind: he would be able to discover the truth, and know better than any one else how to avoid injuring in his researches the unhappy man who was perhaps this very moment hiding not far from her a blasted and dishonored life.
If the Princess Catherine had been told the previous evening she was about to be deprived of her charming companion, the news would have been sufficient to cause a return of the alarming symptoms from which, thanks to her care, she had but just recovered. But greater interests than her fondness for Gabrielle were at stake, and her selfishness itself was overruled, or, rather, assumed another form, in view of the danger she reproached herself for not having foreseen, and which threatened an essential element in her happiness, as well as the accomplishment of one of her dearest wishes.
Not to be unjust to the princess, we must acknowledge this wish was reasonable, and in her persistency on this point she gave as great a proof of genuine maternal sagacity as of worldly ambition. We should also add that the wish in question was in accordance with one sacred in her eyes—the wish of the adored husband of her youth. His memory was interwoven with her earlier days, when her life, simpler and better, promised to be something higher than succeeding years had realized.
After she became a widow, she had no guide but herself, and when, beautiful, wealthy, and still young, she appeared in the fashionable world at St. Petersburg, her light and frivolous nature had no restraint but her pride. In the height of the intoxication of this second epoch of her life, she always respected the limits the fashionable world itself sets, and beyond which refuses its consideration and respect, even while still lavishing its flattery and incense. Her pride, in particular, prevented her from transgressing these limits—that was the dominant trait in her character—and prompted her to aim at the highest position at all times and in all places. And after conferring on her life a kind of dignity, it guided her in the choice of a second husband. She thought herself happy in obtaining rank, honors, and wealth, but she soon found she had paid too dear for these advantages; and perhaps she would not have passed through the trials of an ill-assorted union as irreproachably as the period of liberty that preceded it, if, at the end of two years, death had not restored that liberty a second time.
After this, nothing occurred to trouble the brilliant and prosperous course of a life which, in spite of generous instincts and a mind considerably cultivated, was given wholly up to frivolity, with the exception of her affection for her son. But however lively and passionate this affection might be, it was wanting in the dignity of maternal authority. Her charming boy, who from his earliest years possessed every grace and attraction which nature in her most generous mood could confer, as well as a rare mind and uncommon beauty, gratified her maternal pride, which is so excessive in proud natures. The princess, proud of her promising son, did not perceive she was not obeyed as fully as she was adored; and years passed away thus till the epoch,
“Ove uom s’innamora.”