“Yes, Maman.”
Then, after giving orders for having the phaeton horses ready at the right time and for having the apartment prepared, the countess went back inside and shut herself up in her room.
Her life till now had been spent almost without suffering, varied only by Olivier’s affection and agitated only by the desire to retain it. She had succeeded, had been always victorious in that struggle. Her heart, lulled by success and flattery, having become the exacting organ of a lovely worldling to whom are due all the sweets of earth, after consenting to a brilliant marriage with which inclination had nothing to do, after later having accepted love as the complement of a happy existence, after having resigned herself to a guilty affection, mainly from impulse and a little from a worship of sentiment itself, as a compensation for the daily treadmill of existence—her heart had taken up a position, had barricaded itself in the happiness chance had given her, with no other desire than to defend itself against the surprises of each day. She had, therefore, accepted with a pretty woman’s complacence the agreeable conditions that presented themselves, and, venturing but little, tormented but little by new wants and longings for the unknown, though loving, tenacious, and cautious, content with the present, apprehensive by nature of the future, had known how to enjoy the benefits furnished her by Destiny with sparing and sagacious prudence.
Now, little by little, without her daring even to realize it, the indistinct prepossessions of passing days, of advancing years had slipped into her soul. It had, in her mind, the effect of a little ceaseless irritation. But well knowing that this descent of life was without interruption, that once begun it could no longer be stayed, yielding to the instinct of danger, she closed her eyes as she let herself slip along, that she might preserve her dream, that she might not be made giddy by the abyss or desperate by her helplessness.
She lived on, therefore, smiling, with a sort of factitious pride in preserving her beauty so long; and when Annette appeared by her side with the freshness of her eighteen years, instead of suffering from this association, she was proud, on the contrary, of the fact that she should be preferred in the accomplished grace of her maturity to that blooming young girl in the radiant freshness of her early years.
She had even thought herself at the beginning of a happy and tranquil period when the death of her mother came: an overwhelming blow to her heart. During the first days it was that profound despair which leaves room for no other thought. She remained from morning till night buried in her desolation, endeavoring to recall a thousand incidents connected with the dead, her familiar expressions, her former faces, the dresses she once wore, as if she had stowed her memory with relics, and she gathered from the past, now out of sight, all the intimate and trifling recollections with which she might feed her cruel reveries. Then, when she had reached such paroxysms of despair that at every instant they culminated in fainting fits, all that accumulated grief gushed out in tears, and day and night they flowed from her eyes.
One morning, as her maid had just entered and opened the blinds and raised the shades, asking, “How does madame feel today?” she answered, feeling utter exhaustion and lassitude as the result of so much weeping, “Oh, not at all well. Really, I can bear no more.”
The servant, who was holding the tea tray, stared at her mistress, and affected by the sight of her pale face against the whiteness of the bed, stammered in a voice of sincere sadness, “Indeed, madame looks very poorly. Madame would do well to take care of herself.” The tone in which these words were spoken affected the countess like the pricking of a needle, and as soon as the maid had gone, she rose to look at her face in the large mirror.
She was stupefied before herself, frightened by her hollow cheeks, her red eyes, the havoc created by these few days of suffering.
A face she knew so well, which she had so often gazed upon in many mirrors, with whose every expression, every smile she was familiar, whose pallor she had already corrected many times, repairing the minor fatigues, effacing the faint wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, perceptible in too strong a light—this face suddenly seemed to her that of another woman, a new face that was distorted, decomposed, irreparably diseased.
To see herself better, to ascertain more accurately this unexpected evil, she approached the glass close enough to touch it with her forehead, so that her breath, covering the mirror with a vapor, obscured and almost blotted out the pallid image she was contemplating. She took a handkerchief to wipe off the mist of her breath, and trembling with a strange emotion, she patiently examined the alterations in her face; with a hesitant finger she stretched the skin of her cheeks, smoothed her forehead, pushed back her hair, raised her eyelids to see the whites of the eyes. Then she opened her mouth to examine her teeth, which were a little tarnished where gold points were shining, and was troubled by the livid gums and the yellowish tint of the flesh above the cheeks and the wrinkles across the temples. So intent was she upon this inspection of waning beauty that she failed to hear the door open and was violently startled when her maid, standing behind her, said, “Madame has forgotten to take her tea.”
The countess turned around, confused, surprised, ashamed, and the servant, guessing her thought, continued, “Madame has wept too much. There is nothing worse than draining the skin. It turns the blood to water.”
As the countess was adding sadly, “There is age as well,” the maid replied, “Oh! Madame has not reached that point. With a few days of rest, no trace will be left. But madame must go walking, and be very careful not to weep.”
As soon as she was dressed, the countess went down to the park, and for the first time since her mother’s death, she visited the little orchard where she had once enjoyed cultivating and gathering flowers; then she reached the river and walked along the banks until breakfast.
As she sat down at the table opposite her husband, by the side of her daughter, she said, so that she might learn their opinion, “I feel better today. I must be less pale.”
The count answered, “Oh, you still look quite ill.”
At this the countess’s heart shriveled and tears began to fill her eyes, for she had contracted the habit of weeping.
Till evening and throughout the next day, and the following day, whether she thought of her mother or herself, she felt at every instant sobs filling her throat and tears rising to her eyes; but to prevent them from overflowing and furrowing her cheeks she held them back, and by a superhuman effort of the will, shifting her mind to different subjects, ruling it, controlling it, keeping it away from her grief, she endeavored to console, to amuse herself, to no longer think of sad things in order to regain the healthfulness of her complexion.
Above all, she did not wish to return to Paris and meet Olivier Bertin before she was herself again. Understanding that she had grown too thin, that for women of her age the flesh must be full to be kept fresh, she sought for an appetite in the roads and neighboring woods, and though she would return fatigued and without hunger, would yet try to eat more.
The count, who wished to be off again, could not at all understand her obstinacy. Finally, finding her resistance implacable, he declared that he would go away alone, leaving the countess free to return whenever she might feel disposed.
The next day she received the dispatch announcing Olivier’s arrival. So much did she fear his first glance that she was seized with a desire to flee. She longed to hold off for another week or two: In a week, with good care, one’s appearance may change entirely, for women, even when healthy and young, are, under the least stress, unrecognizable from one day to the next. But the idea of appearing before Olivier in the full light of the sun, in the open fields, in the August weather, and next to Annette whose looks were flourishing, made the countess so uneasy that she decided at once not to go to the station, and to await Olivier in the softened light of the drawing room.
She had gone up to her room and now lived in a dream. Breaths of heat occasionally stirred the curtains. The song of the crickets fill
ed the air. Yet never had she felt so sad. It was no longer the great overwhelming blow that had broken her heart, that had torn her apart, prostrating her before the soulless body of her old, beloved mother. That grief, which she once believed incurable, had in a few days softened until it was no more than a remembered sorrow; yet at this moment she felt carried away, drowned in an endless wave of melancholy which she had entered gradually and from which she felt she would never escape.
She had a desire, an irresistible desire to weep—yet would not. Each time she felt her eyes moisten, she wiped them quickly, stood up, walked, looked into the park, out upon the tall forest trees and the slow black flight of the crows against the blue sky.
Then she passed before her mirror, judged herself with a glance, effaced the trace of a tear by a touch of the powder puff, and looked at the clock, trying to imagine what point of the route he must have reached by now.
Like all women who are carried away by the soul’s distress, whether irrational or real, she clung to her lover’s appearance with desperate tenderness. Was he not everything to her—more than life itself, a being who becomes the sole object of her heart although she already feels herself to be in the shadow of advancing years?
Suddenly the distant crack of a whip sent her to the window where she saw the phaeton drawn by two horses at a brisk pace as it circled the lawn. Seated at Annette’s side in the back of the carriage, Olivier’s eager handkerchief responded to the countess already waving both hands in salutation. Then she descended from her seat, her heart pounding but happy now, quivering with the joy of knowing him so near, of seeing him, of speaking to him.
They met in the antechamber before the drawing-room door. He opened his arms to her and with a voice warmed by sincere emotion he said, “Ah, my poor countess, permit me to embrace you.”
She closed her eyes, leaned forward, pressing close to him and lifting her face, and as his lips touched her cheeks she whispered in his ear, “I love thee.”
Olivier, without freeing the hands he had pressed, examined her, saying, “Let’s have a look at that sad face.”
She was ready to faint. He continued, “Yes, a bit pale—but that’s nothing.”
To thank him, she murmured, “Ah, dear friend, dear friend,” finding no other words.
But he had turned around, looking behind him for Annette, who had disappeared, and then, speaking brusquely, said to the countess, “Isn’t it strange, eh, to see your daughter in mourning?”
“Why should that be so?”
And he exclaimed with extraordinary animation, “How should it be why? But it’s your portrait, painted by me! It’s my portrait! It’s you on entering the duchess’s house, eh! Do you remember that door where you passed under my gaze, like a frigate under the cannon of a fort? Sacristi! When I noticed that little one at the station, just now, standing on the platform, all in black, with the sunshine of her hair around her face, my heart gave a leap. I thought I was going to weep. I tell you it’s enough to drive one mad, when one’s known you as I have, looked at you better than anybody, and reproduced you in a painting, madame. Ah, indeed, I felt quite sure you’d sent her alone to me at the station to give me that surprise. God in heaven! How astonished I was. I tell you, it’s enough to drive one mad.” He called, “Annette! Nanette!”
The young girl, who was feeding the horses sugar, answered from outside, “Here I am.”
“Do come here.”
She hastened to obey the summons. “Here, stand over here, near your mother.” He placed her there and compared them, but he was repeating mechanically, without conviction, “Yes, it’s astounding, astonishing even,” for they resembled each other less side by side than they did before they left Paris, the young girl having taken on an expression of luminous youth in that black dress, while the mother had long since lost the sheen of hair and complexion which had dazzled and intoxicated the painter when they’d met the first time.
Then the countess and he entered the drawing room. He seemed radiant.
“Ah, what a capital idea it was to come,” he said. Then continued, “No, it was your husband’s idea for me. He recommended that I bring you back. And I, do you know what I propose? You don’t, do you? Well, I propose, on the contrary, we remain here. With this hot weather, Paris is odious, while the country’s delicious. Heavens! how pleasant it is here.”
Eventide immersed the park in its freshness, caused the trees to tremble and the earth to exhale imperceptible vapors that drew a transparent veil over the horizon. The three cows, standing with heads lowered, were feeding avidly, and four peacocks, with a great flutter of their wings, flew up into a cedar where they were accustomed to roost under the castle windows. Dogs were barking from afar in the country, and in the quiet air of the day’s close were heard the calls of human voices, phrases thrown across the fields, from one field to another, and those short guttural cries by which beasts are guided.
The painter, bareheaded, eyes shining, was breathing deeply, and as he caught the countess’s glance he said, “This is happiness.”
She came nearer. “It never lasts.”
“Let’s take it when it comes.”
And she, then, with a smile, said, “Until now you didn’t like the country.”
“I like it because I find you in it. I could no longer live where you . . . aren’t. When you’re young, you may be in love from afar, through letters, or thoughts, or pure exaltation, perhaps because you feel life before you, perhaps also because passion calls more vehemently than the heart. At my age, on the contrary, love’s become the habit of an invalid; it’s a bandaging of the soul which, almost done for, takes less frequent flights into the air. The heart no longer answers to ecstasies but speaks in selfish exigencies. And then I feel very keenly that I have no time to lose for the enjoyment of what’s left me.”
“Oh! Old!” she said, taking his hand.
He went on, “Yes indeed, I’m old. Everything shows it—my hair, my changing character, the sadness that is approaching. Sacristi! That’s one thing I hadn’t known thus far: sadness. If I’d been told when I was thirty that someday I’d become causelessly sad, uneasy, discontented with everything, I’d never have believed it. That too proves that my heart has grown old.”
She replied with an air of profound certainty, “Oh! As for me, my heart feels quite young. It hasn’t changed. Or maybe it’s grown younger. It was twenty once; it is only sixteen now.”
They remained a long while thus, talking in the open window, mingled with the soul of evening, very near one another, nearer than they had ever been, in this hour of tenderness—this twilight of their love, as of the day.
A servant entered, announcing, “Madame la Comtesse is served.”
She asked, “You’ve called my daughter?”
“Mademoiselle is in the dining room.”
They all three sat down at the table. The shutters were closed, and two big chandeliers, each with half a dozen candles, lit Annette’s face and seemed to cover her head with gold dust. Bertin, smiling, did not take his eyes off her.
“Heavens! How pretty she is in black,” he said, and he turned toward the countess while admiring the daughter, as if to thank the mother for affording him that pleasure.
When they returned to the drawing room the moon had risen over the trees of the park. The somber mass seemed like a large island, and the country beyond resembled a sea hidden under the light mist that floated on the surface of the plains.
“Oh, Maman, can we take a walk?”
The countess assented.
“May I take Julio?”
“Yes, if you like.”
They went out, the young girl walking ahead, playing with the dog. When they neared the lawn they heard the breathing of the cows which, now awake and scenting their enemy, were raising their heads to look. Under the trees, farther on, the moon was dripping among the branches a shower of fine beams that seemed to wet the leaves and reached the ground in little yellow pools along the road. Annette and
Julio were running through them, and in this transparent darkness seemed to have identical carefree hearts, their exuberance expressing itself in eager leaps.
In the open places, where the lunar wave descended as if into a well, the young girl passed like a ghost, and the painter called her back, amazed by this dark vision with its radiant face. Then, when she started to run again, he would press the countess’s hand, and often seek her as they crossed denser shadows, as if the sight of Annette revived the impatience of his heart.
They finally reached the edge of the plain where they could barely discern in the distance, here and there, the clumps of trees around the farmhouses. Across the milky mist that covered the fields the horizon seemed boundless, and the soft living silence of that warm luminous space was full of inexpressible hope, that indefinable expectancy which makes summer nights so very sweet. High in the sky, some long slender clouds seemed made of silver shells. Standing motionless a few seconds, one could hear in that nocturnal peace the confused and continuous murmur of life—a thousand feeble sounds whose harmony at first resembled silence.
A quail in a neighboring meadow was sounding her double cry, and Julio, ears raised, stole away toward the bird’s two flutelike notes, Annette following as silently as the dog, holding her breath and bending low.
“Ah,” said the countess, now left alone with the painter, “why must such moments pass so quickly? One can hold on to nothing, one can keep nothing. There’s never time to taste what’s good—it’s already over.”
Olivier kissed her hand and replied, smiling, “Oh! I can’t philosophize this evening. I belong only to the present moment.”
“You don’t love me as I love you,” she murmured.
“Oh, why do you say—”
She interrupted him, saying, “No, in me you love, as you put it so well before dinner, a woman who satisfies the wants of your heart, a woman who’s never caused you pain and who’s managed to put a little happiness into your life. That I know, that I feel. Yes, I have the consciousness, the deep joy of having been good and useful and helpful to you. And you’ve loved, you still love, all that you find in me: my solicitude for you, my admiration, my desire to please you, my passion—the complete gift I’ve made to you of myself. But that’s not me you love, don’t you understand that? Oh! I feel that the way you feel a cold draft. In me you love so many things—my beauty, which is fading, my devotion, the wit people say they find in me, the opinion the world has of me, the opinion I have of you in my heart—but that’s not me, that’s nothing of myself. Can’t you understand that?”