I made a quick gesture, and was about to express the repugnance such a prospect inspired. But I stopped. It was better, no matter in what way, he should be stimulated by some object to be attained by the laborious efforts to which he devoted all his faculties. I allowed him, therefore, to dream of the jewels he would adorn me with, and enlarge on his plans for the future, while I was sitting beside him in his studio, sometimes reading to him, and sometimes becoming his model again. Whenever he spoke in this way, I smiled without trying to oppose him.
Mme. de Kergy and Diana hastened to see me the day after my arrival. We continued to meet almost daily, and I found in their delightful society the strongest support, the wisest counsels, and an affection which inspired almost unlimited confidence.
As to Gilbert, he was still absent, and not expected to return till the autumn of the following year.
When his mother gave me this information, my first feeling was one of relief. It seemed to me my relations with his family were simplified by his absence, and I could defer all thought as to what I should do at his return. But, when I saw my dear, venerable friend secretly wipe away a tear as she spoke of her son; when she added in a trembling voice that such a separation at her age was a severe trial which afflicted her more than any she had ever known; when Diana afterwards came to tell me with a full heart that Gilbert's absence was shortening her mother's days, oh! then my heart sank with profound sorrow, and I felt an ardent, painful desire to repair the evil I had caused—an evil which (whatever may be said) is never altogether involuntary!
Ah! if women would only consider how far their fatal influence sometimes extends, even those who add hardness of heart to their desire to please would become indifferent to the wish. They scarcely hesitate sometimes to sacrifice a man's career, his abilities, his whole existence. Vanity and pride take pleasure in ravages of this kind. But if their eyes could behold the firesides they quench the light of, the maternal hearts they sadden, the families whose sweet joys they destroy, their trophies would seem bloody, and they might be brought to comprehend the words of the Psalmist which I had humbly learned to repeat: Ab occultis meis munda me, et ab alienis parce servo tuo.
Lorenzo's celebrity increased by the productions he now exhibited to the public. The singularity of our position in returning to Paris, under circumstances so different from those which surrounded us when we made our first appearance in the grand monde, drew upon us the attention of this very world which would have enticed us from our retreat. But, thank Heaven! I did not have to exert my influence over Lorenzo to induce him to decline it. His pride would have been sufficient, had not his whole time been absorbed in his labors, and it was even with difficulty he consented to accompany me one evening to the Hôtel de Kergy.
From that time, however, he willingly repeated his visits, attracted by Mme. de Kergy's dignified cordiality and simplicity of manner as well as by the charm of the intellectual circle of which her salon [pg 785] was the centre—a charm he would have always appreciated had he not been under the influence of another attraction. Now there was no counteracting influence, and he took fresh pleasure every evening in going there to repose after the fatigue of the day and seek something more beneficial to his mind than mere recreation.
A person endowed with noble gifts, who returns to the right path after long going astray, experiences an immense consolation in finding himself in his true element. It would, therefore, be impossible to tell how great Lorenzo's joy now was, or how eloquently he was able to express it. And nothing could express the feelings with which I listened to him!
The only shadow of my life at this time was my separation from Stella. A thousand times did I urge her to join me, as she was no longer under any obligation to remain at Naples. I felt that the only possible solace for her broken heart would be to leave the place where she had suffered so much; her courageous soul would find a salutary aliment in the great charitable movement at Paris, at that time in all the vigor of its first impulse, given a few years before. I therefore continually urged her to come, but I begged her in vain. An invincible repugnance to leave the place of refuge where she had hidden her grief prevented her from yielding to my wishes.
Thus passed days, weeks, months, yes, even a whole year and more of happiness. The satisfactory life I had dreamed of was now a reality, and the world I once fancied I could reveal to Lorenzo unaided he had discovered himself. It had been revealed to him by trials, humiliation, and labor. The absolute change in his habits, which Lando had once indicated as the only remedy, had, as he had foreseen, produced a beneficial, efficacious, and lasting effect.