Clement left Mademoiselle Josephine at her door, and hastened back, struggling against the new tempest excited in his breast by the words he had just heard. Hitherto, in consequence of the impressions left by his meeting with Count George, and the prestige he had acquired in his eyes from the very attachment of his cousin, Clement had always regarded him as a superior being, to whom it merely seemed right, in the unpretending simplicity of his heart, that his humble affection should be sacrificed. To doubt him worthy of her—to fear that, beloved by her, he could cease to love in return, had never occurred to him, and mademoiselle had quite unwittingly thrust a warm blade into his bleeding heart. To admit such a thought would absolutely shake the foundations of his devotion and add despair to abnegation. He therefore repelled the thought with a kind of terror, and by way of reassuring himself he began to recall all the remembrances that once were so torturing. He took pleasure in dreaming of the devotion of which his rival was the object, the better to persuade himself it was absolutely contrary to the nature of things he could ever be ungrateful.
Fleurange's reflections at the same hour were of a different nature. Somewhat recovered from the successive [pg 309] emotions of the day, she could now freely indulge in the secret joy with which her heart overflowed. She was at last free!—free to think of George—at liberty to love him and to confess it! The feeling so long repressed, fought against, and concealed, could now be indulged in without restraint! A few weeks more, and she would be with him!—She would be his!—All horror of the fate she was going to participate in was lost in the thought of bestowing on him, in the hour of abandonment and misfortune, all the treasures of her devotion and love, and this appeared a sweeter realization of her dreams than if united to him in the midst of all the éclat that rank and fortune surrounded him with!—
Ah! Madre Maddalena was right in thinking hers was not a heart called to the supreme honor of loving God alone, of bestowing on him that ineffable love which does not suffer the contact of any other affection, that unique love which, if it has not always been supreme, blots out, as soon as it springs up, all other love, as the sun causes the darkness to flee away and return no more to its presence!... “Whosoever loveth, knoweth the cry of this voice.”[132]
It was this voice which spoke directly to Madre Maddalena's heart. Fleurange did not hear it so distinctly, even while silently listening to it apart from the noise of the world, though by no means deaf to the divine inspirations. She was pure: she was pious and steadfast: she had a fervent and courageous heart—a heart shut against evil, which preferred nothing to God, but which was ardently susceptible to affection when she could yield to it without remorse. This is doubtless the appointed way for nearly all, even among the best, and it is the ordinary path of virtue. But we would observe here that it is not the path of exquisite and inexpressible happiness already referred to, and we moreover add that, when a soul is inclined to make an idol of the object of its love, and place it on too frail a foundation, it is not rare that suffering—suffering whose severity is in proportion to the beauty and purity of the soul—leads it back sooner or later to that point where it sees the true centre to which, even unknown to ourselves, we all aspire, and which all human passion, even the most noble and most legitimate in the world, makes us lose sight of.
Fleurange perhaps had a confused intuition of this, and it made her look upon the frightful conditions on which happiness was vouchsafed her as a kind of expiation, which she accepted with joy, hoping thereby to assure the permanence of the love that overruled all other sentiments.
After Gabrielle's conversation with Princess Catherine, the state of the latter underwent a salutary change. Her physical sufferings, and her grief itself, seemed suspended. A fresh activity was aroused as soon as she perceived a way of exerting herself for her son, and entering into almost direct communication with him. Let us add to these motives the princess' natural taste for the extraordinary, and we shall comprehend that Fleurange's heroic resolution afforded her an interesting distraction, and, at the same time, a source of activity which was useful and beneficial.
She made every arrangement herself. They were forced to allow her to direct all the preparations for the long journey the young girl was going to undertake. She and her elderly companion were to go as far as St. Petersburg in one of the princess' [pg 310] best carriages, and everything that would enable Fleurange to bear the severe cold on the way was anxiously prepared. At St. Petersburg, it was decided she should take up her residence in the princess' house until the day—the terrible day of the departure that must follow.
All this was transmitted by the princess to the Marquis Adelardi, whom she charged to receive and protect Gabrielle. Moreover, he must find means of announcing to George the unexpected alleviation Heaven granted to his misfortunes.
As to the steps to be taken in order to obtain the necessary permission for the accomplishment of this strange lugubrious marriage, and for the newly-made wife to accompany her condemned husband, the princess thought the most successful course would be to obtain for Gabrielle an audience of the empress.
“Either I am very much deceived,” wrote the princess, “or her heart will be touched by such heroic devotion, by Gabrielle's appearance, and the charm there is about her, and perhaps even by a remnant of pity for my poor George. Something tells me this pity still survives the favor he showed himself unworthy of, and that the day will perchance come when I can appeal to her with success. Obtain my son's pardon!—behold him again!—Yes, in spite of everything, I hope, I believe, I may say I feel sure, that sooner or later this happiness will be granted me, unless so much sorrow shortens my life. Nevertheless, the effect of this terrible sentence, should he incur its penalty only for a day, will never be effaced. I feel it. My hopes for him have all vanished, never to return. How, then, could I hesitate to accept Gabrielle's generous sacrifice—to accept it at first with a transport of enthusiasm which, I confess, I was seized with when, with indescribable words and accents, she so unexpectedly begged my consent on her knees, but afterwards deliberately, and, in consideration of the strange and painful circumstances in which we are situated, with sincere gratitude?”