Tales and Novels Volume VIII Part 58

--"Un peu pa.s.see!" The Swiss is impertinent, and knows nothing of the matter. His master knows but little more. He would, however, know infinitely more if I could take the trouble to instruct him; to which I am almost tempted for want of something better to do. Adieu, my Gabrielle. R----'s silence is perfectly incomprehensible.

OLIVIA.

LETTER x.x.x.

OLIVIA TO MADAME DE P----.

So, my amiable Gabrielle, you are really interested in my letters, _though written during my English exile_, and you are curious to know whether any of my _potent spells_ can wake into life this man of marble.

I candidly confess you would inspire me with an ambition to raise my poor countrymen in your opinion, if I were not restrained by the sacred sentiment of friends.h.i.+p, which forbids me to rival Leonora _even_ in a husband's opinion.

However, Josephine, who feels herself a party concerned ever since her battle with the Swiss, has piqued herself upon dressing me with exquisite taste. I am every day _mise a ravir_!--and with such perfection of art, that no art appears--all is negligent simplicity.

I let Josephine please herself; for you know I am not bound to be frightful, because I have a friend whose husband may chance to turn his eye upon my figure, when he is tired of admiring hers. I rallied L---- the other day upon his having no eyes or ears but for his wife. Be a.s.sured I did it in such a manner that he could not be angry. Then I went on to a comparison between the _facility_ of French and English society. He admitted that there was some truth and more wit in my observations. I was satisfied. With these reasonable men, the grand point for a woman is to amuse them--they can have logic from their own s.e.x. But, my Gabrielle, I am summoned to the _salon_, and must finish my letter another day.

Heaven! can it be a fortnight since I wrote a line to my Gabrielle!--Where was I?--"With these reasonable men the grand point for a woman is to amuse them." True--most true! L----, believing himself only amused with my lively nonsense, indulged himself with it continually. I was to believe only what he believed. Presently he could not do without my conversation for more than two hours together. What was I to do, my Gabrielle? I walked out to avoid him. He found me in the woods--rallied me on my taste for solitude, and quoted Voltaire.

This led to a metaphysical conversation, half playful, half serious:--the distinction which a man sometimes makes to his conscience between thinking a woman entertaining, and feeling her interesting, vanishes more easily, and more rapidly, than he is aware of--at least in certain situations. This was not an observation I could make to my companion in the woods, and he certainly did not make it for himself. It would have been vanity in me to have broken off our conversation, lest he should fall in love with me--it would have been blindness not to have seen that he was in some danger. I thought of Leonora--and sighed--and did all that was in my power to put him upon his guard. By way of preservative, I frankly made him a confession of my attachment to R----.

This I imagined would put things upon a right footing for ever; but, on the contrary, by convincing him of my innocence, and of my having no designs on his heart, this candour has, I fear, endangered him still more; yet I know not what to think--his manner is so variable towards me--I must be convinced of what his sentiments are, before I can decide what my conduct ought to be. Adieu, my amiable Gabrielle; I wait for something decisive with an inexpressible degree of anxiety--I will not now call it curiosity.--Apropos, does R---- wish that I should forget that he exists? What is this business that detains him? But why do I condescend to inquire?

OLIVIA.

LETTER x.x.xI.

GENERAL B---- TO MR. L----.

MY DEAR L----, London.

I send you the horse to which you took a fancy. He has killed one of his grooms, and lamed two; but you will be his master, and I hope he will know it.

I have a word to say to you on a more serious subject. Pardon me if I tell you that I think you are a happy man, and excuse me if I add, that if you do not keep yourself so I shall not think you a wise one. A good wife is better than a good-for-nothing mistress.--A self-evident proposition!--A stupid truism! Yes; but if every man who knows a self-evident proposition when he sees it on paper, always acted as if he knew it, this would be a very wise and a very happy world; and I should not have occasion to write this letter.

You say that you are only amusing yourself at the expense of a finished coquette; take care that she does not presently divert herself at yours.--"_You are proof against French coquetry and German sentiment_."--Granted--but a fine woman?--and your own vanity?--But you have no vanity.--You call it pride then, I suppose. I will not quarrel with you for a name. Pride, properly managed, will do your business as well as vanity. And no doubt Lady Olivia knows this as well as I do. I hope you may never know it better.

I am, my dear friend,

Truly yours,

J. B.

LETTER x.x.xII.

OLIVIA TO MADAME DE P----.

L---- Castle.

Advise me, dearest Gabrielle; I am in a delicate situation; and on your judgment and purity of heart I have the most perfect reliance. Know, then, that I begin to believe that Leonora's jealousy was not so absolutely absurd as I at first supposed. She understood her husband better than I did. I begin to fear that I have made a serious impression whilst I meant only to amuse myself. Heaven is my witness, I simply intended to satisfy my curiosity, and that once gratified, it was my determination to respect the weakness I discovered. To love Leonora, as once I imagined I could, is out of my power; but to disturb her peace, to destroy her happiness, to make use of the confidence she has reposed in me, the kindness she has shown by making me an inmate of her house--my soul shudders at these ideas. No--if her husband really loves me I will fly. Leonora shall see that Olivia is incapable of treachery--that Olivia has a soul generous and delicate as her own, though free from the prejudices by which she is fettered. To Leonora a husband is a lover--I shall consider him as such, and respect her _property_. You are so little used, my dear Gabrielle, to consider a husband in this point of view, that you will scarcely enter into my feelings: but put yourself in my situation, allow for nationality of principle, and I am persuaded you would act as I shall. Spare me your raillery; seriously, if Leonora's husband is in love with me, would you not advise me, my dearest friend, to fly him, "far as pole from pole?"

Write to me, I conjure you, my Gabrielle--write instantly, and tell me whether R----is now at Paris. I will return thither immediately if you advise it. My mind is in such confusion, I have no power to decide; I will be guided by your advice.

OLIVIA.

LETTER x.x.xIII.

MADAME DE P---- TO OLIVIA.

Paris.

Advice! my charming Olivia! do you ask me for advice? I never gave or took advice in my life, except for _les vapeurs noirs_. And your understanding is so far superior to mine, and you comprehend the characters of these English so much better than I do, that I cannot pretend to counsel you. This Lady Leonora is inconceivable with her pa.s.sion for her own husband; but how ridiculous to let it be suspected!

If her heart is so tender, cannot she, with all her charms, find a lover on whom to bestow it, without tormenting that poor Mr. L----? Evidently he is tired of her: and I am sure I should be worn to death were I in his place. Nothing so tiresome as love without mystery, and without obstacles. And this must ever be the case with conjugal love. Eighteen months married, I think you say, and Lady Leonora expects her husband to be still at her feet! And she wishes it! Truly she is the most unreasonable woman upon earth--and the most extraordinary; but I am tired of thinking of what I cannot comprehend.

Let us pa.s.s on to Mr. L----. By your last letters, I should judge that he might be an agreeable man, if his wife were out of the question.

Matrimonial jealousy is a new idea to me; I can judge of it only by a.n.a.logy. In affairs of gallantry, I have sometimes seen one of the parties continue to love when the other has become indifferent, and then they go on tormenting one another and being miserable, because they have not the sense to see that a fire cannot be made of ashes. Sometimes I have found romantic young people persuade themselves that they can love no more because they can love one another no longer; but if they had sufficient courage to say--I am tired--and I cannot help it--they would come to a right understanding immediately, and part on the best terms possible; each eager to make a new choice, and to be again in love and happy. All this to be done with decency, of course. And if there be no scandal, where is the harm? Can it signify to the universe whether Mons.

Un tel likes Madame Une telle or Madame Une autre? Provided there is love enough, all the world is in good humour, and that is the essential point; for without good humour, what becomes of the pleasures of society? As to the rest, I think of inconstancy, or _infidelity_, as it is called, much as our good La Fontaine did--"Quand on le sait, c'est peu de chose--quand on ne le sait pas, ce n'est rien."

To promise to love one person eternally! What a terrible engagement!

It freezes my heart even to think of it. I am persuaded, that if I were bound to love him for life, I should detest the most amiable man upon earth in ten minutes--a husband more especially. Good heavens! how I should abhor M. de P---- if I saw him in this point of view! On the contrary, now I love him infinitely--that is to say, as one loves a husband. I have his interest at heart, and his glory. When I thought he was going to prison I was in despair. I was at home to no one but _Brave-et-Tendre_, and to him only to consult on the means of obtaining my husband's pardon. M. de P----is sensible of this, and on my part I have no reason to complain of his liberality. We are perfectly happy, though we meet perhaps but for a few minutes in the day; and is not this better than tiring one another for four-and-twenty hours? When I grow old--if ever I do--he will be my best friend. In the mean time I support his credit with all my influence. This very morning I concluded an affair for him, which never could have succeeded, if the intimate friend of the minister had not been also my lover. Now, why cannot your Lady Leonora and her Mr. L---- live on the same sort of terms? But if English manners will not permit of this, I have nothing more to say. Above all things a woman must respect opinion, else she cannot be well received in the world. I conclude this is the secret of Lady Leonora's conduct. But then jealousy!--no woman, I suppose, is bound, even in England, to be jealous in order to show her love for her husband. I lose myself again in trying to understand what is incomprehensible.

As to you, my dear Olivia, you also amaze me by talking of _crimes_ and _horror_, and _flying from pole to pole_ to avoid a man because you have made him at last find out that he has a heart! You have done him the greatest possible service: it may preserve him perhaps from hanging himself next November--that month in which, according to Voltaire's philosophical calendar, Englishmen always hang themselves, because the atmosphere is so thick, and their ennui so heavy. Lady Leonora, if she really loves her husband, ought to be infinitely obliged to you for averting this danger. As to the rest, your heart is not concerned, so you can have nothing to fear; and as for a platonic attachment on the part of Mr. L----, his wife, even according to her own rigid principles, cannot blame you.

Adieu, my charming friend! Instead of laughing at your fit of prudery, I ought to encourage your scruples, that I might profit by them. If they should bring you to Paris immediately, with what joy should I embrace my Olivia, and how much grat.i.tude should I owe to the jealousy of Lady Leonora L----!

R---- is not yet returned. When I have any news to give you of him, depend upon it you shall hear from me again. Accept, my interesting Olivia, the vows of my most tender and eternal friends.h.i.+p.

GABRIELLE DE P----.

LETTER x.x.xIV.

OLIVIA TO MADAME DE P----.

L---- Castle, Tuesday.

Your charming letter, my Gabrielle, has at once revived my spirits and dissipated all my scruples; you mistake, however, in supposing that Leonora is in love with her husband: more and more reason have I every hour to be convinced that Leonora has never known the pa.s.sion of love; consequently her jealousy was, as I at first p.r.o.nounced it to be, the selfish jealousy of matrimonial power and property. Else why does it subside, why does it vanish, when, if it were a jealousy of the heart, it has now more provocation, infinitely more than when it appeared in full force? Leonora could see that her husband distinguished me at a _fete champetre_; she could see what the eyes of others showed her; she could hear what envy whispered, or what scandal hinted; she was mortified, she was alarmed even to fainting by a public preference, by a silly country girl's mistaking me for _the wife_, and doing homage to me as to the lady of the manor; but Leonora cannot perceive in the object of her affection the symptoms that mark the rise and progress of _a real love_. Leonora feels not the little strokes, which would be fatal blows to the peace of a truly delicate mind; she heeds not "the trifles light as air" which would be confirmation strong to a soul of genuine sensibility. My influence over the mind of L----increases rapidly, and I shall let it rise to its acme before I seem to notice it. Leonora, re-a.s.sured, I suppose, by a few flattering words, and more, perhaps, by an exalted opinion of her own merit, has lately appeared quite at her ease, and blind to all that pa.s.ses before her eyes. It is not for me to dissipate this illusion prematurely--it is not for me to weaken this confidence in her husband. To an English wife this would be death. Let her foolish security then last as long as possible. After all, how much anguish of heart, how many pangs of conscience, how much of the torture of pity, am I spared by this callous temper in my friend! I may indulge in a little harmless coquetry, without danger to her peace, and without scruple, enjoy the dear possession of power.