Classic Tales Serious and Lively Collected by LEIGH HUNT MARMONTEL LONDON WILLIAM PATERSON & CO. MORRISON AND GIBB, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH. graham Ernest B. Lytle , Mf.3 /■/ tf/iCs V, v? CONTENTS. CD a NTRODUCTION .... ^“Lauretta qaqThe Shepherdess of the Alps >~Friendship put to the Test. •gTHE Connoisseur SOLIMAN II The Two Unfortunate Ladies The Good Husband The Good Mother . PAGE 5 13 56 85 132 162 183 200 231 CLASSIC TALES. MARMONTEL. ESS A y ON HIS WRITINGS AND GENIUS. The “Moral Tales ” of Mar mont el are a species of narrative dramas . They have their fables , and their characters , and their peculiar scenery: the fable is some action of life and manners : the fidelity of the painting to the original in life constitutes its chief excellence. It is this , in fact , which may be termed the peculiar talent of Marmontel . He selects for his fable some certain action ; something which we see daily passing in the domestic intercourse of life, and with equal judgment and accuracy follows it through all its parts with a representation as exact as lively. His tale is thus a domestic picture , a representation of manners as seen in the action which he has chosen for his subject . His dramatis personae are as natural and as domestic as his fable ; they are all of a piece , and seem as if taken together and existing only for each other. They are imitated with the same fidelity as the action . He does not take every actor in common , but selects the 5 6 Classic Tales . character which he deems suited to his purpose , and follows it through such of its minutice as is pleasing . He possesses above every other writer the peculiar faculty of transmigrating into the person of each of his characters , and of investing himself \ as it were, in the same circumstances . It is by this facility of substitu- tion and general sympathy that he is enabled so correctly to imitate nature . We have before said that this is his peculiar talent . It is this which constitutes his naivete . The “ Shepherdess of the Alps ” is perhaps the best specimen of the general style of Marmontel : it is at once nature and romance . In its kind it is a perfect piece. It has been adopted as the groundwork of an opera in almost every kingdom of Europe : the scenes are beautiful , and the situations impressive : it is an epic romance. It is some years since we have read this tale , but its characters and images are so impressed upon our memory that we feel no necessity of reverting to the book. This is, perhaps , the best criterion of excellence : it must be something more than common , which thus once read is always remembered — which the course of time, and the endless succession of other ideas, has not erased from the mind: it is thus with the “ Shepherdess of the Alps.” The reader becomes as enamoured with her as the young marquis himself ; he sees her once , and ever afterwards bears her figure in his mind. We speak the more fully upon this tale , as it was the first which produced the reputation of Marmontel. When it appeared in the ‘ ‘ Mercure Francois,” the author was anxiously sought out , and taken imder the immediate patronage of a prince of the Introduction. 7 blood. He was, in fact, from that moment admitted into the society of the first wits in France . “ Lauretta ” is the next tale on the scale of excel- lence. It is not so picturesque , and therefore not so pleasing to the fancy , as the “ Shepherdess of the Alps,” but it contains more of life , and more of natural character. “Lauretta,” considering that she is no character at all, a mere peasant girl, is admir- ably pictured ; easy, simple, and interesting ; with a good heart and much natural modesty ; gradually yielding to seduction , but never abandoned ; and retaining our sympathy even in vice itself. Such a character would not be deemed natural in an English writer. The manners are peculiarly French; and there are, or rather there were, some species of French peasantry who, in delicacy and refinement, were infinitely beyond the English of the same class. The multitude of convents and charitable institutions diffused a decent education through the very lowest classes ; and the lands in some parts of France being infinitely subdivided, every peasant was at once a labourer and a proprietor : he had at least a garden and an orchard of his own . The effect of property is wonderful : it raises a man in his own estimation, and this is a sure and necessary step to his actual elevation. It was well ordained by the ancients , with the view of maintaining slavery, that no slave should be able to acquire property. The same observations may be applied to the father of “ Lauretta. ” Such a character would be very unnatural in an Englishman of the same class, but such characters were frequent in France. They exist even to this day. 8 Classic Tales . It has been very justly observed of the greater part of the tales of Marmontel that he has so strictly observed for them the rules of the drama that every tale might be distributed as it stands into a course of scenes and acts; that the fable is already divided ', and the dramatis personae already full and distinct . This has been verified , we believe , by the experience of those who have made the observation . Foote , Kelly , Miss Lee, and some authors of inferior reputation, have , in fact , dramatized the greater part of these tales ; and it will be found, upon a comparison of the tales and the dramas, that the former have undergone a very incon- siderable change in passing into the latter . A question here occurs, whence is it that Marmontel has written such insipid dramas himself l The answer may be given in a sentence . Marmontel has no talent for lengthened dialogue : he is simple and epigrammatic . This may do in a tale, but is not sufficient for a play. Marmontel even in his tales becomes insipid or heavy, where his dialogue exceeds his ordinary length. Can anything be more intolerable than his philosophical conversations ? It is truly the philosophy of a French marquis, and the humour of a pedant . Marmontel, in a word, is never so much at home as in those tales in which there is a mixture of nature and romance ; in which the fable is romance, and the characters are in nature . He here appears to write from his own knowledge and from his own feelings. He enters not only into the situations , but into the very characters which he is painting : he acts and speaks , therefore, exactly according to nature — exactly that which the scene and the circumstances would suggest . This pic - Introduction 9 ture, presented before the mind of the reader , exactly corresponds with the image , which memory and reflec- tion has instantaneously impressed upon his mind as the natural original . Hence the lively perception op the fidelity of the picture and the original . The rule of nature , adapted to every mode of circumstances , always exists in our minds , and everything pleases or disgusts , accordingly as it corresponds with this rule. It has been objected to Marmontel , and it must be confessed with great justice , that the moral is almost the only part of the fable which Marmontel seems to have neglected . A tale is certainly more perfect which , in addition to its other recommendations , inculcates some maxim of life and lesson of morals. But as long as a considerable part of our lives must necessarily bt employed in amuse?nent ; as long as it is necessary to divert the attention from graver considerations by alternate relaxation , so long must it never be objected to a writer that he contributes a large proportion to the general stock of pleasure. It is not necessary that the same writer should both instruct and amuse. These two different departments may very well be distributed between different artificers. It is doubtless a higher merit to instruct than to please ; but the writer who can please us, and please us without offending against morals, deserves our gratitude , even though he should not instruct us. We must not expect too much. It is not , however, altogether true that Marmontel is so wholly negligent of his moral. His purpose, indeed, is rather a picture of manners than a lesson of duties . He resembles a painter who paints a dog or a 10 Classic Tales. horse, a landscape in nature , or a fairy scene of ideal beauty ; he has no other aim but to present a good picture , and no one ever thinks of asking him what is the use of it. It is thus with Marmontel : he paints a good picture , and does not expect it to be objected to him that it has no utility. Some of the tales , how- ever, are not these mere representations. The “ Good Mother,” “ Friendship put to the Test,” and many others, have an excellent moral which pervades both the fable and the individual characters . A question will here occur, what English writer has the nearest resemblance of Marmontel ? This question is the more difficult to be answered, as there is no English writer who has applied himself to the same style of writing. There are many, however, who have occasionally contended with him in a single tale. Of all these, Goldsmith seems to approach nearest to the general style of Marmontel. The “ Vicar of Wakefield ” is written as if written after Marmontel as its model. The English reader will do well to compare this novel of Goldsmith with the history of the “ Life of Marmontel f written by himself. The similarity of their mmds, their sympathies, their early habits, and even of the fortunes of their life, is very striking. Marmontel and Goldsmith were both born in very humble life, and in very narrow circumstances. Both were thrown upon the world to seek their fortune before they had reached the period of first manhood. The adventures of both were singular, and contributed much to give the tone of their future life and writings. Marmontel Introduction . ii was thrown into higher society , and eagerly plunged into all its extravagancies ; hut amidst it all he still retained so much of his natural simplicity and original goodness that he never becomes totally aban- doned . Goldsmith in the same manner fell into a society which , if not equally brilliant , was equally dangerous to his simple morals ; and Goldsmith in the same manner escaped with the preservation of his excellent nature . It is impossible , however , to deny that of the two Goldsmith was by far the most estimable man. Marmontel lived to a very advanced age : his last years were rendered uneasy by the excesses of the French Revolution : to avoid these , as much as was in his power , he retired to a country retreat , married a young wife , and sought to employ his time in the education of his children . With this purpose , he was induced to write the history of his life : these volumes are not the least interesting part of his works . He had scarcely finished this, labour when he died in the midst of his family . His moral character may be given in a few words. He was a man of many excellent qualities , as simple in his taste of life as in his writings : had he lived in any other times , and in any other nation , his many natural qualities would have rendered him as good a man as he was a writer ; but he wanted the force of mind to stand against the constant seduction of bad example , and therefore , we are sorry to say it , died more innocently than he had lived. LAURETTA. It was the festival of the village of Coulange. The Marquis of Clance, whose seat was at no great distance, was come with his company to see this rural spectacle, and to mingle in the dances of the villagers, as it happens pretty often to those whom disgust chases from the lap of luxury, and who are carried, in despite of themselves, towards pleasures that are pure and simple. Among the young country girls who gave new life to the joy that reigned there, and who were dancing under the elm, who would not have distinguished Lauretta, by the elegance of her figure, the regularity of her features, and that natural grace which is more touching than beauty ? She eclipsed all others who assisted at the festival. Ladies of quality, who piqued themselves on being handsome, could not help owning that they had never seen anything so ravishing. They called her up to them, and examined her as a painter does a model. “ Lift up your eyes, child,” said the ladies. “ What vivacity, what sweet- ness, what voluptuousness in her looks ! If she did but know what they express ? What havoc a skilful coquette would make with those eyes ! And that mouth ! Can anything be more fresh ! What a vermillion on her lips ! How pure an enamel on her teeth ! Her face is a little brown and sunburnt ; but 13 4 Classic Tales . it is the complexion of health. See how that ivory neck is rounded on those fine shoulders ! How well she would look in a genteel dress ! And those little budding charms which Love himself seems to have planted ? Well, that is extremely pleasant ? On whom is Nature going to lavish her gifts ? Where is beauty going to hide herself? Lauretta, how old are you?” “I was fifteen last month.” “You are to be married soon without doubt ? ” “ My father says that there is no hurry.” “ And you, Lauretta, have you no sweetheart lurking in your heart?” “I do not know what a sweetheart is.” “What ! is there no young man that you wish to have for a husband ? ” “I never trouble my head about that; it is my father’s business.” “What does your father do?” “He cultivates his farm.” “Is he rich?” “No; but he says he is happy if I am discreet.” “And how do you employ yourself?” I help my father; I work with him.” “With him! what, do you cultivate the ground?” “Yes, but the toils of the vineyards are only an amusement to me. To weed, plant vine props, bind the vine-branch to them, to thin the leaves that the grapes may ripen, and to gather them when they are ripe — all that is not very laborious.” “ Poor child, I am not surprised that those fine hands are tanned ! What pity that she should be born in a low and obscure state.” Lauretta, who in her village had never excited any- thing but envy, was a little surprised at her inspiring pity. As her father had carefully concealed from her whatever might have given her uneasiness, it had never come into her head that she was an object of Lauretta. 1 5 pity. But on casting her eyes on the dress of those ladies, she saw very well that they were in the right. What difference between their clothes and hers ! What freshness and what beauty in the light silken stuffs which flowed in long folds about them. What delicate shoes. With what grace and elegance their hair was dressed ! What new lustre that fine linen, and those ribbands, gave to their half-veiled charms ! Indeed those ladies had not the lively air of health ; but could Lauretta imagine that the luxury which dazzled her was the cause of that languor, which rouge itself was not able to disguise ? While she was ruminating on all this, the Count de Luzy approaches her and invites her to dance with him. He was young, well dressed, well made, and too seducing for Lauretta. Though she had not the most delicate taste in dancing, she could not but remark on the nobleness, the justness, and the lightness of the Count’s move- ments, a grace which was not to be found in the caperings of the young villagers. She had sometimes felt her hand pressed, but never by a hand so soft. The Count in dancing followed her with his eyes. Lauretta found that his looks gave life and soul to the dance ; and whether it was that she tried from emulation to give the same grace to hers, or whether the first spark of love communicated itself from her heart to her eyes, they replied to those of the Count by the most natural expression of joy and sentiment. The dance ended, Lauretta went and seated herself at the foot of the elm, and the Count at her side. “Let us not part any more,” said he to her, “my pretty dear; I will dance with nobody but you.” i6 Classic Tales. “ That is doing me a great deal of honour,” said she ; “ but it would make my companions uneasy ; and in this village they are apt to be jealous.” “ And well they may, to see you so handsome ; and in town they would be the same ; it is a misfortune which will follow you everywhere. Ah, Lauretta, if in Paris, in the midst of those women so vain of beauty which is only artificial, they were to see you appear, all at once, with those natural charms of which you are so unconscious.” u I, sir, at Paris ! alas, what should I do there ?” “ Be the delight of all eyes, and make the conquest of all hearts. Hark’ee, Lauretta, we have not opportunity to talk together here. But in two words, it depends only on yourself to have, instead of an obscure cottage, and a vineyard to cultivate ; it depends only on yourself to have, at Paris, a little palace shining with gold and silk, a table according to your wish, the gayest furniture, the most elegant equipage, gowns for all seasons, and of all colours ; in short, everything which forms the agreeableness of an easy, quiet, and delicious life ; without any other care than that of enjoying them, and of loving me as I do you. Think of it at your leisure. To-morrow there is to be a ball at the castle ; and all the youth of the village are invited. You will be there, my sweet Lauretta, and tell me if my passion touches you, and whether you will accept my offers. To-day I ask nothing but secrecy ; secrecy the most inviolable. Observe it well ; if it escape you, all the happiness which now awaits you will vanish like a dream.” Lauretta thought she had been in a dream. The Lauretta . 17 brilliant lot that had been painted unto her was so far from the humble state to which she was reduced, that a passage so easy, and so rapid, from one to the other, was inconceivable. The handsome young man who had made her those offers, had not, however, the air of a deceiver. He had talked to her so seriously, she had seen so much sincerity in his eyes, and in his language. “ I should easily have perceived it,” said she, “ if he wanted to make a fool of me.” And yet, why all this mystery which he has so strongly enjoined me? For making me happy he requires me to love him. Nothing more just ; but sure he will consent that my father shall partake of his benefits, why then conceal our proceedings from my father? If Lauretta had had the idea of seduction and vice, she would easily have comprehended wherefore Luzy demanded secrecy ; but the discretion they had infused into her went no farther than to teach her to decline the rough liberties of the village youths ; and in the honest and respectful air of the Count she saw no- thing against which she was to be upon her guard. Wholly taken up with these reflections, her head filled with the image of luxury and abundance, she returns to her humble habitation. Everything there seemed changed. Lauretta, for the first time, was mortified at living under thatch. The plain move- ables, which use had before made precious to her, were debased in her eyes ; the domestic cares which she had charged herself with, began to be disagree- able ; she found no longer the same taste in that bread to which labour gives a relish ; and on that III. B i8 Classic Tales . fresh straw, where she slept so well, she sighed for gilded roofs and a rich down bed. It was much worse the next day, when she was obliged to return to labour, and go on a burning hill to support the heat of the day. “At Paris,” said she, “ I would wake only to enjoy myself at my ease, without any other care than that of loving, and of pleasing ; His Honour the Count assured me of it. How amiable the Count is ! Of all the girls in the village he regarded only me ; he even quitted the ladies of the castle for a poor country girl. He is not proud, sweet gentleman ! And yet he might very well be so ! One would have thought that I did him a favour in preferring him to the young fellows of the village ; he thanked me for it with looks so tender, an air so humble and touching ; and language — what an amiable sweetness in his language ! Though he had talked to the lady of the place, he could not have spoken more genteely. By good luck I was pretty well dressed ; but if he were to see me to-day ! What clothes ! what a condition am I in ? ” The disgust at her situation only redoubled, during three days of fatigue and heaviness which she had still to sustain before she could again see the Count. The moment, which they both expected with impatience, arrives. All the youth of the village are assembled at the neighbouring castle ; and in a bower of linden trees the sound of instruments soon gives the signal for the dances. Lauretta advances with her companions, no longer with that deliberate air which she had at the village feast, but with an air modest and timorous. This was to Luzy a new Lauretta. !9 beauty, and she appeared as one of the Graces, timid and decent, instead of a lively and wanton nymph. He distinguished her from the rest in his salute, but without any symptom of correspondence between them. He abstained even from approaching her, and delayed dancing with her till another had set him the example. This other was the Chevalier de Soligny ; who, ever since the village feast, had never ceased talking of Lauretta in a strain of rapture. Luzy imagined him a rival, and anxiously followed him with his eyes ; but it was needless for Lauretta to perceive his jealousy, in order to remove it. In dancing with Soligny, her look was vague, her air indifferent, her behaviour cold and negligent. It came to Luzy’s turn to dance with her, and he thought he saw, as he saluted her, all her graces animate themselves, all her charms spring up in her countenance. The precious colouring of modesty diffused itself there ; a furtive and almost imper- ceptible smile moved her rosy lips ; and the favour of a touching look transported him with joy and love. His first emotion, had they been alone, would have been to fall at Lauretta’s feet, to thank her, and to adore her ; but he commands his very eyes to restrain the fire of their looks ; his hand alone, in pressing that of her whom his heart calls his love, expresses to her by tremblings his transports. “ Beautiful Lauretta,” said he to her, after the dance, “ remove a little from your companions, I am impatient to know what you have resolved.” “ Not to take one step without the consent of my father, and to follow his advice in everything. If you mean 20 Classic Tales . me good, I would have him partake of it ; if I follow you, I would have him consent to it.” “ Ah ! beware of consulting him ! it is he whom, above all, I ought to fear. There are formalities among you, previous to love and union, with which my title, my condition, forbid me to comply. Your father would subject me to them ; he would require impossibilities of me ; and on my refusal, he would accuse me of having wanted to deceive you. He knows not how much I love you ; but you, Lauretta, can you think me capable of doing you an injury?” “Alas! no; I believe you to be goodness itself. You would be a great hypocrite if you were bad ! ” “Dare then to trust me.” “It is not that I distrust you ; but I cannot deal mysteriously with my father ; I belong to him ; I depend on him. If what you propose is proper, he will consent to it.” “ He will never consent to it. You will destroy me; you will repent it when too late ; and you will be all your life condemned to those vile labours, which to be sure you love, since you dare not abandon them. Ah, Lauretta, are these delicate hands made to cultivate the ground ? Must the sun destroy the colours of that beautiful com- plexion? You, the charm of nature, of all the graces, all the loves ! you, Lauretta, will you wear yourself out in an obscure and toilsome life. Are you to become simply the wife of some rude villager? to grow old, perhaps, in indigence, without having tasted any of those pleasures which ought to follow you perpetually? This is what you prefer to the delights of ease and affluence which I promise you. And on what do you found your resolution ? On the Lauretta . 21 fear of giving some moments of uneasiness to your father? Yes, your flight will afflict him; but after- wards, what will be his joy at seeing you rich by my favours, with which he also shall be loaded ? What a pleasing violence will you not do him, in obliging him to quit his cottage, and give himself repose ? For, from that time, I shall no longer have his denials to fear ; my happiness, yours, and his, will be assured for ever.” Lauretta had a good deal of difficulty to withstand the temptation, but she did withstand it ; and but for the fatal accident which at last threw her again into the snare, the mere instinct of innocence would have sufficed to preserve her from it. In a storm which fell on the village of Coulange, the hail destroyed all the promised vintages and harvests. The desolation was general. During the storm a thousand mournful cries mingled with the roaring of the winds and claps of thunder ; but when the ravage was accomplished, and a light, more dreadful than the darkness which had preceded it, let them see the vine-branches stripped and broken, the ears of corn hanging on their shattered stalks, the fruits of the trees beaten down or blasted, nothing prevailed throughout the desolated country but one vast and doleful silence ; the roads were covered with a crowd of unfortunate people, pale, struck with consternation, and immoveable, who, with a melan- choly eye contemplating their ruin, bewailed the loss of the year, and saw nothing to come but despair, misery, and death. On the thresholds of the cot- tages the disconsolate mothers pressed against their 22 Classic Tales. bosoms their tender nurslings, exclaiming, with tears in their eyes, “ Who will give suck to you if we want bread ? ” At the sight of this calamity, the first thought which occurred to Luzy was the distress of Lauretta and her father. Impatient to fly to their relief, he veiled the tender interest he took in their fortunes, under a pretext of common pity to this multitude of wretches. “ Let us go to the village,” said he to the company ; “let us carry consolation thither. It will be but little expense to each of us to save twenty families from the despair into which this disaster has plunged them. We have partaken their joy, let us go and partake of their grief.” These words made an impression on their hearts, already moved by pity. The Marquis de Clance set the example. He presented himself to the peasants, offered them assistance, promised them relief, and restored them to hope and courage. While tears of gratitude flowed around him, his company, of both sexes, dispersed themselves through the village, entered the straw huts, distributed their gifts, and tasted the rare and sensible delight of seeing them- selves adored by a grateful people. In the mean- time, Luzy ran like a madman, seeking the abode of Lauretta. It was shown him. He flies thither, and sees a countryman sitting at the door," his head inclined on his knees, and covering his face with both his hands, as if he feared to see the light again. This was Lauretta’s father. “ My friend,” said the Count to him, “ I see you are in consternation ; but do not despair — Heaven is just, and there are Lauretta. 23 compassionate hearts among mankind.” “ Ah, sir,” replied the villager, lifting up his head, “is it for a man who, after having served his country twenty years, retired covered with wounds, and who has never since ceased to labour without relaxation, — is it for him to stretch out his hand for charity ? Ought not the earth, which is bedewed with my sweat, to give me subsistence ? Shall I end my life by begging my bread ? ” A soul so lofty, and so noble, in an obscure person, astonished the Count. “You have served, then?” said he. “Yes, sir, I took up arms under Berwick ; I made the campaign of Maurice. My father, before an unfortunate lawsuit had stripped him of his estate, had sufficient to support me in the rank to which I had risen. But at the same time that I was reduced he was undone. We came here to conceal ourselves ; and out of the wreck of his fortune we purchased a little farm, which I cultivated with my own hands. Our former condition is unknown ; and this latter, to which I seemed born, gave me no shame. I maintained and consoled my father. I married ; there was my misfortune ; and it is now that I feel it, “Your father is dead?” “Alas! yes.” “Your wife?” “She is happy in not having seen this dismal day.” “Have you a family?” “I have but one daughter, and the poor girl — . Do you not hear sighs ? She hides herself, and keeps at a distance from me, that she may not distract my soul.” Luzy would fain have rushed into the cottage where Lauretta was mourning, but he restrained himself, for fear of a discovery. “ Here,” said he to the latter, giving him his 24 Classic Tales . purse ; “ this assistance is very small ; but when you want, remember the Count de Luzy. I live at Paris.” On saying these words he went away, without giving Lauretta’s father time to return him thanks. What was the astonishment of the good old Basil, on finding a considerable sum in the purse ! Fifty louis, more than triple the revenue of his little vine- yard ! “Come hither, my child,” cried he; “look at him who goes yonder ; it is not a man, it is an angel from heaven. But I am deceived. It is not possible that he should intend to give me so much. Go, Lauretta, run after him, and let him see that he has committed a mistake.” Lauretta flies after Luzy ; and, having overtaken him — “ My father,” said she to him, “ cannot believe that you intended to make us so great a present. He sends me to return it to you.” “Ah, Lauretta! is not all that I have at your and your father’s disposal ? Can I pay him too richly for having given birth to you ? Carry back this poor gift ; it is only an earnest of my good will ; but carefully conceal from him the motive : tell him only that I am too happy in obliging a man of worth.” Lauretta was about to return him thanks. “To- morrow,” said he to her, “ at break of day, as I pass the end of the village, I will receive, if you please, your thanks with your adieus.” “ What ! do you go away to-morrow?” “Yes, I go away the most passionate lover, and most unhappy of men.” “At break of day? — that is about the hour when my father and I go to work.” “Together?” “No; he goes first. I have the care of the house upon me, and that delavs me a little.” “ And do you pass my Lauretta. 2 5 road?” “I cross it above the village; but, were it necessary to go out of my way, it is certainly the least that I owe you for so many marks of friend- ship.” “ Adieu then, Lauretta, till to-morrow. Let me see you, though but for a moment : that pleasure will be the last of my life.” Basil, at Lauretta’s return, had no more doubt of Luzy’s benefactions. “ Ah, the good young man ! — ah, excellent heart !” cried he every instant. “ How- ever, daughter, let us not neglect what the hail has left us. The less there is of it, the more care we must take of what is left.” Lauretta was so much touched with the Count’s goodness, so afflicted at being the cause of his unhappiness, that she wept all the night. “Ah, if it were not for my father,” said she, “ what pleasure should I have had in following him ! ” The next day she did not put on her holiday clothes ; but, notwith- standing the extreme simplicity of her dress, she forgot not to mingle in it a little coquetry natural to her age. “I shall see him no more; what does it signify whether I am more or less handsome in his eyes? For one moment it is not worth the trouble.” On saying these words, she adjusted her cap and her tucker. She bethought her of carrying him some fruit in her breakfast basket. “He will not despise them,” said she ; “I will tell him that I have gathered them.” And while she ranged the fruit on a bed of vine-leaves, she bedewed them with her tears. Her father was already set out ; and with the grey light of the dawn was already mingled that gentle tint of gold and purple diffused by Aurora, 26 Classic Tales. when the poor girl, with a distracted heart, arrived alone at the end of the village. The instant after, she saw the Count’s post-coach appear, and at that sight she was troubled. The moment that he saw her, Luzy leaped out of his carriage, and coming towards her with an air of sorrow — “I am penetrated, beautiful Lauretta,” said he to her, “with the favour which you do me. I have, at least, the consolation to see you sensible of my pain, and I can believe that you are sorry at having made me unhappy.” “ I am distressed at it,” replied Lauretta, “and would give all the wealth you have bestowed on us, never to have seen you.” “And I, Lauretta, I would give all I have never to quit you as long as I live.” “ Alas ! I should think it depended only on yourself ; my father would refuse you nothing ; he loves you, he reveres you.” “ Fathers are cruel ; they would have us marry, and I cannot marry you ; let us think no more of it ; we are going to leave each other, to bid an eternal adieu ; we who never, if you had been inclined to it, would have ceased to live for one another, to love each other, to enjoy all the gifts which Fortune has bestowed on me, and all those which Love has conferred on you. Ah ! you have no conception of the pleasures which awaited us. If you had any idea of them ! If you knew what you renounce!” “Why, without knowing them, I feel them. Be assured, that ever since I have seen you, everything that is not you is nothing to me. At first my mind was dazzled with the fine things which you had promised me ; but since, all that is vanished ; I have thought of it no longer, I have Lauretta . 27 thought only of you. Ah ! if my father would agree to it ! ” “ What occasion for his agreeing to it ! Do you wait for his consent to love me ! Does not our happiness depend on ourselves ? Love, fidelity, Lauretta ; these are your titles, and my securities. Are there any more sacred, more inviolable ? Ah ! believe me, when the heart is bestowed, everything is over, and the hand has only to follow it. Give me, then, that hand, that I may kiss it a thousand times, that I may bedew it with my tears.” There it is,” said she, weeping. “ It is mine,” cried he ; “ this dear hand is mine, I hold it of Love ; to take it from me, they must take my life. Yes, Lauretta, I shall die at your feet if we must part.” Lauretta really believed that he would literally die on losing her. “Alas!” said she; “and shall I be the cause?” “Yes, cruel girl ! you will be the cause. You desire my death, you do.” “ Oh, Heaven ! no ; I would lay down my life for you.” “ Prove it, then,” said he, doing her at the same time a kind of violence, “and follow me if you love me.” “No,” said she, “ I cannot ; I cannot without the consent of my father.” “Very well; leave, leave me, then, to my despair. ” At these words, Lauretta, pale and trembling, her heart pierced with sorrow and fear, dared neither to hold Luzy’s hand nor let it go. Her eyes, full of tears, followed with terror the distracted looks of the Count. “Deign,” said she to him, in order to appease him, “deign to pity me, and to see me without anger. I hoped this testimony of my gratitude would have been agree- able to you ; but I dare no longer offer it to you.” 28 Classic Tales . “What is it?” said he; “fruit, and for me? Ah, you little tyrant, you insult me ! Give me poison ! ” And throwing down the basket, he retired in a rage. Lauretta took that emotion for hatred ; and her heart, already too much softened, could not support this last attack. Scarce had she strength to get away a few paces, and faint at the foot of a tree. Luzy, who followed her with his eyes, runs up and finds her bathed with tears, her bosom choked with sobs, pale, and almost lifeless. He is dis- tressed ; he thinks at first only of recalling her to life ; but, soon as he sees her spirits return, he avails himself of her weakness, and before she is well recovered of her swooning, she is already at a great distance from the village, in the Count’s coach, and in the arms of her ravisher. ‘ ‘ Where am I ? ” said she on opening her eyes. “Ah, my Lord Count, is it you ! Are you carrying me back to the village.” “ Dearest half of my soul,” said he to her, pressing her against his bosom, “I have lived to see the moment when our adieus almost cost us both our lives. Let us put no more to that trial two hearts too weak to sustain it. “ I resign myself to thee, my dear Lauretta ; on thy lips I swear to live for thee alone.” “I ask no better lot,” said she to him, “than to live also for you alone. But my father ! Shall I leave my father? Has not he a right to dispose of me?” “Thy father, my Lauretta, shall be loaded with riches ; he will partake the happiness of his daughter ; we shall be both his children. Depend on my Lauretta . 29 tenderness to ease and console him. Come, let me catch those tears, let me drop my own into thy bosom ; they are the tears of joy, the tears of pleasure.” The dangerous Luzy mingled with his language all the charms of love, and Lauretta was not insensible ; while her father, uneasy, afflicted, seeking his daughter, calling her with loud cries, asked after her through the whole village ; and not seeing her again in the evening, and retiring dis- tressed, in despair at having lost her, that image presents itself to his mind, wholly occupies it, and troubles it without ceasing. It was necessary to beguile his grief. Luzy ran with his horses ; the blinds of his carriage were let down ; his people were sure and faithful ; and Lauretta left behind her no trace of her flight. It was even essential to Luzy to conceal his having carried her off. He detached one of his domestics, who, from a village quite out of the road, contrived to transmit to the minister of Coulange this billet, in which Luzy had disguised his handwriting : — “Tell Lauretta’s father to be easy; that she is well; and that the lady, who has taken her with her, will have the same care of her as of her own child. In a short time he shall know what is become of her.” This note, which was far from affording consolation to her father, sufficed to palliate the crime of elope- ment to the daughter. Love had penetrated into her soul ; he laid open the avenues of it to pleasure, and from that time the clouds of grief dispersed, the tears dried up, sorrow was appeased, and a transient but 30 Classic Tales. profound oblivion of everything but her lover suffered her to taste, without remorse, the criminal happiness of being his. The kind of delirium into which she fell on arriving at Paris completed the dissipation of her soul. Her house was a fairy palace ; everything in it had the air of enchantment. The bath, the toilet, the supper, the delicious repose which love left her, were so many varied temptations to make her forget her past life through the medium of her senses. When she waked she thought herself still deceived by a dream. When she rose she saw herself surrounded with women, attentive to serve her, and jealous of pleasing her. She, who had only studied to obey, had only to desire in order to be obeyed. “You are queen here,” said her lover, “and I am your principal slave. ” Imagine, if possible, the surprise and transport of a young and simple country girl at seeing her fine black hair, so negligently tied till that time, the wavy ringlets of which nature alone had formed, now rounding into curls beneath the ply of art, and rising into a diadem, bespangled with flowers and diamonds ; at seeing displayed to her eyes the most gallant ornaments, which seemed to solicit her choice, — at seeing, I say, her beauty issue, radiant as from a cloud, and spring up again in the brilliant panels which environ her, in order to multiply her charms. Nature had lavished on her all her graces ; but some of those gifts had need of being cultivated, and the accomplishments came in a crowd to dispute with each other the care of instructing her, and the glory Lauretta. 3i of embellishing her. Luzy possessed and adored his conquest, intoxicated with joy and love. In the meantime the good Basil was the most unhappy of fathers. Brave, full of honour, and, above all, jealous of his daughter’s reputation, he had sought her, expected her in vain, without publishing his uneasiness ; and nobody in the village was made acquainted with his misfortune. The minister came to assure him of it himself by communicating to him the note which he had received. Basil gave no credit to this note ; but, dissembling with the pastor — “ My daughter is discreet,” said he to him, “but she is young, simple, and credulous. Some lady has had a mind to take her into her service, and has prevailed on her to prevent my denial. Let us, for fear of scandal, hush up this little imprudence of youth, and leave the people to believe that my daughter quitted me with my own consent. The secret rests with you ; spare the daughter and the father.” The minister, a prudent and worthy man, promised and kept silence. But Basil, devoured by chagrin, passed the days and nights in tears. “ What is become of her ? ” said he. “ Is it a lady that she has followed ? Is there any so mad as to rob a father of his daughter, and to under- take to carry her off? No, no ! it is some villain who has stolen her from me. Ah ! if I can discover him, either his blood or mine shall wash out my injury.” He went himself to the village from whence they had brought the note. By the minister’s information he contrived to discover the person who had been charged with the message ; he examined him, but his answers only confused him the more. 32 Classic Tales . The very situation of the place served only to mislead him. It was six leagues out of the road which Luzy had taken, and lay quite across the country. But had Basil even combined the two circumstances of the departure of the Count and his daughter’s elopement, he would never have suspected so virtuous a young man. As he confided his grief to nobody, nobody could give him any light. He groaned, therefore, within himself, in expectation of some casual gleam to clear up his suspicions. “ Oh, Heaven ! ” said he, “ it was in your wrath that you gave her to me ; and I, mad as I was, congratulated myself on seeing her grow up and improve ! What formed my pride now constitutes my shame. O that she had died as soon as she was born ! ” Lauretta endeavoured to persuade herself that her father was easy, and the regret of having left him touched her but faintly. Love, vanity, a taste for pleasures, a taste ever so lively in its birth, the care of cultivating her talents, — in short, a thousand amusements, continually varied, divided her life and filled her soul. Luzy, who loved her to idolatry, and who feared lest he should lose her, exposed her as little as possible in public ; and used all the means which mystery has invented to render her invisible amidst the great world. This was enough for Lauretta ; happy in pleasing him whom she loved, she felt not that restless desire, that want of being seen and admired, which alone brings out so many handsome women to our spectacles and gardens. Though Luzy, by the choice of a small circle of amiable men, rendered his suppers amusing, she was Lauretta. 33 taken up at them only with him, and she was able to convince him of it without disobliging anybody else. The art of reconciling partiality to good manners is the secret of delicate souls ; coquetry studies it ; love knows it without having learned it. Six months passed away in that union. In this interval Lauretta’s father had twice received news of his daughter, with presents from the lady who had taken her into friendship. It was to the minister that Luzy directed. Remitted by the next post to the village by a faithful servant, the packets came to hand anonymous. Basil could not tell to whom to send them back ; and then his refusals would have created doubts of what he wished to be believed, and he trembled lest the curate should have the same suspicions with himself. ‘ ‘ Alas!” said the good father to himself, ‘ ‘my daughter is perhaps yet virtuous. Appearances accuse her, but they are only appearances ; and though my suspicions should be just, I must lament, but I ought not to dishonour my child.” Heaven owed some consolation to the virtue of this worthy father ; and it was Heaven, without doubt, which brought about the accident I am going to relate. The little wine trade which Basil carried on obliged him to come to Paris. As he was traversing that immense city, he was stopped in the street by some carriages crossing each other. The voice of a lady in a fright engaged his attention. He sees — he dares not believe his eyes — Lauretta, his daughter, in a gilt-glass chariot, superbly dressed, and crowned hi. c 34 Classic Tales. with diamonds. Her father would not have known her if, perceiving him herself, surprise and confusion had not made her shrink back and cover her face. At the movement which she made to hide herself, and still more at the cry which escaped her, he could not doubt but it was she. While the carriages which were locked together were disengaging, Basil slips between the wall and his daughter’s chariot, gets up to the step of the chariot door, and, with a severe tone, says to Lauretta, “ Where do you live?” Lauretta, seized with fear and trembling, tells him her habitation. “And what name do you go by?” “ Coulange,” replied she, looking down, “from the place of my birth.” “Of your birth! Ah, wretch ! This evening, at dusk, be at home, and alone.” At these words he gets down and pursues his way. The shock which Lauretta had received was not yet overcome, when she found herself at home. Luzy supped in the country. She was left to her- self at the moment when she had most need of counsel and support. She was going to appear before her father, whom she had betrayed, forsaken, and overwhelmed with grief and shame ; her crime then presented itself to her in the most odious form. She began to feel the vileness of her condition. The intoxication of love, the charms of pleasure, had banished the thought ; but as soon as the veil was fallen off, she saw herself such as she was in the eyes of the world, and in the eyes of her father. Terrified at the examination and sentence which she was about to undergo — “ Wretch ! ” cried she, melting into Lauretta . 35 tears, “where can I fly? where can I hide me? My father, honesty itself, again finds me gone astray, abandoned to vice, with a man who is nothing to me ! O my father ! O terrible judge ! how shall I appear before you ? ” It came more than once into her mind to avoid him, and disappear ; but vice had not yet effaced from her soul the holy laws of nature. “ I, to reduce him to despair,” said she, “ and after having merited his reproaches, to draw his curse upon me ! No, though unworthy the name of his daughter, I revere that sacred name. Though he came to kill me with his own hand, I ought to wait it, and to fall at his feet. But no ; a father is always a father : mine will be touched with my tears. My age, my weakness, the Count’s love, his favours, all plead for me ; and when Luzy shall speak, I shall no longer be so culpable.” She would have been distressed if her people had been witnesses of the humiliating scene which was preparing. By good luck she had given out that she supped with a friend, and her women had made themselves a holiday that evening. It was easy to her to get rid of two footmen who attended her, and when her father arrived she received him herself. “ Are you alone ? ” “ Yes, sir.” He enters with emotion, and after having looked her in the face, in a sorrowful and melancholy silence — “What business have you here ? ” said he. Lauretta answered by throwing herself at his feet, and bathing them with tears. “ I see,” said the father, casting his eyes around him, “ in this apartment, where everything bespeaks riches and luxury, I see that vice is at its 36 Classic Tales . ease in this town. May I know who has taken care to enrich you in so short a time ? and from whom came this furniture, these clothes, that fine equipage in which I saw you ? ” Lauretta still replied only by tears and sighs. “ Speak to me,” said he; “you shall weep afterwards ; you will have time enough.” At the recital of her story, of which she disguised nothing, Basil passed from astonishment to indigna- tion. “Luzy!” said he, “that worthy man! These, then, are the virtues of the great ! The base wretch, in giving me his gold, did he think he paid me for my daughter ? These proud rich folks think that the honour of the poor is a thing of no value, and that misery sets itself to sale. He flattered him- self with consoling me ! He promised you to do it ! Unnatural man ! how little does he know the soul of the father ! No, ever since I lost thee, I have not had one moment without sorrow, not one quarter of an hour of peaceful sleep. By day, the ground which i cultivated was watered with my tears ; in the night, while you forgot yourself, while you were losing yourself in guilty pleasures, your father, stretched on his straw, tore his hair and called on you with loud cries. Ah, what ? Have my groans never re-echoed to thy soul? Has the image of a father distressed never presented itself to your thought, never troubled your repose ? ” “ Oh ! Heaven is my witness,” said she, “ that if ever I had thought I had occasioned you so much sorrow, I would have quitted everything to fly to your arms. I revere you, I love you, I love you more than ever. Alas, what a father have I afflicted ! At this very instant, when I Lauretta. 37 expected to find in you an inexorable judge, I hear from your own mouth only reproaches full of gentle- ness. Ah, my father ! when I fell at your feet, I felt only shame and fear ; but now it is with affection that you see me penetrated, and to the tears of repentance are joined those of love!” “Ah! I revive, I now find my daughter again,” cried Basil, raising her up. “Your daughter! Alas,” said Lauretta, “ she is no longer worthy of you ! ” “ No, do not discourage thyself. Honour, Lauretta, is without doubt a great happiness ! innocence a greater still ; and if I had the choice, I would rather have seen thee deprived of life. But when innocence and honour are lost, there still remains one inestimable good ; virtue, which never perishes, which we never lose without return. We have only to wish for it ; it springs up again in the soul ; and when we think it extinguished, a single touch of remorse gives birth to it anew. This will console you, daughter, for the loss of your innocence ; and if your repentance be sincere, Heaven and your father are appeased. For the rest, nobody in the village knows your adven- ture ; you may appear there again without shame.” “Where, my father?” “At Coulange, whither I am going to carry you.” These words embarrassed Lauretta. “ Haste,” continued Basil, “ to strip off those ornaments of vice. Plain linen, a simple bodice, a white petticoat, these are the raiments of thy condition. Leave his envenomed gifts to the wretch who has seduced you, and follow me without delay.” One must have been possessed ac this moment of 38 Classic Tales . the timid and tender soul of Lauretta — must have loved, like her, a father and a lover — to conceive to feel the combat which arose in her feeble heart between love and nature. The trouble and agitation of her spirits kept her immovable and mute. “ Let us go,” said the father; “ moments are precious.” “ Pardon me,” cried Lauretta, falling again on her knees before him, “ pardon me, my father ; be not offended if I am slow to obey you. You have read the bottom of my soul. Luzy wants the name of husband ; but all the rights which the tenderest love can give him, he has over me. I would fly him, detach myself from him, follow you, though to death. But to steal away in his absence, to leave him to believe that I have betrayed him !” “ How, wretch ! and what signifies to you the opinion of a vile de- ceiver ? and what are the rights of a passion that has ruined and dishonoured you? You love him ! you love your shame, then ! You prefer his vile favours to the innocence which he has robbed you off ! You prefer to your father the most cruel of your enemies ! You dare not fly him in his absence, and quit him without his consent ! Ah, when you were to quit your father, to overwhelm him, to drive him to destruction, you were not then so timorous ! And what do you expect from your ravisher? That he should defend you ? That he should withdraw you from paternal authority ? Oh, let him come ! let him dare to drive me hence ; I am alone, unarmed, en- feebled by age ; but they shall see me extended on the threshold of your door, calling for vengeance to God and man. Your lover, himself, in order to get Lauretta . 39 at thee, shall march over my body ; and passers by shall say with horror, ‘ There is the father whom she disavows, and whom her lover tramples under his feet ! * ” “ Ah ! my father,” said Lauretta, terrified at this image, “ how little do you know the man whom you rail against so cruelly ! Nothing is gentler, nothing more sensible. You will be to him respectable and sacred.” “Dare you to talk to me of the respect of one who dishonours me? Dost thou hope that he may seduce me with his perfidious gentleness ? I will not see him ; if you can answer for him, I cannot answer for myself.” “Well, do not see him, but permit me to see him, but for a moment.” What do you ask ? me to leave you alone with him ! Ah ! though he should take away my life, I would not show him that complaisance. While he was able to keep you from me, it was his crime, it was thine, I was not answerable for it. But Heaven now puts you again under my guard, and from this moment I answer to Heaven for thee. Let us go, daughter, it is already dark ; this is the instant for us to depart ! Resolve: renounce thy father or obey.” “ You pierce my heart !” “ Obey, I tell thee, or dread my curse !” At these terrible words the trembling Lauretta had no strength to reply. She undresses herself before her father’s eyes, and puts on, not without a flood of tears, the plain dress which he had prescribed to her. “ My father,” said she to him at the moment she was preparing to follow him, “ dare I ask, at the price of my obedience, one single favour? You do not wish the death of him whom T sacrifice to you. Suffer me 40 Classic Tales . to write him two words, to inform him it is you that I obey, and that you oblige me to follow you.” “ What ! that he may come and carry you off again, to steal you from me ? No, I will leave no trace of you. Let him die of shame, he will do justice upon himself ; but of love, never fear that, libertines never die of it.” Then taking his daughter by the hand, he carried her out without noise, and the next morning, embarking on the Seine, they returned into their own country. At midnight the Count arrives at his own house, where he flatters himself pleasure awaits him, and finds all there in alarm and confusion. Lauretta’s people tell him with fright that they do not know what has become of her ; that they have sought for her in vain ; that she had taken care to send them out of the way, and had seized that moment to elude their vigilance ; that she did not sup at her friend’s ; and that on going off she had left every- thing behind her, even her diamonds, and the gown she had worn that day. “We must wait for her,” said Luzy after a long silence. “Do not go to bed; there is something incomprehensible in this affair.” Love, which seeks to flatter itself, began by con- jectures to excuse Lauretta ; but finding them all destitute of probability, he delivered himself up to the most cruel suspicions. “ An involuntary accident might have detained her ; but in the absence of her people to undress herself, to make her escape alone, at dusk, to leave her house in uneasiness — all this,” said he, “ clearly shows a premeditated flight. Has Lauretta. 4i Heaven touched her ? Is it remorse that has deter- mined her to fly me? Ah, why can I not at least believe it? but if she had taken an honest part, she would have had pity on me ; she would have written to me, though it were but two words of consolation and adieu. Her letter would have not betrayed her ; and would have spared me suspicions, grievous to me, and dishonourable to her. Lauretta ! O Heaven ! candour itself, inno- cence, truth ! — Lauretta unfaithful and perfidious! she, who but this very morning — no, no, it is in- credible ; and yet it is but too true.” Every moment, every reflection seemed a new proof ; but hope and confidence could not quit his heart. He struggled against persuasion, as an expiring man against death. “ If she were to return,” said he; “if she were to return innocent and faithful ! Ah, would my fortune, my life, all my love, be sufficient to repair the injury I do her ? What pleasure should I have in confessing myself in fault ! With what transports, with what tears, would I efface the crime of having accused her ! Alas, I dare not flatter myself with being unjust ; I am not so happy ! There is nobody who, in the uneasiness and ardour of expectation has not sometimes experienced at Paris the torment of listening to the noise of the coaches, each of which we take for that which we expect, and each of which by turns arrives, and carries away, as it passes, the hopes which it had just excited. The unhappy Luzy was till three in the morning in this cruel perplexity. Every carriage which he heard was, perhaps, that which was bring- 42 Classic Tales . ing back Lauretta ; at last hope, so often deceived, gave place to despair. “ I am betrayed,” said he; “I can no longer doubt it. It is a plot which has been concealed from me. The caresses of the perfi- dious creature served only the better to disguise it. They have artfully chosen the day on which I was to sup in the country. She has left everything behind her, to let me understand that she has no further occasion for my presents. Another, without doubt, overwhelms her with them. She would have been ashamed to have anything of mine. The most feeble pledge of my love would have been a perpetual reproach of her treachery and ingratitude. She would forget me, in order to deliver herself up in peace to the man she prefers. Ah, the perjured wretch ! does she hope to find any one who loves her like me ? I loved her too well, I gave myself too much up to it. Her desires, by being perpetually prevented, became extinct. These are the ways of women. They grow tired of every thing, even of being happy. Ah, canst thou be so now, perfidious girl ! Canst thou be so, and think of me ? Of me, do I say ? What signify to her my love and grief? Ah, while I can scarce restrain my cries, while I bathe her bed with my tears, another, perhaps — horrible thought ! I cannot support it. I will know this rival, and if the fire which burns in my breast has not consumed me before day, I will not die without vengeance. It is doubtless some one of those false friends whom I have impru- dently introduced to her. Soligny, perhaps. He was taken with her when we saw her in her own village. She was simple and sincere then. How is Lauretta . 43 she changed ! He wanted to see her again ; and I, poor easy fool ! thinking myself beloved, believing it impossible for Lauretta to be unfaithful, brought my rival to her. I may be deceived, but, in short, it is he whom I suspect. I will be satisfied instantly. “ Follow me,” said he to one of his domestics ; and it was scarce daylight, when, knocking at the chevalier’s door, Luzy asked to see him. “ He is not at home, sir,” said the Swiss. “ Not at home?” “No, sir, he is in the country.” “ How long since ? ” “Since yesterday evening.” “At what hour?” “About dusk.” “And what part of the country is he gone to ? ” “ We do not know : he has taken only his valet de chambre with him.” In what car- riage ? ” “In his vis-a-vis .” “ Is his absence to be long ? ” “ He will not be back this fortnight, and has ordered me to take care of his letters.” “At his return tell him that I was here, and that I desired to see him.” “At last,” said he, on going away, (( I am con- vinced. Everything agrees. Nothing remains but to discover where they have concealed themselves. I will tear her from his arms, the perfidious wretch ! And I will have the pleasure of washing away with his blood my injury and her treachery ! ” His researches were ineffectual. The chevalier’s journey was a mystery which he could not penetrate. Luzy was, therefore, fifteen days on the rack ; and the full persuasion that Soligny was the ravisher diverted him from every other idea.” In his impatience he sent every morning to know if his rival was returned. At last he was told that 44 Classic Tales . he was just arrived. He flies to him, inflamed with anger, and the favourable reception given him by the chevalier only irritated him more. “ My dear Count,” said Soligny, “you have been very earnest in your inquiries for me; how can I serve you?” “In ridding me,” replied Luzy, at the same time turning pale, “either of a life which I detest, or of a rival whom I hate. You have carried off my mistress ; nothing remains but to pluck out my heart.” “ My friend,” said the chevalier to him, “ I have as great a desire to have my throat cut as yourself, for I am quite mad with vexation ; but I have no quarrel with you ; if you please, let us understand each other. Lauretta has been carried off, you say ; I am very sorry for it ; she was a charming girl ; but, upon my honour, it was not by me ! Not that I pique myself on any delicacy in that point. In love I forgive my own friends, and allow myself these little petit larcenies, and though I heartily love you, yet if Lauretta had thought proper to deceive you for me, rather than for another, I should not have been cruel. But as to carrying them off, I don’t like that, that is too serious a business for me ; and if you have no other reason for killing me, I advise you to let me live, and to breakfast with me.” Though the cheva- lier’s language had very much the air of frankness, Luzy still retained his suspicions. “ You dis- appeared,” said he, “the same evening, at the same hour ; and you lay hid for a fortnight ; I know besides that you loved her, and that you had an inclination for her at the very time that I took her.” Lauretta. 45 “You are in luck,” said Soligny, “ that in the humour I am now in, I love you enough to come to an explanation. Lauretta went off the same evening with me ; I have nothing to say to that : it is one of these critical rencounters which form the intrigue of romances. I thought Lauretta beautiful as an angel, and I had an inclination for her, it is true ; but if you will cut the throats of all who are guilty of the same crime, mercy upon one-half of Paris ! The important article, then, is the secret of my journey and absence. Very well, I will explain that matter. “ I was in love with Madame de Blanson, or rather, I was in love with her riches, her birth, her credit at court ; for that woman has everything in her favour except herself. You know that if she is neither young nor handsome, to make amends she has a deal of sensibility, and is easily set on fire. I had got into her good graces, and saw no possi- bility to be, as it is called, happy, without proceeding to marriage. But marriage was my point ; and under cover of that respectful timidity, inseparable from a delicate love, I eluded all opportunity of making an ill use of her weakness. So much reserve disconcerted her. She never saw, she said, a man so timorous, and so much of the novice. I was as bashful as a young girl : my modesty absolutely tantalized her. In short, not to trouble you with all the arts I employed for three months to sustain attacks without surrendering, never did coquette strive so much to kindle ineffectual desires. My conduct was a masterpiece of prudence and dexterity : 46 Classic Tales . but the widow was too hard for me. I am hei dupe : yes, my friend, she has surprised my credulous innocence. Seeing that she must attack me regularly, she talked of marriage. Nothing was more advan- tageous than her proposals. Her fortune was to be entirely in my power. There remained only one bar to our happiness. I was very young, and she was not sufficiently acquainted with my character. In order to try one another, she proposed to me to pass some days together, tete-a-tete^ in the country. ‘ A fortnight’s solitude and liberty,’ said she, 4 will give us a truer idea of each other than two years at Paris.’ I fell into the snare, and she managed so well that I forgot my resolution. How frail is man, and how little certain of himself ! Having taken up the part of a husband I was obliged to maintain it, and gave her the best opinion of me that I possibly could ; but in a short time she thought she perceived that my love abated. It was in vain that I protested it was the same ; she told me that she was not to be deceived with empty words, and that she plainly saw the change in me. In short, this morning I received my discharge in form from under her own hands. It runs in these words : “ ‘ The slender trial which I have made of your sentiments is sufficient. Begone, sir, whenever you please ; I would have a husband whose attentions should never relax— who loves me always, and always the same.’ 44 Are you satisfied? There is my adventure. You see it is quite of a different nature than that you attributed to me. I have been carried off as well as your Lauretta ; Heaven grant that they have not Lauretta . 47 done by her as they did by me ! But now you are undeceived with respect to me, have you no other suspicion ?” “I am lost in them,” said Luzy, “ for- give my sorrow, my despair, my love, the step which I have just taken.” “ Pshaw!” replied Soligny, “ nothing was more just. If I had taken away your mistress I must have given you satisfaction. There is nothing in it ; so much the better ; and so we are good friends. Will you breakfast with me?” “ I would die.” “That would be going rather too far. Preserve that remedy for more serious disgraces. Lauretta is a pretty girl, though a little knavish baggage ; endeavour to see her again, but, if you cannot get her, take another, and the sooner the better.” While Luzy remained inconsolable, and was scattering his money with a liberal hand, in order to discover some traces of Lauretta, she was at her father’s, lamenting her error, or rather her lover. Basil had given out in the village that he had not been able to live without his daughter, and that he had been to fetch her home. They found her still improved. Her graces were now blown ; and that which is called the air of Paris had given her new charms, even in the eyes of the villagers. The ardour of the youths who had sought her was renewed, and became still more lively ; but her father refused them all. “You shall never marry in my lifetime,” said he, “ I would not impose upon any one. Work and lament with me. I have just sent back to your unworthy lover all his presents. We owe him nothing now except our shame.” 48 Classic Tales. Lauretta, humble and submissive, obeyed her father without complaining, and without daring to raise her eyes towards him. It was to her an incred- ible difficulty to resume the habitude of indigence and labour. Her feet, grown tender, were wounded ; her delicate hands were made sore ; but these were slight evils. “ The pains of the body are nothing,” said she groaning ; “ those of the soul are much more grievous.” Though Luzy was perpetually present to her, and her heart was not able to detach itself from him, she had no longer either the hope or desire of return- ing to him. She knew what bitterness her going astray had diffused over the life of her unhappy father ; and though she had been at liberty to quit him again, she would not have consented to it. But the image of the grief in which she had left her lover, pursued her, and was her torment. The right he had to accuse her of perfidy and ingratitude was a fresh cause of anguish. “ If I could but write to him ! But I have neither the liberty nor the means. Not content with obliging me to abandon him, they would have me forget him. I shall sooner forget myself ; and it is as impossible for me to hate him as to forget him. If he was culpable, his love was the cause, and I cannot punish him for it. In all that he did he meant only my happiness and my father’s. He deceived himself, he led me astray ; but at his age one thinks only of love. Yes, I owe it to him, I owe it to myself, to clear up my conduct ; and in that point alone my father shall not be obeyed.” The difficulty now was only to procure Lauretta. 49 the means of writing ; but her father, without intend- ing it, had spared her the trouble. One evening Luzy, retiring more afflicted than ever, received an anonymous packet. The hand in which the direction was written was unknown to him ; but the postmark told him enough. He opens it with precipitation ; he discovers the purse which he had given Basil, with the fifty louis which he had left in it, and two like sums which he had sent to him. “I see the whole affair,” said he; “I have been discovered. The father in indignation sends me back my presents. Haughty and severe, as I perceived him, as soon as he knew where his daughter was he came to fetch her, and forced her to follow him.” That moment he assembles such of his domestics as attended Lauretta. He examines them ; he asks if any one among them had not seen with her a countryman whom he describes to them. One of them actually remembers that the very day that she went away a man exactly like the person he describes got up to the boot of Lauretta’s coach, and spoke to her for a moment. “ Come quickly,” cried Luzy, “put post-horses to my chaise !” The second night, being arrived at some leagues from Coulange, he causes the servant who attended him to disguise himself like a peasant, sends him to get information, and in the meanwhile endeavours to take rest. Alas, there is none for a soul of a lover in so extreme a situation ! He counts the minutes from the departure of his emissary to his return. “Sir,” said the servant, “good news! Lauretta is at Coulange, at her father’s.” “ I breathe again ! ” III. D 5 ° Classic Tales . “ They talk even of marrying her.” “Of marrying her! I must see her.” “You will find her in the vineyard ; she works there all day.” “Just Heaven, what hardship ! Come, I will lie concealed ; and you, under that disguise, shall watch the moment when she is alone. Let us not lose an instant. Away ! ” Luzy’s emissary had told him truth. A rich person in the neighbourhood had offered himself as a match for Lauretta ; and the minister had sent to Basil to persuade him to accept it. In the meantime, Lauretta toiled in the vineyard, and thought of the unhappy Luzy. Luzy arrives, and perceives her at a distance ; he advances with precaution, sees her alone, runs up, throws himself before her, and stretches out his arms. At the noise which he made across the vine-leaves, she raises her head, and turns her eyes. “ My God ! ” cried she. Surprise and joy took from her the use of her voice. She was in his arms, all trembling, without having been able to mention his name. “Ah, Luzy ! ” said she, at last, “is it you? This is what I asked of Heaven. I am innocent in your eyes, that is enough ; I will endure the rest. Adieu, Luzy, adieu for ever ! Be gone ; and lament your Lauretta. She reproaches you with nothing. You will be dear to her to her last breath.” “I!” cried he, locking her in his arms, as if they were about to tear her from him again — “ I quit you ! Thou half of myself, I live without thee ! — far from thee ! No, there is not that power on earth that shall separate us.” “There is one which is sacred to me ; the will of my father. Lauretta. 5 * Ah, my lost friend ! if you had known the profound grief into which my flight plunged him, sensible and good as you are, you would have restored me to his tears. To take me away from him a second time, or to plunge a dagger into his bosom, would be to me the same thing. You know me too well to require it of me ; you are too humane to wish it yourself. Cast away a hope which I have lost. Adieu ! Heaven grant that I may expiate my fault ! Adieu, I say ! my father is coming ; it would be dreadful that he should find us together. ” “It is what I would have,” said Luzy ; “ I wait for him.” “ Ah ! you are now going to redouble my sorrows.” At that instant Basil arrives ; and Luzy, advancing some paces to meet him, throws himself at his feet. “Who are you? what do you want ?’ 1 said Basil, astonished at first. But as soon as he had fixed his eyes on him — “Wretch,” cried he, drawing back, “ begone, take yourself away from my sight ! ” “No, I shall die at your feet if you will not vouch- safe to hear me.” “ After having ruined, dishonoured the daughter, dare you present yourself to the father ! ” “ I am to blame, I confess, and here are the means to punish me,” said he, presenting his sword. “But if you will hear me, I hope that you will have compas- sion on me.” “Ah!” said Basil, looking at the sword, “if I were as base, as cruel as you — “See,” said he to his daughter, “how grovelling is vice, and how great the shame of it ; since it obliges a man to crouch at the feet of his fellow-creature, and to sustain his contempt.” “If I were only vicious,” replied Luzy haughtily, “far from imploring you, I u. of 1. ub: 52 Classic Tales . should brave you. Attribute my humiliation only to that which is the most honest and most noble cause in nature ; to love, to virtue itself, to the desire which I have of expiating a fault, excusable, perhaps, and with which I reproach myself so cruelly, only because I have a good heart.” Then, with all the eloquence of sentiment, he endeavoured to justify himself, attributing the whole to the warmth of youth and the intoxication of passion. “ The world is very happy,” replied Basil, “that your passion has not been that of money ! You would have been a Cartouch.” Luzy chafed at this discourse. “ Yes, a Cartouch. And why not ? Will you have the meanness to think that innocence and honour are of less value than riches and life ? Have you not availed yourself of the weakness, the infirmity of this unhappy girl, in order to rob her of these two treasures? And me, her father, do you think you have done me a less injury than if you had murdered me ? A Cartouch is broken on the wheel, because he steals riches, with which we may dispense ; but for you, who have taken from us what a well-educated girl, what a virtuous father cannot lose without dying, what have you merited ? They call you noble, and you believe yourself so. These are the marks of that nobility of which you are so vain. At a time of distress, when the most wicked of mankind would have had pity on me, you accost me, you pretend to pity me, and you say in your heart, ‘ There, now, is a wretch who has no other consolation in the world but his daughter ; she is the only blessing Heaven has left him, and to-morrow I will carry her away Lauretta . 53 from him.’ Yes, barbarian — yes, villain ! this is what passed in your soul. And I, poor, credulous fool ! 1 admired you, loaded you with blessings, and prayed Heaven to accomplish all your wishes ; while all your wishes were to seduce my daughter ! What do I say, wretch as I am ? I delivered her up to you, I engaged her to run after you, in truth, to restore to you that gold, that poison, with which you thought to corrupt me ; it seemed as if Heaven had warned me that it was a destructive and treacherous gift ; I resisted the impulse, and forced myself to believe you compassionate and generous ; you were only perfidious and unpitying, and the hand which I would have kissed, which I would have watered with my tears, was preparing to pluck out my heart. Behold,” continued he, baring his bosom, and showing his scars — “ behold what a man you have dishonoured. I have shed for my country more blood than you have in all your veins ; and you, sir, what are your exploits ? Distressing a father, by robbing him of his daughter, poisoning my days and hers. See there the unhappy victim of your seduction ; see her there, steeping in her tears her daily bread. Brought up in the simplicity of an innocent and laborious life, she loved it. She now detests it ; you have rendered insupportable labour and poverty to her ; she has lost her joy with her innocence, and she can no longer lift up her eyes without blushing. But that which distracts me, that which I will never forgive you, is, that you have shut the heart of my daughter against me ; you have extinguished the sentiments of nature in her soul ; you have made the company of her father 54 Classic Tales. a torment to her ; perhaps, alas, — I dare not speak it, — perhaps, I am her aversion.’’ “Ah, my father!” cried Lauretta, who till then had remained in dejection and confusion — “ ah, my father ! this is punishing me too much. I merit everything except the reproach of having ceased to love you.” On saying these words, she fell at his feet, and kissed the dust off them. Luzy prostrated him- self before him, and in an excess of tenderness, “My father,” said he, “pardon her, pardon me, embrace your children ; and if the ravisher of Lauretta be not too unworthy of the name of her husband, I conjure you to grant me that title.” This return would have softened a harder heart than Basil’s. “ If there were,” said he to Luzy, “ any other way of restoring to me my honour, and to both of you your innocence, I would refuse this. But it is the only one ; I accept it, and much more for your sakes than for my own ; for I neither expect, and will have nothing from you, and will die in cultivating my vineyard.” The love of Luzy and Lauretta was consecrated at the foot of the altar. Many people said that he had done a mean thing, and he agreed to it. “ But it is not,” said he, “ that which they attribute to me. The shame was in doing the wrong, and not in repairing it.” There was no way of engaging Basil to quit his humble habitation. After having tried every art to draw him to Paris, Madame de Luzy obtained per- mission of her husband to purchase an estate near Coulange, and the good father consented at last to go there and spend his old age. Lauretta, 55 Two hearts formed for virtue were raptured in having recovered it. That image of celestial pleasures, the agreement of love and innocence, left them nothing more to desire, but to see the fruits of so sweet a union. Heaven heard the wish of nature ; and Basil, before he died, embraced his grandchildren. THE SHEPHERDESS OF THE ALPS. In the mountains of Savoy, not far from the road from Briangon to Modena, is a solitary valley, the sight of which inspires travellers with a pleasing melancholy. Three little hills, in form of an amphi- theatre, on which are scattered, at a great distance from each other, some shepherds’ huts, torrents that fall from the mountains, clumps of trees here and there, pastures always green, form the ornament of this rural place. The Marchioness of Fonrose was returning from France to Italy with her husband. The axle-tree of their carriage broke, and as the day was on the decline, they were obliged to seek in this valley for some shelter to pass the night. As they advanced towards one of the huts, they saw a flock going that way, conducted by a shepherdess whose gait aston- ished them. They drew nearer, and heard a heavenly voice, whose plaintive and moving accents made the echoes groan. “How the setting sun still glitters with a gentle light ! It is thus,” said she, “that at the end of a painful race the exhausted soul departs to grow young again in the pure source of immortality. But, alas ! how distant is the period, and how long is life !” On saying these words, the shepherdess retired, with her head inclined ; but the negligence of her attitude 56 The Shepherdess of the Alps. 57 seemed to give still more nobleness and majesty to her person and deportment. Struck with what they saw, and still more with what they had just heard, the Marquis and Mar- chioness of Fonrose redoubled their pace, in order to overtake the shepherdess whom they admired. But what was their surprise, when under the plainest head-dress, beneath the most humble garb, they saw all the graces, all the beauties united! “ Child,” said the Marchioness to her, on seeing that she avoided them, “fear nothing; we are travellers, whom an accident obliges to seek shelter in these huts till the day : will you be so good as to be our guide ?” “ I pity you, madam,” said the shepherdess to her, looking down and blushing ; “ these huts are inhabited by poor creatures, and you will be very ill lodged.” “You lodge there, without doubt, your- self,” replied the Marchioness; “and I can easily endure for one night the inconveniences which you suffer always.” “I am formed for that,” said the shepherdess, with a modesty that charmed them. “ No, surely,” said the Marquis de Fonrose, who could no longer dissemble the emotion she had caused in him; “no, you are not formed to suffer; and Fortune is very unjust ! Is it possible, lovely damsel, that so many charms are buried in this desert under that habit?” “Fortune, sir!” replied Adelaide (this was the name of the shepherdess) — “ Fortune is not cruel, but when she takes from us that which she has given us. My condition has its pleasures for one who knows no other ; and custom creates wants for you which shepherds do not know.” “ That may Classic Tales . 58 be,” said the Marquis, “ with respect to those whom Heaven has placed from their birth in this obscure condition ; but you, astonishing damsel, you whom I admire, you who enchant me, you were never born what you now are ! — that air, that gait, that voice, that language, everything betrays you. But two words which you have just now spoken proclaim a cultivated understanding, a noble soul. Proceed ; teach us what misfortune can have reduced you to this strange abasement.” “For a man in misfor- tune,” replied Adelaide, “there are a thousand ways to extricate himself ; for a woman, you know, there is no other honest resource than servitude, and the choice of masters. They do well, in my opinion, who prefer the good. You are now going to see mine ; you will be charmed with the innocence of their lives, the candour, the simplicity, the probity of their manners.” While she talked thus, they arrived at the hut. It was separated by a partition from the fold into which this incognita drove her sheep, telling them over with the most serious attention, and without deigning to take any further notice of the travellers who contemplated her. An old man and his wife, such as Philomel and Baucis are described to us, came forth to meet their guests with that village honesty which recalls the golden age to our minds. “ We have nothing to offer you,” said the good woman, “but fresh straw for a bed ; milk, fruit, and rye-bread for your food ; but the little that Heaven gives us, we will most heartily share with you.” The travellers, on entering the hut, were surprised at the 59 The Shepherdess of the Alps . air of regularity which everything breathed there. The table was one single plank of walnut-tree, highly polished ; they saw themselves in the enamel of the earthen vessels designed for their milk. Everything presented the image of cheerful poverty, and of the first wants of nature agreeably satisfied. “ It is our dear daughter,” said the good woman, “who takes upon her the management of our house. In the morning, before her flock ramble far into the country, and while they begin to graze round the house on the grass covered with dew, she washes, cleans, and sets everything in order, with a dexterity that charms us.” “What ! ” said the Marchioness, “ is this shepherdess your daughter?” “Ah, madam, would to Heaven she were!” cried the good old woman; “it is my heart that calls her so, for I have a mother’s love for her.” “Who is she then? Whence comes she? and what misfortune has reduced her to such a con- dition?” “ All that is unknown to us. It is now four years since she came in the habit of a female peasant to offer herself to keep our flocks ; we would have taken her for nothing, so much had her good look and pleasing manner won upon our hearts. We doubted her being born a villager ; but our questions afflicted her, and we thought it our duty to abstain from them. This respect has but augmented in pro- portion as we have become better acquainted with her soul ; but the more we would humble ourselves to her, the more she humbles herself to us. Never had daughter more attention for her father and mother, nor officiousness more tender. She cannot obey us, because we are far from commanding her ; 6o Classic Tales. but it seems as if she saw through us, and everything that we can wish is done, before we perceive that she thinks of it. She is an angel come down among us to comfort our old age.” “And what is she doing now in the fold ? ” demanded the Marchioness. “ Giving the flock fresh litter ; drawing the milk from the ewes and she-goats. This milk, pressed out by her hand, seems to become the more delicate for it. I, who go and sell it in the town, cannot serve it fast enough. They think it delicious. The dear child employs herself, while she is watching the flock, in works of straw and osier, which are admired by all. Everything becomes valuable beneath her fingers. You see, madam,” continued the old woman, “ you see here the image of an easy and quiet life ; it is she that procures it to us. This heavenly daughter is never employed but to make us happy.” “ Is she happy herself,” demanded the Marquis de Fonrose. “ She endeavours to persuade us so,” replied the old man ; “ but I have frequently observed to my wife, that at her return from the pasture she had her eyes bedewed with tears, and the most afflicted air in the world. The moment she sees us, she affects to smile ; but we see plainly that she has some grief that consumes her. We dare not ask her what it is.” “Ah, madam,” said the old woman, “how I suffer for this child, when she persists in leading out her flocks to pasture in spite of rain and frost ! Many a time have I thrown myself on my knees, in order to prevail with her to let me go in her stead ; but I never could prevail on her. She goes out at sunrise, and returns in the evening, benumbed with cold. 6i The Shepherdess of the Alps. ‘Judge now , 5 says she to me, ‘whether I would suffer you to quit your fire-side, and expose yourself, at your age, to the rigours of the season. I am scarce able to withstand it myself . 5 Nevertheless, she brings home under her arm the wood with which we warm ourselves ; and when I complain of the fatigue she gives herself — ‘ Have done, have done, my good mother, it is by exercise that I keep myself from cold ; labour is made for my age . 5 In short, madam, she is as good as she is handsome, and my husband and I never speak of her but with tears in our eyes . 55 “ And if she should be taken from you ? 55 said the Marchioness. “We should lose , 55 inter- rupted the old man, “all that we hold dearest in the world ; but if she herself was to be happier for it, we would die happy in that consolation. “ Oh, ay , 55 replied the old woman, shedding tears; “Heaven grant her a fortune worthy of her, if it be possible ! It was my hope that that hand so dear to me would have closed my eyes, for I love her more than my life . 55 Her arrival broke off their discourse. She appeared with a pail of milk in one hand, a basket of fruit in the other ; and after saluting them with an ineffable grace, she directed her attention to the care of the family, as if nobody observed her. “You give yourself a great deal of trouble, my dear child , 55 said the Marchioness. “I endeavour, madam , 55 replied she, “ to fulfil the intention of those I serve, who are desirous of entertaining you in the best manner they are able. You will have , 55 con- tinued she, spreading over the table a coarse but very white cloth — “you will have a frugal and rural 62 Classic Tales . repast. This bread is not the whitest in the world, but it tastes pretty well ; the eggs are fresh, the milk is good; and the fruits, which I have just now gathered, are such as the season affords.” The diligence, the attention, the noble and becoming grace with which this wonderful shepherdess paid them all the duties of hospitality ; the respect she showed for her master and mistress, whether she spoke to them, or whether she sought to read in their eyes what they wanted her to do ; all these things filled the Marquis and Marchioness of Fonrose with astonishment and admiration. As soon as they were laid down on the bed of fresh straw which the shepherdess had prepared for them herself — “Our adventure has the air of a prodigy,” said they one to another. “ We must clear up this mystery ; we must carry away this child along with us.” At break of day, one of the men who had been up all night mending their carriage came to inform them that it was thoroughly repaired. Madame de Fonrose, before she set out, ordered the shepherdess to be called to her. “Without wanting to pry,” said she, “ into the secret of your birth, and the cause of your misfortune, all that I see, all that I hear, interests me in your favour. I see that your spirit has raised you above ill fortune, and that you have suited your sentiments to your present condition ; your charms and your virtues render it respectable, but yet it is unworthy of you. I have it in my power, amiable stranger, to procure you a happier lot ; my husband’s intentions agree entirely with mine. I have a considerable estate at Turin ; I want a friend The Shepherdess of the Alps. 63 of my own sex, and I shall think I bear away from this place an invaluable treasure, if you will accom- pany me. Separate from the proposal, from the suit I now make you, all notion of servitude. I do not think you made for that condition ; but though my prepossessions in your favour should deceive me, I had rather raise you above your birth, then leave you beneath it. I repeat to you it is a friend of my own sex that I want to attach to me. For the rest, be under no concern for the fate of these good people. There is nothing which I would not do to make them amends for your loss ; at least they shall have where- with to spend the remainder of their lives happily, according to their condition ; and it is from your hand that they shall receive the benefits I intend them.” The old folks, who were present at this discourse, kissing the hands of the Marchioness, and throwing themselves at her feet, begged the young incognita to accept of these generous offers. They represented to her with tears that they were on the brink of the grave ; that she had no other consolation than to make them happy in their old age ; and that at their death, when left to herself, their habitation would become a dreadful solitude. The shepherdess, embracing them, mingled her tears with theirs ; she returned thanks to the Marquis and Marchioness of Fonrose for their goodness, with a sensibility that made her still more beautiful. “ I cannot,” said she, “ accept of your courtesies. Heaven has marked out my place, and its will is accomplished ; but your goodness has made impressions on my soul which will never be effaced. The respectable name of 6 4 Classic Tales . Fonrose shall ever be present to my imagination. I have but one favour more to ask you,” said she, blushing and looking down ; ‘ ‘ that is, to be so good as to bury this adventure in eternal silence, and to leave the world for ever ignorant of the lot of an unknown creature, who wants to live and die in oblivion.” The Marquis and Marchioness of Fon- rose, moved with pity and grief, redoubled a thou- sand times their instances ; she was immoveable, and the old people, the travellers, and the shepherdess separated with tears in their eyes. During the journey, the Marquis and his lady were taken up with nothing but this adventure. They thought they had been in a dream. Their imagina- tions being filled with this kind of romance, they arrive at Turin. It may easily be imagined that they did not keep silence, and this was an inexhaustible subject for reflections and conjectures. The young Fonrose, being present at these discourses, lost not one circumstance. He was at that age wherein the imagination is most lively and the heart most sus- ceptible ; but he was one of those characters whose sensibility displays not itself outwardly, and who are so much the more violently agitated, when they are so at all, as the sentiment which affects them does not weaken itself by any sort of dissipation. All that Fonrose hears said of the charms, virtues, and mis- fortunes of the shepherdess of Savoy, kindles in his soul the most ardent desire of seeing, her. He forms to himself an image of her, which is always present to him. He compares her to everything that he sees, and everything that he sees vanishes before her. But The Shepherdess of the Alps . 65 the more his impatience redoubles, the more care he takes to conceal it. Turin becomes odious to him. The valley which conceals from the world its brightest ornament, attracts his whole soul. It is there that happiness waits him. But if his project is known, he foresees the greatest obstacles. They will never consent to the journey he meditates ; it is the folly of a young man, the consequences of which they will be apprehensive of; the shepherdess herself, affrighted at his pursuits, will not fail to withdraw herself from them ; he loses her, if he should be known. After all these reflections, which employed his thoughts for three months, he takes a resolution to quit everything for her sake ; to go, under the habit of a shepherd, to seek her in her solitude, and to die there, or to draw her out of it. He disappears ; they see him no more. His parents become alarmed at his absence : their fear increases every day ; their expectations disappointed throw the whole family into affliction ; the fruitless- ness of their inquiries completes their despair ; a duel, an assassination, everything that is most unfor- tunate, presents itself to their imagination ; and these unhappy parents end their researches by lamenting the death of their son, their only hope. While his family are in mourning, Fonrose, under the habit of a shepherd, presents himself to the inhabitants of the hamlets adjoining to the valleys, which they had but too well described to him. His ambition is accom- plished ; they trust him with the care of their flocks. The first day after his arrival, he left them to III. E 66 Classic Tales . wander at random, solely attentive to discover the places to which the shepherdess led. “Let us manage,” said he, “the timidity of this solitary fair one ; if she is unfortunate, her heart has need of consolation ; if it be nothing but a desire to banish herself from the world, and the pleasure of a tranquil and innocent life that retains her here, she will feel some dull moments, and wish for company to amuse or console her. If I succeed so far as to render that agreeable to her, she will soon find it necessary ; then I shall take counsel from the situation of her soul. After all, we are here alone, as it were, in the world, and we shall be everything to each other. From confidence to friendship the passage is not long ; and from friendship to love, at our age, the road is still easier.” And what was Fonrose’s age when he reasoned thus? Fonrose was eighteen; but three months’ reflection on the same object unfolds a number of ideas. While he was thus giving himself up to his imagination, with his eyes wandering over the country, he hears at a distance that voice, the charms of which had been so often extolled to him. The emotion it excited in him was as lively as if she had been unexpected. “ It is here,” said the shepherdess in her plaintive strains — “ it is here that my heart enjoys the only happiness that remains to it. My grief has a luxury in it for my soul ; I prefer its bitterness to the deceitful sweets of joy.” These accents rent the sensible heart of Fonrose. “What,” said he, “ can be the cause of the chagrin that con- sumes her? How pleasing would it be to console her ! ” A hope still more pleasing presumed, not The Shepherdess of the Alps . 67 without difficulty, to flatter his desires. He feared to alarm the shepherdess if he resigned himself imprudently to his impatience of seeing her near, and for the first time it was sufficient to have heard her. The next day he went out again to lead his sheep to pasture ; and after observing the route which she had taken, he placed himself at the foot of the rock which the day before repeated to him the sounds of that touching voice. I forgot to mention that Fonrose, to the handsomest figure had joined those talents which the young nobility of Italy do not neglect. He played on the hautboy like Besuzzi, of whom he had taken his lessons, and who formed at that time the delight of Europe. Adelaide, buried in her own afflicting ideas, had not yet made her voice heard, and the echoes kept silence. All on a sudden this silence was interrupted by the plaintive sounds of Fonrose’s hautboy. These unknown sounds excited in the soul of Adelaide a surprise mingled with anxiety. The keepers of the flocks that wandered on the hills had never caused her to hear aught before but the sounds of rustic pipes. Im- moveable and attentive, she seeks with her eyes who it was that could form such harmonious sounds. She perceives, at a distance, a young shepherd seated in the cavity of a rock, at the foot of which he fed his flock ; she draws near, to hear him the better. “See,” said she, “what the mere instinct of nature can do ! The ear teaches this shepherd all the refinements of art. Can any one breathe purer sounds ? What delicacy in his inflections ! what variety in his gradations ! Who can say after this, 68 Classi Tales . that taste is not the gift of nature ? ” Ever since Adelaide had dwelt in this solitude, this was the first time that her grief, suspended by an agreeable dis- traction, had delivered up her soul to the sweet emotion of pleasure. Fonrose, who saw her ap- proach and seat herself at the foot of a willow to hear him, pretended not to perceive her. He seized, without seeming to affect it, the moment of her retreat, and managed the course of his own flock in such a manner as to meet her on a declivity of a hill, where the road crossed. He cast only one look on her, and continued his route, as if taken up with nothing but the care of his flock. But what beauties had that one look ran over ; what eyes ! what a divine mouth ! How much more ravishing still would those features be, which are so noble and touching in their langour, if love reanimated them ! He saw plainly that grief alone had withered in their spring the roses on her lovely cheeks; but, of so many charms, that which had moved him most was the noble elegance of her person and her gait ; in the ease of her motions he thought he saw a young cedar, whose straight and flexible trunk yields gently to the zephyrs. This image, which love had just engraven in flaming characters on his memory, took up all his thoughts. “How feebly,” said he, “have they painted to me this beauty, unknown to the world, whose adoration she merits ! And it is a desert that she inhabits ! and it is thatch that covers her ! She who ought to see kings at her feet, employs herself in tending a humble flock ! Beneath what garments has she presented herself to my view ? She adorns The Shepherdess of the Alps . 69 everything, and nothing disfigures her. Yet what a life for a frame so delicate ! Coarse food, a savage climate, a bed of straw ; great gods 1 And for whom are the roses made? Yes, I will draw her out of this state, so much too hard and too unworthy of her.” Sleep interrupted his reflections, but effaced not her image. Adelaide, on her side, sensibly struck wdth the youth, the beauty of Fonrose, ceased not to admire the caprices of fortune. “Where is nature going,” said she, “ to reassemble together so many talents and so many graces ! But, alas ! those gifts which to him are here but useless, would be perhaps his misfortune in a more elevated state. What evils does not beauty create in the world ! Unhappy as I am, is it for me to set any value on it?” This melancholy reflection began to poison in her soul the pleasures she had tasted ; she reproached herself for having been sensible of it, and resolved to deny it herself for the future. The next day Fonrose thought he perceived that she avoided his approach ; he fell into a profound melancholy. “ Could she suspect my disguise ? ” said he. “Should I have betrayed it myself?” This uneasiness possessed him all the live-long day, and his hautboy was neglected. Adelaide was not so far but she could easily have heard it ; and his silence astonished her. She began to sing herself. “It seems,” said the song, “that everything around me partakes of my heaviness ; the birds send forth none but sorrowful notes ; echo replies to me in complaints ; the zephyrs moan amidst those leaves ; the sound of the brooks imitates my sighs, one might say that they flowed 70 Classic Tales. with tears.” Fonrose, softened by these strains, could not help replying to them. Never was concert more moving than that of his hautboy with Adelaide’s voice. “ O Heaven ! ” said she, “ it is enchantment ! I dare not believe my ears ; it is not a shepherd, it is a god whom I have heard ! Can the natural sense of harmony inspire such concord of sounds?” While she was speaking thus, a rural or rather a celestial melody made the valley resound. Adelaide thought she saw those prodigies realizing which Poetry attributes to her sprightly sister Music. Astonished, confounded, she knew not whether she ought to take herself away, or resign herself up to this enchant- ment. But she perceived the shepherd, whom she had just heard, re-assembling his flock in order to regain his hut. “He knows not,” says she, “the delight he diffuses around him ; his undisguised soul is not in the least vain of it ; he waits not even for the praises I owe him. Such is the power of music ; it is only talent that places its happiness in itself ; all the others require witnesses. This gift of heaven was granted to man in his innocence ; it is the purest of all pleasures. Alas ! it is the only one I still relish ; and I consider this shepherd as a new echo, who is come to answer my grief.” The following day Fonrose affected to keep at a distance in his turn : Adelaide was afflicted at it. “ Chance,” said she, “seemed to have procured me this feeble consolation ; I gave myself up to it too easily, and, to punish me, she has deprived me of it.” At last, one day, when they happened to meet on the declivity of the hill, “Shepherd,” said she 7i The Shepherdess of the Alps. to him, “are you leading your flocks far off?” These first words of Adelaide caused an emotion in Fonrose which almost deprived him of the use of his voice. “ I do not know,” said he, hesitating ; “it is not I who lead my flock, but my flock leads me ; these places are better known to it than to me : I leave to it the choice of the best pastures.” “ Whence are you, then ? ” said the shepherdess to him. “I was born beyond the Alps,” replied Fonrose. “Were you born among shepherds?” continued she. “As I am a shepherd,” said he, looking down, “I must have been born to be one.” “ I doubt it,” replied Adelaide, viewing him with attention. “ Your talents, your language, your very air, all tell me that fate had placed you in a better situation.” “ You are very obliging,” said Fonrose; “ but ought you of all persons to believe that nature refuses everything to shepherds ? Were you born to be a queen ? ” Adelaide blushed at this answer ; and changing the subject — “The other day,” said she, “ by the sound of a hautboy you accompanied my songs with an art that would be a prodigy in a simple shepherd.” “It is your voice that is so,” replied Fonrose, “in a simple shepherdess.” “But has nobody instructed you?” “I have, like yourself, no other guide than my heart and my ear. You sung, I was melted ; what my heart feels, my hautboy expresses ; I breathe my soul into it. This is the whole of my secret ; nothing in the world is easier.” “ That is incredible,” said Adelaide. “ I said the very same on hearing you,” replied Fonrose, “ but I was forced to believe it. What will you say ? 72 Classic Tales. Nature and love sometimes take a delight in assem- bling their most precious gifts in persons of the most humble fortune, to show that there is no condition which they cannot ennoble.” During this discourse, they advanced towards the valley ; and Fonrose, whom a ray of hope now animated, began to make the air resound with those sprightly notes which pleasure inspires. “ Ah, prythee now,” said Adelaide, “ spare my soul the troublesome image of a sentiment which she cannot relish. This solitude is consecrated to grief ; her echoes are not used to repeat the accents of a profane joy; here everything groans in concert with me.” “I also have cause to complain,” replied the young man ; and these words, pronounced with a sigh, were followed by a long silence. “You have cause to complain,” replied Adelaide; “is it of mankind? is it of fortune?” “No matter,” said he, “but I am not happy : ask me no more.” “ Hear me,” said Adelaide : “ Heaven gives us to teach each other as a consolation in our troubles ; mine are like an over- whelming load, which weighs down my heart. Who- ever you may be, if you know misfortune, you ought to be compassionate, and I believe you worthy of my confidence ; but promise me that it shall be mutual.” “Alas!” said Fonrose, “my misfortunes are such, that I shall perhaps be condemned never to reveal them.” This mystery but redoubled the curiosity of Adelaide. “ Repair to-morrow,” said she to him, “ to the foot of that hill, beneath that old tufted oak where you have heard me moan. There I will teach you things that will excite your pity.” Fonrose 73 The Shepherdess of the Alps. passed the night in the utmost emotion. His fate depended on what he was going to hear. A thousand alarming ideas agitated him by turns. He dreaded, above all, the being driven to despair by the com- munication of an unsuccessful and faithful love. “ If she is in love,” said he, “ I am undone ! ” He repairs to the appointed place. He sees Adelaide arrive, the day was overcast with clouds, and nature mourning seemed to forebode the sadness of their conversation. As soon as they were seated at the foot of the oak, Adelaide spoke thus : “You see these stones which the grass begins to cover ; they are the tomb of the most tender, the most virtuous of men, whom my love and my imprudence have cost his life. I am a Frenchwoman, of a family of dis- tinction ; and, to my misfortune, too rich. The Count D’Orestan conceived the tenderest passion for me ; I was sensible of it, sensible to excess. My parents opposed the inclination of our hearts, and my frantic passion made me consent to a marriage sacred to virtuous souls, but disallowed by the laws. Italy was at that time the theatre of war. My husband went thither to join the corps which he was to com mand ; I followed him as far as Brianc^on : my foolish tenderness retained him there two days in spite of himself ; for he, a young man, full of honour, pro- longed his stay there with the greatest reluctance. He sacrificed his duty to me ; but what would not I have sacrificed to him ? In a word, I required it of him ; and he could not withstand my tears. He took leave with a foreboding which alarmed me. I accompanied him as far as this valley, where I re- 74 Classic Tales. ceived his adieus ; and in order to wait to hear from him, I returned to Briangon. A few days after, a report was spread of a battle. I doubted whether D’Orestan had got thither ; I wished it for his honour, I dreaded it for my love ; when I received a letter from him, which I thought very consoling. “ I shall be such a day, at such an hour,” said he, “in the valley, and under the oak, where we parted ; I shall repair there alone ; I conjure you to go there, and expect me, likewise alone; I live yet but for you.” How great was my mistake ! I perceived in his billet nothing more than an impatience to see me again, and this impatience made me happy. I re- paired, then, to this very oak. D’Orestan arrives ; and after the tenderest reception — ‘ You would have it so, my dear Adelaide, 5 said he ; ‘ I have failed in my duty at the most important moment of my life. What I feared is come to pass. A battle has happened, my regiment charged. It performed prodigies of valour, and I was not there. I am dishonoured, lost without resource. I reproach not you with my mis- fortune, but I have now but one sacrifice more to make you, and my heart is come to accomplish it.” At this discourse, pale, trembling, and scarce breath- ing, I took my husband into my arms. I felt my blood congeal in my veins, my knees bent under me, and I fell down senseless. He availed himself of my fainting to tear himself from my bosom ; and in a little time I was recalled to life by the report of a shot which killed him. I will not describe to you the situation I was in ; it is inexpressible, and the tears which you now see flowing, the sighs that stifle my 75 The Shepherdess of the Alps . voice, are but a feeble image of it. After passing the whole night beside his bloody corpse, in a grief that stupified me, my first care was to bury along with him my shame ; my hands dug out his grave. I seek not to move you ; but the moment in which the earth was to separate me from the sorrowful remains of my husband, was a thousand times more dreadful to me than that can be which is to separate my body from my soul. Spent with grief, and deprived of nourish- ment, my enfeebled hands took up two whole days in hollowing out this tomb with inconceivable labour. When my strength forsook me, I reposed myself on the livid and cold bosom of my husband. In short, I paid him the rites of sepulture, and my heart promised him to wait in these parts till death reunites us. In the meantime, cruel hunger began to devour me. I thought it criminal to refuse nature the supports of a life more grievous than death. I changed my garments for the plain habit of a shepherdess, and I embraced that condition as my only refuge. From that time my only consolation has been to come here, and weep over this grave, which shall be my own. You see,” continued she, “ with what sincerity I open my soul to you. With you I may henceforth weep at liberty ; it is a consolation I had need of ; but I expect the same confidence from you. Do not think that you have deceived me. I see clearly that the state of a shepherd is as foreign, and newer to you than to me. You are young, perhaps sensible ; and, if I may believe my conjectures, our misfortunes have the same source, and you have loved as well as I. We shall only feel the more for one another. I consider you as 76 Classic Tales . a friend, whom Heaven, touched by my misfortunes, deigns to send me in my solitude. Do you also consider me as a friend, capable of giving you, if not salutary counsel, at least a consolatory example. ” “You pierce my very soul,” said Fonrose, over- come with what he had just heard; “and whatever sensibility you may attribute to me, you are very far from conceiving the impression that the recital of your misfortunes has made on me. Alas ! why cannot I return it with that confidence which you testify towards me, and of which you are so worthy ? But I warned you of it ; I foresaw it. Such is the nature of my sorrows, that an eternal silence must shut them up in the bottom of my heart. You are very unhappy,” added he, with a profound sigh ; “I am still more unhappy, this is all I can tell you. Be not offended at my silence ; it is terrible to me to be condemned to it. The constant companion of all your steps, I will soften your labours ; I will partake of all your griefs ; I will see you weep over this grave, I will mingle my tears with yours. You shall not repent having de- posited your woes in a heart, alas, but too sensible ! ” “ I repent me of it from this moment,” said she, with confusion ; and both, with downcast eyes, retired in silence from each other. Adelaide, on quitting Fonrose, thought she saw in his countenance the impression of a profound grief. “I have revived,” said she, “ the sense of his sorrows ; and what must be their horror, when he thinks himself still more wretched than I ! ” From that day, more sighing and more conversation 77 The Shepherdess of the Alps. followed between Fonrose and Adelaide. They neither sought nor avoided one another ; looks of consternation formed almost their only language ; if he found her weeping over the grave of her husband, his heart was seized with pity, jealousy, and grief; he contemplated her in silence, and answered her sighs with deep groans. Two months had passed away in this painful situa- tion, and Adelaide saw Fonrose’s youth wither as a flower. The sorrow which consumed him afflicted her so much the more deeply, as the cause of it was unknown to her. She had not the most distant suspicion that she was the cause of it. However, as it is natural, when two sentiments divide a soul, for one to weaken the other, Adelaide's regret on account of the death of D’Orestan became less lively every day, in proportion as she delivered herself up to the pity with which Fonrose inspired her. She was very sure that this pity had nothing but what was innocent in it ; it did not even come into her head to defend herself from it; and the object of this generous senti- ment being continually present to her view, awakened it every instant. The languor into which this young man was fallen became such, that she thought it her duty not to leave him any longer to himself. “You are dying, ” said she to him, and you add to my griefs that of seeing you consumed with sorrow under my eye, without being able to apply any remedy. If the recital of the imprudences of my youth has not inspired you with a contempt for me ; if the purest and tenderest friendship be dear to you: in short, if you would not render me more, unhappy' than I was Classic Tales. 78 before I knew you, confide to me the cause of your griefs ; you have no person in the world but myself to assist you in supporting them ; your secret, though it were more important than mine, fear not that I shall divulge. The death of my husband has placed a gulf bextwixt the world and me ; and the con- fidence which I require will soon be buried in this grave, to which grief is with slow steps conducting me.” “I hope to go before you,” said Fonrose, bursting into tears. ‘ 6 Suffer me to finish my deplor- able life without leaving you afterwards the reproach of having shortened its course.” “O Heaven, what do I hear ! ” cried she with distraction. “ What, I ! — can I have contributed to the evils which overwhelm you ? Go on ; you pierce my soul ! What have I done — what have I said ? Alas, I tremble ! Good Heaven ! hast thou sent me into the world only to create wretches? Speak ; nay, speak ; you must no longer conceal who you are ; you have said too much to dissemble any longer.” “Well, then, I am — I am Fonrose, the son of those travellers whom you filled with admiration and respect. All that they related of your virtues and your charms inspired me with the fatal design of coming to see you in this disguise. I have left my family in the deepest sorrow, thinking they have lost me, and lamenting my death. I have seen you ; I know what attaches you to this place ; I know that the only hope that is left me is to die here adoring you. Give me no useless counsel or unjust reproaches. My resolution is as firm and immovable as your own. If in betray- ing my secret you disturb the last moments of a life The Shepherdess of the Alps. 79 almost at an end, you will to no purpose injure me, who would never offend you.” Adelaide, confounded, endeavoured to calm the despair into which this young man was plunged. “Let me,” said she, “do to his parents the service of restoring him to life ; let me save their only hope. Heaven presents me with this opportunity of acknow- ledging their favours. Thus, far from making him furious by a misplaced rigour, all" the tenderness of pity and consolation of friendship were put in prac- tice in order to soothe him. “ Heavenly angel ! ” cried Fonrose, “ I see all the reluctance that you feel to make any one unhappy : your heart is with him who reposes in this grave. I see that nothing can detach you from him ; I see how ingenuous your virtue is to conceal your woe from me ; I perceive it in all its extent, I am overwhelmed by it, but I pardon you: it is your duty never to love me — it is mine ever to adore you.” Impatient of executing the design which she had conceived, Adelaide arrives at her hut. “Father,” said she to her old master, “ do you think you have strength to travel to Turin? I have need of some- body whom I can trust, to give the Marquis and Marchioness of Fonrose the most interesting intellig- ence.” The old man replied that his zeal to serve them inspired him with courage. “ Go,” resumed Adelaide, “you will find them bewailing the death of their only son ; tell them that he is living, and in these parts, and that I will restore him to them ; but that there is an indispensible necessity for their com- ing here themselves to fetch him.” 8o Classic Tales . He sets out, arrives at Turin, sends in his address as the old man of the valley of Savoy. “ Ah ! ” cried Madame de Fonrose, “some misfortune, perhaps, has happened to our shepherdess.” “Let him come in,” added the Marquis; “he will tell us, perhaps, that she consents to live with us.” “After the loss of my son,” said the Marchioness, “it is the only comfort I can taste in this world.” The old man is introduced. He throws himself at their feet ; they raise him. “You are lamenting the death of your son,” said he. “I come to tell you that he lives ; our dear child has discovered him in the valley ; she sends me to inform you of it ; but yourselves only, she says, can bring him back.” As he spoke this, surprise and joy deprived the Marchioness de Fonrose of her senses. The Marquis, distracted and amazed, calls out for help for his lady, recalls her to life, embraces the old man, publishes to the whole house that their son is restored to them. The Marchioness resuming her spirits — “ What shall we do,” said she, taking the old man by the hands, and pressing them with tenderness — “ what shall we do in gratitude for this benefit which restores life to us ? ” Everything is ordered fcr their departure. They set out with the good man ! they travel night and day, and repair to the valley, where their only good awaits them. The shepherdess was out at pasture : the old woman conducts them to her ; they approach. How great is their surprise ! their son, that well-beloved son, is by her side in the habit of a simple shepheid. Their hearts sooner than their eyes acknowledge him. “ Ah ! cruel child,” cried The Shepherdess of the Alps. 81 his mother, throwing herself into his arms, “ what sorrow have you occasioned us ! — why withdraw your- self from our tenderness ? and what is it you came here for?” “To adore,” said he, “ what you yourself admired.” “Pardon me, madam,” said Adelaide, while Fonrose embraced his father’s knees, who raised him with kindness, — “pardon me for having left you so long in grief ; if I had known it sooner, you should have been sooner consoled.” After the first emotions of nature, Fonrose relapsed into the deepest affliction. “ Let us go,” said the Marquis, “let us go rest ourselves in the hut, and forget all the pain that this young madman has occasioned us.” “Yes, sir, I have been mad,” said Fonrose to his father, who led him by the hand. “Nothing but the loss of my reason could have suspended in my heart the emotions of nature, so as to make me forget the most sacred duties — in short, to detach myself from everything that I held dearest in the world ; but this madness you give birth to, and I am but too severely punished for it. I love without hope the most accomplished person in the world ; you see nothing, you know nothing of this incom- parable woman ; she is honesty, sensibility, virtue itself ; I love her even to idolatry, I cannot be happy without her, and I know that she cannot be mine.” “Has she confided to you,” said the Marquis, “the secret of her birth?” “I have learned enough of it,” said Fonrose, “ to assure you, that it is in no respect beneath my own ; she has even renounced a considerable fortune to bury herself in this desert.” “And do you know what has induced her to it?” ill. F 82 Classic Tales. “ Yes, sir, but it is a secret which she alone can reveal to you.” “ She is married, perhaps ?” She is a widow, but her heart is not the more disengaged ; her ties are but too strong.” “ Daughter,” said the Marquis, on entering the hut, “you see that you turn the heads of the whole family of Fonrose. The extravagant passion of this young man cannot be justified but by such a prodigy as you are. All my wife’s wishes are confined to having you for a companion and a friend ; this child here will not live unless he obtains you for his wife ; I desire no less to have you for my daughter. See how many persons you will make unhappy by a refusal.” Ah ! sir,” said she, “your goodness confounds me; but hear and judge for me.” Then Adelaide, in the presence of the old man and his wife, made a recital of her deplorable adventure. She added the name of her family, which was not unknown to the Marquis de Fonrose, and ended by calling on himself to witness the inviolable fidelity she owed her spouse. At these words consternation spread itself over every countenance. Young Fonrose, choked with sobs, threw himself into a corner of the hut, in order to give them free scope. The father, moved at the sight, flew to the assistance of his son. “See,” said he, “my dear Adelaide, to what a condition you have reduced him ! ” Madame de Fonrose, who was near Adelaide, pressed her in her arms, bathing her at the same time with her tears. “ Alas ! why, my daughter,” said she, “ why will you a second time make us mourn the death of our dear child ? ” The old man and his wife, their eye'* filled with tears, The Shepherdess of the Alps. 83 and fixed upon Adelaide, waited her speaking. “ Heaven is my witness,” said Adelaide, rising, “that I would lay down my life in gratitude for such goodness. It would heighten my misfor- tunes to have occasion to reproach myself with yours ; but I am willing that Fonrose himself should be my judge ; suffer me, if you please, to speak to him for a moment.” Then retiring with him alone, “ Fonrose,” said she, “you know what sacred ties retain me in this place. If I could cease to love and lament a husband who loved me but too well, I should be the most despicable of women. Esteem, friendship, gratitude are the sentiments I owe you ; but none of these can cancel love ; the more you have conceived for me, the more you should expect from me ; it is the impossibility of fulfilling that duty that hinders my imposing it on myself. At the same time I see you in a situation that would move the least sensible heart ; it is shocking to me to be the cause, it would be still more shocking to me to hear your parents accuse me with having been your destruction. I will forget myself, then, for the present, and leave you, as far as in me lies, to be the arbiter of our destiny. It is for you to choose that of the two situations which appears to you least painful ; either to renounce me, to subdue yourself, and forget me ; or to possess a woman whose heart being full of another object, can only grant you sentiments too feeble to satisfy the wishes of a lover.” “That is enough, said Fonrose; “and in a soul like yours, friendship should take place for love. I shall be jealous, without doubt, of the tears which 8 4 Classic Tales . you shall bestow on the memory of another husband ; but the cause of that jealousy, in rendering you more respectable, will render you also more dear in my eyes. ” “She is mine!” said he, coming and throwing himself into the arms of his parents ; it is to her respect for you, to your goodness, that I owe her, and it is owing you a second life.” From that moment their arms were chains from which Adelaide could not disengage herself. Did she yield only to pity, to gratitude ? I would fain believe it, in order to admire her the more. Adelaide believed so herself. However it be, before she set out, she would revisit the tomb which she quitted but with regret. “ Oh, my dear D’Orestan,” said she, “ if from the womb of the dead thou canst read the bottom of my soul, thy shade has no cause to murmur at the sacrifice I make. I owe it to the generous sentiments of this virtuous family, but my heart remains thine for ever. I go to endeavour to make them happy, without any hope of being myself so.” It was not without some sort of violence they forced her from the place ; but she insisted that they should erect a monument here to the memory of her husband, and that the hut of her old master and mis- tress, who followed her to Turin, should be converted into a country-house, as plain as it was solitary, where she proposed to come sometimes to mourn the errors and misfortunes of her youth. Time, the assiduities of Fonrose, the fruits of her second marriage, have since opened her soul to the impressions of a new affec- tion ; and they cite her as an example of a woman, remarkable and respectable even in her infidelity. FRIENDSHIP PUT TO THE TEST. In one of those schools of morality to which the English youth go to study the duties of a man and a citizen, to enlighten the understanding and elevate the soul, Nelson and Blanford were distinguished by a friendship worthy of the first ages. As it was founded on a perfect agreement of sentiments and principles, time only served to confirm it ; and the more it was enlightened every day, the more intimate it every day became. But this friendship was to be put to a test, which it had some difficulty to support. Their studies being finished, each of them took to that way of life to which nature invited him. Blan- ford, active, robust, and courageous, determined for the profession of arms, and for the sea - service. Voyages were his school. Inured to fatigues, in- structed by dangers, he arrived, from rank to rank, to the command of a vessel. Nelson, endowed with a manly eloquence, and of a genius wise and profound, was of the number of those deputies of whom the national senate is composed ; and in a short time he rendered himself famous there. Thus each of them served his country, happy in the good which he did it. While Blanford sustained the shock of war, and of the elements, Nelson stood proof against favour and ambition. Examples of an heroic 85 86 Classic Tales . zeal, one would have thought that, jealous of each other, they contended for virtue and glory ; or rather that, at two extremities of the world, the same spirit animated them both. “ Courage,” said Nelson, in his letters to Blanford, “ does honour to friendship, by preserving its country ; live for the one, if it be possible, and die for the other, if there be occasion ; a death, worthy of its tears, is more valuable than the longest life.” “ Courage,” said Blanford, in his letters to Nelson, “ defends the rights of the people and of liberty ; a smile from one’s country is of more value than the favour of kings.” Blanford enriched himself by doing his duty ; he returned to London with the prizes he had taken on the Indian seas ; but the most valuable part of his treasure was a young Indian, of a beauty that would have been uncommon in any climate. A Brahmin, to whom Heaven had given this only daughter in reward for his virtues, had consigned her up, in his dying moments, to the hands of the generous English- man. Coraly had not yet attained her fifteenth year ; her father made her his delight, and the tenderest object of his cares. The village in which he dwelt was taken and pillaged by the English. Solinzeb (that was the Brahmin’s name) presents himself on the the threshold of his habitation. “ Hold !” said he to soldiers, who were come quite up to his humble sanctuary — “ hold ! Whoever you be, the God of nature, the beneficent God, is yours and mine ; respect in me, His minister.” These words, the sound of his voice, his venerable 8 7 Friendship Put to the Test . air, impress respect ; but the fatal stroke is given, and and the Brahmin falls, mortally wounded, into the arms of his trembling daughter. At that instant Blanford arrives. He comes to repress the fury of the soldiery. He cries out ; he makes a passage through them ; he sees the Brahmin leaning on a young girl scarce able to support him, and who, tottering herself, bathes the old man with her tears. At this sight, nature, beauty, love exer- cise all their influence on Blanford’s soul. He easily discovers in Solinzeb the father of her who embraces him with such affectionate sorrow. “ Barbarians, ” said he to the soldiers, “ be gone ! Is it feebleness and innocence, old age and childhood, that you ought to attack? Mortal, sacred to me,’’ said he to the Brahmin, “live, live; suffer me to repair the crime of those savages ! ” At these words he takes him into his arms, makes him lie down, examines the wound, and procures him all the assist- ance of art. Coraly, witness to the piety, the sensibility of this stranger, thought she saw a god descended from heaven to succour and comfort her father. Blanford, who did not quit Solinzeb, endeavoured to soften the sorrow of his daughter ; but she seemed to have a presage of her misfortune, and passed the nights and days in tears. The Brahmin perceiving his end approach — “ I would fain,” said he to Blanford, “ go and die on the border of the Ganges, and purify myself in its waves.” “Father,” replied the young Englishman to him, “ it would be easy to give you that consolation, if all 88 Classic Tales . hope was lost, but wherefore add to the peril in which you are, that of so painful a removal ? It is so far from hence to the Ganges ! And then (be not offended at my sincerity) it is the purity of the heart which the God of nature requires ; and if you have ( observed the law which He has engraven on our souls, if you have done mankind all the good that you have been able, if you have avoided doing them ill, the God who loves them will love you.* “ Thou art full of consolation,* said the Brahmin. “ But thou, who reducest the duties of mankind to a plain piety and purity of manners, how can it be that thou art at the head of those robbers who ravage India, and who bathe themselves in blood ? * “ You have seen,* said Blanford, “ whether I authorize those ravages. Commerce draws us to India ; and if men acted uprightly, that mutual ex- change of conveniences would be just and peaceable. The violence of your masters obliged us to take arms; and the transition is so quick from defence to attack, that at the first success, at the smallest advantage, the oppressed becomes the oppressor. War is a violent state, which it is not easy to soften. Alas ! when man becomes unnatural, how can he be just? It is my duty here to protect the commerce of the English, to make my country honoured and respected. In the discharge of this duty, I spare, as far as possible, the effusion of blood and tears which war occasions ; happy if the death of a good man, the death of Coraly’s father, be one of those misfortunes which are destined to save the world !* Thus spoke the virtuous Blanford, and embraced the old man. Friendship Put to the Test. 89 “Thou wouldest persuade me,” said Solinzeb, “that virtue is everywhere the same. But thou believest not in the god Vishnu and his nine meta- morphoses ; how can a good man refuse his assent to them?” “Father,” replied the Englishman, “there are millions of people upon the earth who have never heard of Vishnu, or his adventures ; for whom, however, the sun rises every day, who breathe a pure air, who drink wholesome waters, and to whom the earth lavishes the fruits of the seasons. Would you believe it ? There are among these people, as well as among the children of Brahma, virtuous hearts and good men. Equity, candour, uprightness, benefic- ence, and piety are in veneration among them, and even among the wicked. Oh, my father ! the dreams of the imagination differ according to climates ; but the mind is everywhere the same, and the light, which is its source, is as widely diffused as that of the sun.” “ This stranger enlightens and astonishes me,” said Solinzeb within himself. “All that my heart, my reason, the inward voice of nature, tell me to believe, he believes also ; and of my worship he denies only that part which I have so much trouble myself not to deem absurd.” “ Thou thinkest, then,” said he to Blanford, “ that a good man may die in peace?” “Certainly?” “I think so too, and I wait death as a gentle sleep. But when I am gone, what will become of my daughter ? I See nothing in my country but slavery and desolation. My daughter had only me in the world, and in a few moments I shall be no more.” “ Ah ! ” said the young 90 Classic Tales . Englishman, “if to her misfortune death deprives her of a father, deign to confide her to my cares. I call Heaven to witness that her innocence and liberty shall be a deposit guarded by honour, and for ever inviolable.*’ “And in what principles shall she be brought up ? ” “In yours if you please ; in mine if you will allow me ; but at all events in that modesty and virtue which are everywhere the glory of a woman.” “Young man,” replied the Brahmin, with an august and threatening air, “God has just heard thy words ; and the old man with whom thou now speakest will perhaps in an hour be with Him. “You have no need,” said Blanford to him, “to make me perceive the sacredness of my promises. I am but a feeble mortal, but nothing under heaven is more immovable than the honesty of my heart.” He spoke these words with such firmness, that the Brahmin was much affected by them. “ Come, Coraly,” said he to his daughter ; “ come, embrace thy dying father ; let him be, after me, thy guide and thy support.” “ There, my daughter,” added he, “ is the book of the law of thy forefathers, the Veidam ; after having well meditated on it, suffer thyself to be instructed in the creed of this virtuous stranger, and choose that of the two forms of worship which shall seem to thee most proper to make people virtuous.” The night following the Brahmin expired. His daughter, who filled the air with her cries, was not able to detach herself from that livid and cold corpse, which she watered with her tears. At last sorrow exhausted her strength, and the attendants availed Friendship Put to the Test . 91 themselves of her fainting to carry her away from the melancholy place. Blanford, whom his duty recalled from Asia to Europe, carried thither with him his pupil ; and though she was beautiful and he was young and strongly taken, he respected her innocence. During the voyage he employed himself in teaching her a little English, in giving her an idea of the manners of Europe, and in disengaging her docile mind from the prejudices of her country. Nelson was gone to meet his friend. They saw each other again with the most sensible joy. But the first sight of Coraly struck and afflicted Nelson. “ What do you do with this girl ? ” said he to Blanford in a severe tone. “ Is she a captive, a slave ? Have you carried her off from her parents ? Have you made nature mourn ?” Blanford related what had passed : he gave him so touching a portrait of the innocence, candour, and sensibility of the young Indian, that Nelson himself was moved at it. “This is my design,” continued Blanford: “at my mother’s, and under her eyes, she shall be instructed in our manners ; I will form that simple and docile heart ; and if she can be happy with me I will marry her.” “ I am easy, and acknowledge my friend.” The surprises and different emotions of a young stranger, to whom everything is new, have been often described. Coraly experienced them all. But her happy facility in seizing and comprehending everything even outstripped the pains which they took to instruct her. Genius, talents, and the graces were in her innate gifts ; they had only the trouble 92 Classic Tales . of developing them by a slight culture. She was nearly sixteen, and Blanford was going to marry her when death deprived him of his mother. Coraly lamented her as if she had been her own ; and the pains which she took to console Blanford touched him sensibly. But during the mourning which retarded the nuptials, he had orders to embark on a new expedition. He went to see Nelson, and he confided to him, not the grief which he felt at quitting the young Indian, — Nelson would have made him blush at that, — but the grief of leaving her to herself in the midst of a world which was unknown to her. “ If my mother,” said he, “ were still living, she would be her guide ; but the ill-fortune which pursues this poor girl has taken away from her her only support.’’ “ Have you then forgot,” said Nelson, “that I have a sister, and that my house is your own?” “Ah, Nelson,” replied Blanford, fixing his eyes on his, “ if you knew what that charge is which you would have me confide to you ! ” At these words Nelson smiled with disdain. “ This uneasiness,” said he, “is a fine compliment to us both. You dare not trust me with a woman?” Blanford in confusion blushed. “Pardon my weak- ness,” said he; “it made me see danger where thy virtue finds none. I judged of your heart by my own ; it is me whom my fear humbles. Let us say no more of it ; I shall set out in peace, leaving the pledge of my love under the guard of friendship. But, my dear Nelson, if I die, let me request you to take my place.” “Yes, I promise you; ask no more.” “Enough; nothing further detains me.” 93 Friendship Put to the Test. The adieus of Coraly and Blanford were mingled with tears ; but Coraly’s tears were not those of love A lively gratitude, a respectful friendship, were the tenderest sentiments which Blanford had inspired her with. Her own sensibility was not known to her ; the dangerous advantage of unfolding it was reserved for Nelson. Blanford was handsomer than his friend ; but his figure, like his temper, had a manly and austere fierceness in it. The sentiments which he had con- ceived for his pupil seemed to have given him rather the disposition of a father than of a lover ; his attentions were without complaisance, his goodness without charms, his concern tender but solemn, and his desire was that of rendering her happy with him, rather than of being happy with her. Nelson, who was of a more engaging temper, had also more sweetness in his features and his language. His eyes especially expressed the eloquence of the soul. His look, the most touching in the world, seemed to penetrate to the bottom of people’s hearts, and to procure him a secret correspondence with them. His voice thundered when there was a necessity to defend the interests of his country, her laws, her glory, her liberty ; but in familiar con- versation it was full of sensibility and charms. What rendered him still more engaging, was an air of modesty diffused over his whole person. This man, who at the head of his nation would have made a tyrant tremble, was, in company, of a timid bashful- ness ; one single word of commendation made him blush. 94 Classic Tales . Lady Juliet Albury, his sister, was a widow of great prudence and an excellent heart, but of that kind of unhappy prudence which always anticipates misfortune, and accelerates instead of preventing it. It was she who was charged with consoling the young Indian. “ I have lost my second father,” said that amiable girl to her ; “I have now only you and Nelson in the world. I will love you, I will obey you. My life and heart are yours.” While she was yet embracing Juliet, Nelson arrives, and Coraly arises with a smiling and heavenly counten- ance, but still bedewed with tears. “Well,” said Nelson to his sister, “have you consoled her a little?” “Yes, I am consoled, I have no further complaint,” cried the young Indian, at the same time wiping her fine black eyes. Then, making Nelson seat himself by the side of Juliet, and falling on her knees before them, she took them by their hands, put them one in the other, and pressing them tenderly in her own. “There is my mother,” said she to Nelson, with a look .which would have softened marble ; “ and you, Nelson, what will you be to me ? ” I, madam — your good friend.” “ My good friend ! that is charming ! then I shall be your good friend too ? Give me only that name.” “Yes, my good friend, my dear Coraly, your frankness delights me.” “ My God,” said he to his sister, * * what a beautiful girl ! she will be the delight of your life.” “Yes, if she is not the misery of yours,” replied the prudent sister. Nelson smiled with disdain. “No,” said he, “love never disputes in my soul the rights of sacred friendship. Friendship Put to the Test. 95 Be easy, sister, and employ yourself in peace, in the care of cultivating this beautiful innocent. Blanford will be enchanted with her, if, at his return, she is mistress of our language ; for we may perceive in her ideas shadows of sentiments which she is unhappy at not being able to express. Her eyes, her gestures, her features, everything about her, proclaims ingenuous thoughts, which only want words to call them forth. This, sister, will be an amusement to you, and you will see her mind open like a flower.” “Yes, my brother, as a flower with a multitude of thorns.” Lady Albury constantly gave English lessons to her pupil, and the latter rendered them every day more interesting, by intermingling with them strokes of sentiment, of a vivacity and delicacy which belongs only to pure nature. It was a triumph to her but to make discovery of a word which expressed any gentle affection of the soul. She made the most natural, the most touching applications of them. Nelson arrived ; she flew to him, and repeated her lesson to him with a joy and simplicity which as yet he found only amusing. Juliet alone saw the danger, and wanted to prevent it. She began, by making Coraly understand that it was not polite to thee and thou it, and that she should say you at least, unless it were a brother and a sister. Coraly made her explain what politeness was, and asked what it was good for, if brother and sister had no need of it ? They told her, that in the world it supplied the place of good humour. She concluded that it was useless to those who wish well 96 Classic Tales . to each other. They added that it displayed a desire of obliging and of pleasing. She replied that this desire displayed itself without politeness ; then giving for an example Juliet’s little dog, which never quitted her, and caressed her perpetually, she asked if he was polite. Juliet entrenched herself behind the punctilios of decorum, which approved not, said she, the too free and joyous air of Coraly towards Nelson ; and Coraly, who had the idea of jealousy, because nature gives us the sensation of it, imagined within herself that the sister was jealous of the kindnesses which her brother did her. “ No,” said she to her, “ I will afflict you no longer. I love you ; I submit, and I will say you to Nelson.” He was surprised at this change in Coraly’s lan- guage, and complained of it to Juliet. “ The you” said he, “ displeases me in her mouth : it agrees not with her simplicity.” “It displeases me, too,” replied the Indian : “it has something rebuffing and severe ; whereas the thou is so soft, so intimate, so attracting!” “Do you hear, sister; she begins to understand the language.” “Ha ! it is not that which makes me uneasy : with a soul like hers, we express ourselves but too well.” “ Explain to me,” said Coraly to Nelson, “ whence can arise the ridicu- lous custom of saying you , in speaking to a single person!” “It arises, child, from the pride and weakness of man : he perceives that he is insignficant, being but one ; he endeavours to double himself, to multiply himself in ideas.” “Yes, I comprehend that folly ; but thou, Nelson, thou art not vain enough.” “Again!” interrupted fuliet with a 97 Friendship Put to the Test. severe tone. “ What ! brother, are you going to chide her ! Come, Coraly, come to me.” “ I forbid her.” “ How cruel you are. Is she, then, in danger with me ? Do you suspect me of laying snares for her ? Ah ! leave her that pure nature ; leave her the amiable candour of her country and age. Wherefore tarnish in her that flower of innocence, more precious than virtue itself, and which our factitious manners have so much difficulty to supply ? It seems to me that nature is afflicted when the idea of evil pene- trates into the soul. Alas ! it is a venomous plant, which grows wild but too readily, without our giving ourselves the trouble of sowing it.” “What you say is very fine, to be sure ; but since evil exists, we must avoid it ; and in order to avoid it, we must know it.” “Ah ! my poor little Coraly,” said Nelson, “into what a world art thou transplanted ! What manners are those, in which we are obliged to to lose one-half our innocence in order to save the other ! ” In proportion as the moral ideas increased in the young Indian’s mind, she lost her gaiety and natural ingenuousness. Every new institution seemed to her a new fetter. “ Another duty,” said she, “another prohibition ! My soul is enveloped as with a net ; they are going soon to render it im- movable.” That they made a crime of what was hurtful, Coraly comprehended without difficulty ; but she could not imagine any harm in what did no harm to anybody. “ What greater happiness in living together,” said she, “than to see one another with pleasure ? and why conceal from our- III. G Classic Tales. 9 s? selves so sweet an impression ? Is not pleasure a blessing? Why, then, hide it from the person who occasions it. They pretend to feel it with those whom they do not love, and to feel none with those whom they do ! Some enemy of truth devised these manners.” Reflections of this sort plunged her into melan- choly ; and when Juliet reproached her with it, “You know the cause of it,” said she ; “ everything that is contrary to nature must make her sorrowful, and in in your manners everything is contrary to nature.” Coraly, in her little impatiences, had something so soft and touching, that Lady Albury accused herself of afflicting her by too much rigour. Her manner of consoling her, and of restoring to her her good humour, was by employing her in little services, and by commanding her as her child. The pleasure of thinking that she was useful flattered her sensibly ; she foresaw the instant, in order to seize it ; but the same attentions she paid to Juliet she wanted to pay to Nelson, and they distressed her by moderating her zeal. “ The good offices of servitude,” said she, “ are low and vile, because they are not voluntary ; but from the moment that they are free, there is no longer shame, and friendship ennobles them. Fear not, my good friend, that I shall suffer myself to be abased. Though very young before I quitted India, I knew the dignity of the tribe in which I was born ; and when your fine ladies and young lords come to examine me with such familiar curiosity, their disdain only elevates my soul, and I perceive that I am well worth them all. But with you and Nelson, who love Friendship Put to the Test. 99 me as your daughter, what can there be humiliating to me ? ” Nelson himself seemed somtimes confused at the trouble she took. “You are very vain, then,” said she to him, “since you blush at having need of me ! I am not so proud as you. Serve me ; I shall be flattered with it.” All these strokes of an ingenuous and sensible soul made Lady Albury uneasy. “I tremble,” said she to Nelson when they were alone — “ I tremble lest she should love you, and lest that love occasion her unhappiness.” He took this hint for an injury to innocence. “See there now,” said he, “how the abuse of words alters and displaces ideas. Coraly loves me, I know it ; but she loves me as you do. Is there anything more natural than to attach one’s self to the person who does us good ? Is it a fault in this girl if the tender and lively expression of a sentiment so just and so laudable is profaned in our manners ? Whatever criminality we affix to it, has it ever come into her thought ? ” “ No, brother, you do not understand me. Nothing more innocent than her love fqr you ; but — ” “ But, sister, why suppose, why want it to be love ? It is true and pure friend- ship for me, which she has for you likewise.” “You persuade yourself, Nelson, that it is the same senti- ment ; will you make trial of it ? Let us have the appearance of separating, and reducing her to the choice of quitting the one or the other.” “ See there, now — snares ! wiles ! Why impose them upon her ? Why teach her to dissemble ? Alas ! does her soul practise disguise?” “Yes, I begin IOO Classic Tales to constrain her ; she is grown afraid of me ever since she has loved you ?” “ And why have you inspired her with that fear? You would have us be ingenu- ous, and you make it dangerous to be so ; you recommend truth, and if it escape, you make it a reproach. Ah ! nature is not to blame ; she would be frank if she had liberty ; it is the art which is employed to constrain her that gives her a bias to falsity. ” “These are very grave reflections for what is in fact a mere jest. For, after all, what does the whole amount to? To make Coraly uneasy for a moment, in order to see to which side her heart will incline — that is all.” “That is all — but that is a falsity ; and which is worse, an afflicting one. ” 4 4 Let us think no more of it ; it answers no end to examine what we would not see.” 44 1, sister, I only want information to know how to behave. The manner alone has displeased me ; but no matter, what do you require of me?” 44 Silence and a serious air. Coraly comes ; now you shall hear.” 44 What is the matter now?” said Coraly, on coming up to them. 44 Nelson in one corner ! Juliet in the other! Are you displeased?” 44 We have just taken,” said Juliet to her, 44 a resolution which afflicts us ; but there was a necessity of coming to it. We are no longer to live together ; each of us is to have a house of our own ; and we are agreed to leave you the choice.” At these words Coraly viewed Juliet with eyes immovable with sorrow and astonishment. 44 It is I,” said she, 4 4 that am the cause of your wanting to quit Nelson. You are displeased that he loves me ; IOI Friendship Put to the Test. you are jealous of the pity which a young orphan inspires him with. Alas ! what will you not envy, if you envy pity, if you envy her who loves you, and who would give her life for you, the only valuable thing which is left her? You are unjust, my lady; yes, you are unjust. Your brother, in loving me, loves you not less ; and if it were possible he would love you more, for my sentiments would pass into his soul, and I have nothing to inspire into him towards you but complaisance and love.” Juliet would fain have persuaded her that she and Nelson parted good friends. “It is impossible,” said she. “You made it your delight to live together ; and since when is it become necessary that you should have two houses ? People who love one another are never put to straits ; distance pleases only those who hate each other. You, O Heaven ! — you to hate ! ” resumed she. “ And who will love if two hearts so good, so virtuous, do not. It is I, wretch as I am, that have brought trouble into the house of peace. I will banish myself from it ; yes, I beseech you, send me back into my own country. I shall there find souls sensible to my misfortune and to my tears, who will not make it a crime in me to in- spire a little pity.” “You forget,” said Juliet to her, “that you are our charge.” “Iam free,” replied the young Indian fiercely ; “I may dispose of myself. What should I do here? With whom should I live? With what eyes would one of you regard me, after having deprived you of the other ? Should I supply the place of a sister to Nelson? Should I console you 102 Classic Tales . for the loss of a brother? To occasion the unhappi- ness of what alone I love ! No, you shall not part ; my arms shall be a chain to you. ” Then running towards Nelson, and seizing him by the hand — “Come,” said she to him, “swear to your sister that you love nothing in the world so well as her.” Nelson, touched to the bottom of his soul, suffered himself to be led to his sister’s feet ; and Coraly, throwing herself on Juliet’s neck — “ You,” continued she, “ if you are my mother, pardon him for having loved your child ; his heart has enough for us both, and if you are any loser there, mine shall indemnify you for it.” “ Ah ! dangerous girl,” said Juliet, “ what sorrows will you soon occasion us ! ” “ Ah ! sister,” cried Nelson, who felt himself pressed by Coraly against Juliet’s bosom, “ have you the heart to afflict this poor girl ? ” Coraly, enchanted at her triumph, kissed Juliet tenderly, at the very instant when Nelson put his face to his sister’s. He felt his cheek touch the glowing cheek of Coraly, still wet with tears. He was surprised at the confusion and ecstasy which this accident occasioned him. “ Happily that,” said he, “ is only a simple emotion of the senses ; it goes not to the soul. I am myself, and I am sure of myself.” He dissembled, however, from his sister what he would fain have concealed from himself. He tenderly consoled Coraly, in confessing to her that all they had just said to her, to make her uneasy, was nothing more than a jest. “But what is no jest,” added he, “ is the counsel which I give you of distrusting, my dear Coraly, your own heart, which Friendship Put to the Test . 103 is too innocent and too sensible. Nothing more charming than this affecting and tender disposition ; but the best things very often become dangerous by their excess.” “Will you not quiet my uneasiness?” said Coraly to Juliet, as soon as Nelson was retired. “ Though you tell me so, it is not natural to make sport of my sorrow. There is something serious in this pastime. I see you deeply moved. Nelson himself was seized with I know not what terror ; I felt his hand tremble in mine ; my eyes met his, and I saw there something so tender, and so sorrowful at the same time ! He dreads my sensibility. He seems to be afraid that I should deliver myself up to it. My good friend, would it be any harm to love ? ” “Yes, child, since we must tell you so ; it is a misfortune both for you and for him. A woman — you may have seen it in the Indies as well as among us — a woman is destined for the society of one man alone ; and by that union, solemnized and sacred, the pleasure of loving becomes a duty to her.” “I know it,” said Coraly ingenu- ously; “that is what they call marriage. ” “Yes, Coraly ; and that friendship is laudable between two married persons, but till then it is forbidden.” “That is not reasonable,” said the young Indian; “ for before uniting one to the other, we must know whether we love each other, and it is but in propor- tion to our love beforehand that we are sure of loving afterwards. For example, if Nelson loves me as I love him, it would be clear that each of us had met their counterpart.” “ And do you not see in how many respects, and by how many compacts, we are 104 Classic Tales . slaves ; and that you are not destined for Nelson ? ” “ I understand you,” said Corally, looking down ; “lam poor, and Nelson is rich ; but my ill-fortune, at least, does not forbid me to honour and cherish beneficient virtue. If a tree had sentiment, it would please itself in seeing the person who cultivates it repose himself under its shade, breathe the perfume of its flowers, and taste the sweetness of its fruits. I am that tree, cultivated by you two, and nature has given me a soul.” Juliet smiled at the comparison ; but she soon gave her to understand that nothing would be less decent than what to her seemed so just. Coraly heard her, and blushed ; from that time, to her gaiety, to her natural ingenuousness, succeeded an air the most reserved, and a conversation the most timid. What hurt her most in our manners, though she might have seen examples of it in India, was the excessive inequality of riches ; but she had not yet been humiliated by it ; she was so now for the first time. “ Madam,” said she the next day to Juliet, “my life is spent in instructing myself in things which are rather superfluous. An industry which furnishes bread would be much more useful to me. It is a resource which I beseech you to be pleased to pro- cure me.” “You will never be reduced to that,” said Lady Albury ; “ and not to mention us, it is not for nothing that Blandford has assumed towards you the quality of father.” “Favours,” replied Coraly, “ bind us much oftener than we would choose. It is not disgraceful to receive them ; but I clearly perceive that it is still more reputable to do without them.” Friendship Put to the Test. 105 It was in vain that Juliet complained of this excess of delicacy. Coraly would not hear of amusements, or of useless studies. Amidst the labours which suit feeble hands, she chose those which required the most address and understanding ; and, on applying herself to them, her only anxiety was to know whether they afforded a subsistence. “You will leave me then,” said Juliet. “ I would put myself,” replied Coraly, “above all wants, except that of loving you. I would have it in my power to rid you of me, if I am any obstacle to your happiness ; but if I can con- tribute to it, entertain no fear of my removing myself. I am useless, and yet I am dear to you ; that disin- terestedness is an example which I think myself worthy of imitating. Nelson knew not what to think of Coraly’s applica- tion to a labour merely mechanical, and of the disgust which had seized her for matters of pure entertain- ment. He saw, with the same surprise, the modest simplicity which she had assumed in her dress ; he asked her the reason. “Iam trying what it is to be poor,” replied she with a smile ; and casting her eyes downwards, bedewed them with her tears. These words and involuntary tears touched him to the soul. “O Heaven !” said he, “can my sister have made her afraid of seeing herself poor and desolate ! ” As soon as he was alone with Juliet, he pressed her to clear up the matter to him. “Alas!” said he, after having heard her, “what cruel pains you take to poison her life and mine ! Though you were less certain of her innocence, are you not persuaded of my honour?” “Ah, Nelson, io6 Classic Tales . it is not the crime, it is the misfortune which terrifies me. You see with what dangerous security she delivers herself up to the pleasure of seeing you ; how she attaches herself insensibly to you ; how nature leads her, without her knowledge, into the snare. Ah, brother, at your age and hers, the name of friendship is but a veil. And why can I not leave you both under the illusion ! No, Nelson, your duty is dearer to me than your ease. Coraly is destined for your friend ; he himself has confided her to you ; and, without intending it, you take her from him.” “I, sister I what is it you dare to warn me of?” “ Of what you ought to shun. I would have her, at the same time that she loves you, consent to give herself to Blanford ; I would have him flatter himself with being loved by her, and be happy with her ; but will she be happy with him ? Were you sensible only of pity, of which she is so worthy, what sorrow would you not feel at having troubled, perhaps for ever, the repose of this unfortunate young creature ? But it would be a prodigy to see her consume with love, and you do nothing more than pity her. You will love her — will, do I say? Ah, Nelson! Heaven grant that you do not already ! ” “Yes, sister, it is time to take whatever resolution you please. I only beg of you to spare the sensibility of that innocent soul, and not afflict her too much.” “ Your absence will afflict her without doubt ; yet that alone can cure her. This is the time of the year for the country ; I was to follow you there, and to bring Coraly ; do you go alone, we will remain at London. Write, however, to Blanford, that we have occasion for his return.” Friendship Put to the Test. 107 From the moment the Indian saw that Nelson left her at London with Juliet, she thought herself cast into a desert, and abandoned by all nature. But as she had learned to be ashamed, and of course to dissemble, she pretended, as an excuse for her sorrow, the blame she took to herself for having separated them from each other. “You was to have followed him,” said she to Lady Albury ; “it is I that keep you here. Ah, wretch that I am ! leave me alone, abandon me ! ” And in saying these words she wept bitterly. The more Juliet tried to divert her, the more she increased her sorrows. All the objects which surrounded her served only just to touch her senses, one idea alone possessed her soul. There was a necessity for a kind of violence to draw her from it ; but the instant they left her to herself, it seemed as if one saw her thought fly back again to the object which she had been made to quit. If the name of Nelson was pronounced before her, a deep blush overspread her visage, her bosom heaved, her lips trembled, her whole body was seized with a sensible shivering. Juliet surprised her in a walk, tracing out on the sand, from place to place, the letters of that dear name. Nelson’s picture decorated Juliet’s apartment; Coraly’s eyes never failed to fix themselves upon it, as soon as they were free. It was in vain she wanted to turn them aside ; they soon returned there again, as it were of themselves, and by one of those emotions in which the soul is accomplice, and not confidante. The gloomi- ness into which she was plunged dispersed at this sight, her work fell out of her hands, and the 108 Classic Tales . utmost tenderness of sorrow and love animated her beauty. Lady Albury thought it her duty to remove this feeble image. This was to Coraly the most dis- tressful misfortune. Her despair now broke all bounds. “Cruel friend,” said she to Juliet, “you delight in afflicting me. You would have all my life be only sorrow and bitterness. If anything softens my troubles, you cruelly take it from me. Not content to banish from me the man I love, his very shadow has too many charms for me ; you envy me the pleasure, the feeble pleasure, of seeing it.” “ Ah, unhappy girl! what would you?” “Love, adore him ! live for him, while he shall live for another. I hope nothing, I ask nothing. My hands are sufficient to enable me to live, my heart is sufficient to enable me to love. I am troublesome to you, perhaps odious ; remove me from you, and leave me only that image wherein his soul breathes, or wherein I think at least I see it breathe. I will see it, I will speak to it ; I will persuade myself that it sees my tears flow, that it hears my sighs, and that it is touched by them.” “ And wherefore, my dear Coraly, nourish this cruel flame which devours you ? I afflict you, but it is for your good and Nelson’s peace. Would you render him unhappy ? He will be so if he knows that you love him ; and still more so if he loves you. You are not in a condition to hear my reasons ; but this inclination, which we think so sweet, would be the poison of his life. Have pity, my dear child, of your friend and my brother : spare him the remorse, the complaints, which would bring him to his grave.” Friendship Put to the Test . 109 Coraly trembled at this discourse. She pressed Lady Albury to tell her how Nelson’s love for her could be so fatal to him. “ To explain myself further,” said Juliet, “would be to render odious to you what you ought for ever to cherish. But the most sacred of all duties forbids him the hope of being yours.” How is it possible to express the distress into which Coraly’s soul was plunged ! “ What manners ! what a country ! ” said she, “ wherein one cannot dispose of one’s self ; wherein the first of all blessings, mutual love, is a terrible evil ! I must tremble, then, at seeing Nelson again ! I must tremble at pleasing him ! At pleasing him ! Alas ! I would give my life to be one moment in his eyes as amiable as he is in mine. Let me banish myself from this fatal shore, where it is made a misfortune to be loved.” Coraly heard, every day, of vessels sailing for her native country. She resolved to embark, without taking leave of Juliet. Only one evening, on going to bed, Juliet perceived that, in kissing her hand, her lips pressed her more tenderly than usual, and that iome profound sighs escaped her. “ She leaves me more moved than ever before,” said Juliet, alarmed. “ Her eyes are fixed on mine with the most lively expression of tenderness and sorrow. What passes in her soul?” This uneasiness disturbed her the whole night, and next morning she sent to know if Coraly was not yet up. They told her that she was gone out alone, and in a plain dress, and that she had taken the way to the water-side. Lady Albury gets up in distress, and orders them to go in pursuit of the Indian. They find her on board a vessel, no Classic Tales . begging her passage, environed by sailors, whom her beauty, her grace, her youth, the sound of her voice, and, above all, the native simplicity of her request, ravished with surprise and admiration. She had nothing with her but bare necessaries. Everything they had given her which was valuable she had left behind, excepting a little heart of crystal, which she had received from Nelson. At the name of Lady Albury, she submitted without resistance, and suffered herself to be conveyed home. She appeared before her a little confused at her elopement ; but to her reproaches she answered that she was unhappy and free. “ What, my dear Coraly, do you see nothing here but unhappiness ? ” “If I saw here only my own,” said she, “I should never leave you. It is Nelson’s unhappiness that frightens me, and it is for his peace that I would fly.” Juliet knew not what to reply. She durst not talk to her of the rights which Blandford had acquired over her ; this would have been to make her hate him, as the cause of her unhappiness. She chose rather to lessen her fears. " I could not conceal from you,” said she to her, “all the danger of a fruitless love ; but the evil is not without remedy. Six months of absence, reason, friendship, how can we tell? Another object, perhaps — ” The Indian interrupted her. “ Say death ; this is my only remedy. What 1 will reason cure me of loving the most accomplished, the most worthy of men ? Will six months of absence give me a soul that loves him not? Does time change nature? Friendship will pity me ; but will it cure me ? Another object ! Ill Friendship Put to the Test . You do not think so. You do not do me that injus- tice. There are not two Nelsons in the world ; but though there were a thousand, I have but one heart — that is given away. It is, you say, a fatal gift. That I do not comprehend ; but if it be so, suffer me to banish myself from Nelson, to hide from him my person and my tears. He is not insensible, he would be moved at it ; and if it be a misfortune to him to love me, pity might lead him to it. Alas ! who can, with indifference, see himself cherished as a father, revered as a god ? Who can see himself loved, as I love him, and not love in his turn?” “You will not expose him to that danger,” replied Juliet ; “you will conceal your weakness from him, and you will triumph over it. No, Coraly, it is not the strength that is wanting in you, but the courage of virtue.” “Alas! I have courage against misfortune; but is there any against love ? And what virtue would you have me oppose to him? They all act in concert with him. No, my lady ; you talk to no purpose ; you throw clouds over my understanding ; you shed not the least light on it. Let me see and hear Nelson ; he shall decide upon my life.” Lady Albury, in the most cruel perplexity, seeing the unhappy Coraly withering and pining in tears, and begging to be suffered to depart, resolved to write to Nelson, that he might come and dissuade the poor girl from her design of returning to India, and preserve her from that disgust of life which daily consumed her. But Nelson himself was not less to be pitied. Scarce had he quitted Coraly, but he perceived the danger of seeing her, by the repug' 1 1 2 Classic Tales . nance which he had to leave her. All that had appeared only play to him with her, became serious in being deprived of her. In the silence of solitude he had interrogated his soul ; he had found there friendship languishing, zeal for the public good weak- ened, nay, almost extinguished, and love alone ruling there, with that sweet and terrible sway which he exercises over good hearts. He perceived with horror that his very reason had suffered itself to be depraved. The rights of Blanford were no longer so sacred ; and the involuntary crime of depriving him of Coraly’s heart was at least very excusable. After all, the Indian was free, and Blanford himself would not have wished to impose it on her as a duty to be his. “Ah, wretch !” cried Nelson, terrified at these ideas, “whither does a blind passion lead me astray! The poison of vice gains upon me; my heart is already corrupted. Is it for me to examine whether the charge which is committed to me belongs to the person who commits it ? And am I made the judge, to whom it belongs, when I have promised to keep it? The Indian is free, but am I so? Should I doubt the rights of Blanford, if it were not in order to usurp them ? My crime was at first involuntary ; but it is no longer so, the moment I consent to it. I justify perjury ! I think a faithless friend excusable ! Who would have told thee, Nelson, who would have told thee, that on embracing the virtuous Blanford, thou shouldest call in doubt whether it were per- mitted thee to steal from him the woman who is to be his wife, and whom he delivered up to thy trust ? To what a degree does love debase a man ; and what Friendship Put to the Test . i t 3 a strange revolution its intoxication makes in a heart. Ah ! let him rend mine if he will ; he shall not make it either perfidious or base ; and if my reason abandon me, my conscience at least shall not betray me. Its light is corruptible ; the cloud of passions cannot obscure it ; there is my guide ; and friendship, honour, and fidelity have still some support. ” In the meantime Coraly’s image pursued him per- petually. If he had only seen her with all her charms, arrayed in simple beauty, bearing on her countenance the serenity of innocence, the smile of candour on her lips, he would have found in his principles, in the severity of his manners, sufficient force to withstand temptation; but he thought he saw that amiable girl, as sensible as himself, more feeble, with no other defence than a prudence which was not her own, innocently abandoning herself to an inclination which would be her unhappiness ; and the pity which she inspired him with served as fuel to his love. Nelson blamed himself for loving Coraly, but forgave himself for pitying her. Sensible of the evils which he was on the point of being the cause of, he could not paint to himself her tears, without thinking of the fine eyes which were to shed them, and the heaving bosom which they would bedew ; thus the resolution of forgetting her rendered her still dearer to him. He attached himself to her by renouncing her ; but in proportion as he perceived himself weaker, he became more courageous. “Let me give over,” said he, “the thoughts of a cure. I exhaust myself in fruitless efforts. It is a fit which I must hi. H H4 Classic Tales . suffer to go off. I burn, I languish, I die ; but all that is mere suffering, and I am answerable to nobody but myself for what passes within. Provided nothing escape me from without that discovers my passion, my friend has no reason to complain. It is only a misfortune to be weak ; and I have the courage to be unhappy,” It was in this resolution of dying, rather than betraying his friendship, that he received the letter from his sister. He read it with emotion, and an ecstasy that was inexpressible. “ O sweet and tender victim,” said he, “ thou groanest, thou wouldest sacrifice thyself to my repose, and to my duty ! Pardon ! Heaven is my witness that I feel, more strongly than thyself, all the pangs which I occasion thee. Oh, may my friend, thy husband, soon arrive, and wipe away thy precious tears ! He will love thee as I love thee ; he will make his own happiness thine. However, I must see her, in order to detain and console her. Why should I see her ? To what do I expose myself? Her touching graces, her sorrow, her love ; her tears which I occasion to flow, and which it would be so sweet to dry up ; those sighs which a heart simple and artless suffers to escape ; that language of nature, in which a soul the most sensible paints itself with so much candour ; what trials to support ? What will become of me ; and what can I say to her ! No matter ; I must see her, and talk to her as a friend and a father. After seeing her I only shall be the more uneasy, the more unhappy for it ; but it is not my own peace that is in question, it is hers ; and, above all, the happiness of Friendship Put to the Test . 1 1 5 a friend depends on it, a friend for whom she must live. I am certain of subduing myself, and, how painful soever the contest may be, it would be a weakness and shame to avoid it. At Nelson’s arrival, Coraly, trembling and con- fused, scarce dare present herself to him. She had wished his return with ardour, and at seeing him a mortal chillness glided through her veins. She appeared as it were before a judge who was prepar- ing, with one single word, to decide her fate. What were Nelson’s feelings, on seeing the roses of youth faded on her beautiful cheeks, and the fire of her eyes almost extinguished! “Come,” said Juliet to her brother, “appease the mind of this poor girl, and cure her of her melancholy. She is eaten up with the vapours with me ; she wants to return to India.” Nelson, speaking to her in a friendly manner, wanted to engage her, by gentle reproaches, to explain herself before his sister ; but Coraly kept silence, and Juliet, perceiving that she was a restraint upon her, went away. “What is the matter with you, Coraly? What have we done to you?” said Nelson. “What sorrow presses you ? ” “ Do not you know it ? Must you not have seen that my joy and my sorrow can no longer have more than one cause? Cruel friend ! I live only through you, and you fly me ; you would have me die ! But you would not have it so ; they make you do it ; they do more, they require of me to renounce you, and to forget you. They frighten me, they damp my very soul, and they oblige you to Classic Tales . 1 16 make me distracted. I ask of you but one favour,” continued she, throwing herself at his knees; “it is to tell me whom I offend in loving you, what duty I betray, and what evil I occasion. Are there here laws so cruel, are there tyrants so rigorous, as to forbid me the most worthy use of my heart and my reason ? Must we love nothing in the world ? or, if I may love, can I make a better choice ? ” “My dear Coraly,” replied Nelson, “nothing is truer, nothing is more tender, than the friendship which attaches me to you. It would be impossible, it would be even unjust, that you should not be sensible of it.” “Ah, I revive, this is talking reason.” “ But though it would be extremely agree- able to me to be what you hold dearest in the world, it is what I cannot pretend, neither ought I even to consent to it.” “Alas! now I don’t understand you.” “When my friend confided you to my care, he was dear to you?” “He is so still.” “You would have thought yourself happy to be his?” “ I believe it.” “You loved nothing so much as him in the world ? ” “I did not know you.” “ Blandford, your deliverer, the depository of your innocence, in loving you, has a right to be loved.” “His favours are always present to me ; I cherish him as a second father.” “ Very well ; know that he has resolved to unite you to him by a tie still more sweet and sacred than that of his favours. He has confided to me the half of himself, and at his return he aspires only to the happiness of being your husband.” “Ah,” said Coraly, comforted ; “ this, then, is the obstacle which separates us? Be easy, it is removed.” IX 7 Friendship Put to the Test . “How?” “ Never, never, I swear to you, will Coraly be the wife of Blanford ! ” “It must be so.” “Impossible! Blanford himself will confess it.” “What ! he who received you from the hand of a dying father, and who himself has acted as a father to you !” “Under that sacred title I revere Blanford, but let him not require more.” “You have, then, resolved his unhappiness?” “I have resolved to deceive nobody. If I were given to Blanford, and Nelson demanded my life of me, I would lay down my life for Nelson ; I should be perjured to Blanford.” “ What say you ? ” “What I will dare to tell Blanford himself. And why should I dissemble it? Does love depend on myself?” “Ah, how culpable you make me!” “You; in what? in being amiable in my eyes? Ay, Heaven disposes of us. Heaven has given to Nelson those graces, those virtues, which charm me ; Heaven has given to me this soul, which it has made expressly for Nelson. If they knew how full it is of him, how impossible that it should love anything but you, any- thing like you ! Let them never talk to me of living, if it be not for you that I live.” “ And this is what distresses me. With what reproaches has not my friend a right to overwhelm me?” “He! of what can he complain ? What has he lost ? What have you taken from him ? I love Blanford as a tender father ; I love Nelson as myself, and more than myself ; these sentiments are not incompatible. If Blanford delivered me into your hands as a deposit which was his own, it is not you, it is he that is unjust.” “ Alas ! it is me who obliges you to reclaim 1 18 Classic Tales . from him that treasure of which I rob him. It would be his if it were not mine ; and the keeper becomes the purloiner.” “No, my friend, be equitable. I was my own. I am yours. I alone could give myself away, and have given myself to you. By attributing to friendship rights which it has not, it is you that usurp them in its behalf, and you render yourself an accomplice of the violence which they do me.” “ He, my friend, do you violence ?” “ What signifies it to me whether he does it himself or that you do it for him ? Am I treated the less like a slave ? One single interest occupies and touches you ; but if another than your friend wanted to retain me captive, far from subscribing to it, would not you make it your glory to set me free? It is, then, only for the sake of friendship that you betray nature ! What do I say? Nature! and love, Nelson — love, has not that also its rights ? Is there not some law among you in favour of sensible souls? Is it just and generous to overwhelm, to drive me to despair, and to tear, without pity, a heart whose only crime is loving you ? ” Sobs interrupted her voice ; and Nelson, who saw her choked with them, had not even time to call his sister. He hastens to untie the ribbands which bound her bosom ; and then all the charms of youth, in its flower, were unveiled to the eyes of this passionate lover. The terror with which he was seized rendered him at first insensible of them ; but when the Indian, resuming her spirits, and perceiving herself pressed in his arms, thrilled with love and transport, and when on opening her fine languishing eyes she sought Friendship Put to the Test . 1 1 9 the eyes of Nelson — “ Heavenly powers,” said he, “ support me! all my virtue abandons me. Live, my dear Coraly ! ” “ Would you that I should live, Nelson! would you then that I love you?” “No, I should be perjured to friendship, I should be un- worthy to see the light ; unworthy of seeing my friend again. Alas ! he foretold me this, and I vouchsafed not to believe him. I have presumed too much on my own heart. Have pity on it, Coraly, of that heart which you rend to pieces. Suffer me to fly you, and to subdue myself.” “Ah ! you would have my death,” said she to him, falling into a fit at his feet. Nelson, who thinks he sees what he loves expiring, rushes to embrace her, and restraining him- self suddenly at the sight of Juliet, “My sister,” said he, “ assist her, it is for me to die ! ” On saying these words he withdraws. “Where is he?” demanded Coraly, on opening her eyes. “What have I done to him? Why fly me? And you, Juliet, more cruel still 5 why recall me to life ? ” Her sorrow redoubled when she learned that Nelson was just gone; but reflection gave her a little hope and courage. The concern and tenderness which Nelson had not been able to conceal, the terror with which she had seen him seized, the tender words which had escaped him, and the violence which it was to him to subdue himself and withdraw, all per- suaded her that she was beloved. “If it be true,” said she, “I am happy ; Blanford will return, I will confess the whole to him ; he is too just and too generous to want to tyrannize over me.” But this illusion was soon dissipated. I 20 Classic Tales . Nelson received in the country a letter from his friend, announcing his return. “I hope,” said he, at the end of his letter, “ to see myself in three days united to all that I love. Pardon, my friend, if I associate to thee in my heart the amiable and tender Coraly. My soul was a long time solely devoted to thee ; now she partakes of it. I have confided to thee the sweetest of my wishes, and I have seen friendship applaud love. I form my happiness both of one and the other ; I make it my felicity to think that by thy cares, and those of thy sister, I shall see my dear pupil again ; her mind ornamented with new acquirements, her soul enriched with new vir- tues, more amiable, if possible, and more disposed to love. It will be the purest bliss to me to possess her as a benefit conferred by you.” “ Read this letter,” wrote Nelson to his sister, “ and make Coraly read it. What a lesson for me ! What a reproach to her ! ” “It is over,” said Coraly, after having read; “I shall never be Nelson’s ; but let him not ask me to be another’s. The liberty of loving is a good which I am not able to renounce.” This resolution sup- ported her, and Nelson in his solitude was much more unhappy than she. “ By what fatality,” said he, “ is it that what forms the charm of nature and the delight of all hearts, the happiness of being loved, forms my torment ? What say I — of being loved ? That is nothing ; but to be loved of what I love ! To touch on happiness ! To have only to deliver myself up to it ! Ah, all that I am able to do is to fly ! inviolable and sacred friend- 12 I Friendship Put to the Test. ship asks no more. In what a condition have I seen this poor girl ! In what a condition did I abandon her ! She may well say that she is the slave of my virtues. I sacrifice her as a victim, and I am generous at her expense. There are, then, virtues which wound nature ; and to be honest, one is sometimes obliged to be unjust and cruel ! Oh, my friend ! mayest thou gather the fruit of the efforts which it costs me ; enjoy the good which I resign to thee ; and live happy from my misfortune. Yes, I wish that she may love thee ; I wish it, Heaven is my witness ; and the most sensible of all my pain is that of doubting the success of my wishes.” It was impossible for nature to support herself in a state so violent. Nelson, after long struggles, sought repose. Alas ! there was no more repose for him. His constancy was at last exhausted, and his dis- couraged soul fell into a mortal langour. The weak- ness of his reason, the inefficacy of his virtue, the image of a painful and sorrowful life, the void and the state of annihilation into which his soul would fall if it ceased to love Coraly, the evils without intermission which he was to suffer if he continued to love her ; and, above all, the terrifying idea of seeing, of envying, of hating, perhaps a rival in his faithful friend — all rendered his life a torment to him, all urged him to shorten the course of it. Motives more strong restrained him. It was not a part of Nelson’s principles that a man, a citizen, might dispose of himself. He made it a law to himself to live, consoled in his misery if he could still be useful to the world, but consumed with heaviness and 122 Classic Tales . sorrow, and become, as it were, insensible to every- thing. The time appointed for Blanford’s return ap- proached. It was necessary that everything should be so disposed as to conceal from him the mischief which his absence had occasioned ; and who should determine Coraly to conceal it but Nelson ? He returned, therefore, to London, but languishing, dejected to such a degree as not to be known. The sight of him overwhelmed Juliet with grief, and what impression did it not make on the soul of Coraly ! Nelson took upon him to re-encourage them ; but that very effort only served to complete his own dejection. The slow fever which consumed him redoubled. He was forced to give way to it ; and this furnished occasion for a new contest between his sister and the young Indian. The latter would not quit Nelson’s pillow. She urgently entreated them to accept of her care and attendance. They kept her out of the way from pity to herself, and for the sake of sparing him ; but she tasted not the repose which they meant to procure her. Every moment of the night they found her wandering round the apartment of the diseased, or motionless on the threshold of his door, with tears in her eyes, her soul on her lips, her ear attentive to the slightest noises, every one of which congealed her with fear. Nelson perceived that his sister suffered her to see him with regret. “ Afflict her not,” said he to her ; “ it is to no purpose ; severity is no longer necessary. It is by gentleness and patience that we must endeavour at our cure.” “ Coraly, my good friend,” Friendship Put to the Test. 123 said he to her one day when they were alone with Juliet, “ you would readily give something to restore my health, would not you ? ” “O Heaven, I would give my life.” “You can cure me at least. Our prejudices are perhaps unjust, and our principles inhuman ; but the honest man is a slave to them. I have been Blanford’s friend from my infancy. He depends on me as on himself, and the chagrin of taking from him a heart of which he has made me the keeper, is every day digging my grave. You may see whether I exaggerate. I do not conceal from you the sources of the slow poison which con- sumes me. You alone can dry it up. I require it not ; you shall be still free, but there is no other remedy for my disease. Blanford arrives. If he perceive your disinclination for him, if you refuse him that hand which but for me would have been granted him, be assured that I shall not survive his misfortune and my own remorse. Our embraces will be our adieus. Consult yourself, my dear child ; and if you would that I live, reconcile me with myself, justify me towards my friend.” “ Ah ! live, and dispose of me ! ” said Coraly to him, forgetting herself ; and these words, distressing to love, bore consolation to the bosom of friendship. “ But,” resumed the Indian, after a long silence, “how can I give myself to him whom I do not love, with a heart full of him whom I do love?” “My dear, in an honest soul, duty triumphs over every- thing. By losing the hope of being mine, you will soon lose the thought. It will give you some pain, without doubt ; but my life depends on it, and you Classic Tales. i-?4 will have the consolation of having saved it.” “ That is everything to me. I give myself up at that price. Sacrifice your victim ; it will groan, but it will obey. But you, Nelson, you, who are truth itself, would you have me disguise my inclinations, and impose thus on your friend ? Will you instruct me in the art of dissembling?” “No, Coraly, dissimulation is useless. I have not had the misfortune of extinguish- ing in you gratitude, esteem, and tender friendship ; these sentiments are due to your benefactor, and they are sufficient for your husband ; only display these towards him. As to that inclination which leans not towards him, you owe him the sacrifice of it, but not the confession. That which would hurt if it were known ought to remain for ever concealed ; and dangerous truth has silence for its refuge.” Juliet interrupted this scene, too painful to both, by leading away Coraly, whom she employed every endearment and commendation to console. “ It is thus,” said the young Indian with a smile of sorrow, “ that on the Ganges they flatter the grief of a widow who is going to devote herself to the flames of her husband’s funeral pile. They adorn her, they crown her with flowers, they stupify her with songs of praise. Alas ! her sacrifice is soon finished ; mine will be cruel and lasting. My good friend, I am not eighteen years of age ! What tears have I yet to shed till the moment when my eyes shall shut them- selves for ever ! ” This melancholy idea painted to Juliet a soul absorbed in sorrow. She employed her- self no longer in consoling her, but in grieving along with her. Complaisance, persuasion, indulgent and Friendship Put to the Test . 125 feeling compassion, all that friendship has most deli- cate, was put in practice to no effect. At last they inform her that Blanford is landed ; and Nelson, enfeebled and faint as he is, goes to receive and embrace him at the harbour. Blanford, on seeing him, could not conceal his astonishment and his uneasiness. “ Courage, man,” said Nelson ; " I have been very ill, but my health is returning. I see you again, and joy is a balm which will soon revive me. I am not the only one whose health has suffered by your absence. Your pupil is a little changed — the air of our climate may contribute to it. As to the rest, she has made great progress — her understanding, her talents, have unfolded them- selves ; and if the kind of langour into which she has fallen vanishes, you will possess what is pretty uncommon — a woman in whom nature has left nothing wanting. Blanford, therefore, was not surprised to find Coraly weak and languishing ; but he was much affected at it. “It seems,” said he, “as if Heaven wanted to moderate my joy, and to punish me for the impatience which my duty excited in me at a distance from you. I am now here again free, and restored to love and friendship.” The word love made Coraly tremble. Blanford perceived her concern. “ My friend,” said he to her, “ought to have prepared you for the confession which you have just heard.” “Yes, your goodness is well known to me ; but can I approve the excess of it?” “That is a language which favours of the politeness of Europe ; join with me to forget it. Frank and tender, Coraly, I have 126 Classic Tales . seen the time when if I had said, * Shall Hymen unite us ? ’ you would have answered me without disguise, ‘ With all my heart ! ’ or, possibly, ‘ I cannot consent to it.’ Use the same freedom now. I love you, Coraly, but I love to make you happy ; your mis- fortune would be mine,” Nelson, trembling, looked at Coraly, and durst not guess her answer. 1 1 1 hesi- tate,” said she to Blanford, “ through a fear like yours. While I saw you only as a friend, a second father, I said to myself, ‘ He will be content with my veneration and affectionate regard * ; but if the name of husband mingle with titles already sacred, what have you not a right to expect ? Have I wherewith to acquit me towards you ? ” (t Ah ! that amiable modesty is worthy of adorning thy virtues. Yes, thou half of myself, your duties are fulfilled if you return my affection. Thy image has followed me everywhere. My soul flew back towards thee across the depths which separated us. I have taught the name of Coraly to the echoes of another world. Madam,” said he to Juliet, “pardon me if I envy you the happiness of possessing her. It will soon be my turn to watch over a life that is so precious to me. I will leave you the care of Nelson’s ; it is a charge not less dear to me. Let us live happy, my friends ; it is you who have made me know the value of life ; and in exposing it I have often experienced by what strong ties I was attached to you. ” It was settled that in less than a week Coraly should be married to Blanford. In the meantime she remained with Juliet, and Nelson never quitted her. But his courage was exhausted in supporting 127 Friendship Put to the Test . the young Indian’s. To be perpetually constrained to suppress his own tears, to dry up those of a fond girl who, sometimes distressed at his feet, sometimes fainting and falling into his arms, conjuring him to have pity on her, without allowing one moment to his own weakness, and without ceasing to recall to his mind his cruel resolution ; this trial appears above the strength of nature. Accordingly, Nelson’s virtue abandoned him every moment. ‘ 1 Leave me,” said he to her, “unhappy girl! I am not a tiger, I have a feeling soul, and you distract it. Dispose of yourself, dispose of my life, but leave me to die faithful to my friend.” “And can I, at the hazard of your life, use my own will? Ah, Nelson ! at least promise me to live ; no longer for me, but for a sister who adores you.” “ I should deceive you, Coraly. Not that I would make any attempt upon myself ; but see the condition to which my grief has reduced me ; see the effect of my remorse and shame anticipated ; shall I be the less odious, less inexor- able to myself, when the crime shall be accom- plished?” “Alas! you talk of a crime ! Is it not one, then, to tyrannize over me?” “You are free. I no longer require anything ; I know not even what are your duties ; but I know too well my own, and I will not betray them.” It was thus their private conversation served only to distress them. But Blanford’s presence was still more painful to them. He came every day to con- verse with them, not on the barren topic of love, but the care he took that everything in his house should breathe cheerfulness and ease ; that everything there 128 Classic Tales . should forestall the desires of his wife, and contribute to her happiness.” “ If I die without children,” said he, “the half of my wealth is hers, the other half is his who, after me, shall know how to please and console her for having lost me. That, Nelson, is your place ; there is no growing old in my profession. Take my place when I shall be no more. I have not the odious pride of wanting my wife to continue faithful to my shade. It is more easy to conceive than describe the situation of our two lovers. Their concern and con- fusion were the same in both ; but it was a kind of consolation to Nelson to see Coraly in such worthy hands, whereas Blanford’s favours and love were an additional torment to her. On losing Nelson, she would have preferred the desertion of all nature, to the cares, and favours, the love of all the world beside. It was decided, however, even with the consent of this unfortunate girl, that there was no longer time to hesitate, and that it was necessary she should submit to her fate. She was led, then, as a victim to that house, which she had cherished as her first asylum, but which she now dreaded as her grave. Blanford received her there as a sovereign, and what she could not conceal of the violent state of her soul, he attributes to timidity, to the concern which at her age the approach of marriage inspires. Nelson had summoned up all the strength ot a stoical soul, in order to present himself at this festival with a serene countenance. They read the settlement which Blanford had made. 129 Friendship Put to the Test . It was, from one end to the other, a monument of love, esteem, and beneficence. Tears flowed from every eye, even from Coraly’s. Blanford approaches respectfully, and stretching out his hand to her, “Come,” said he, “my best beloved, give to this pledge of your fidelity, to this title of the happiness of my life, the inviolable sanctity with which it is to be clothed.” Coraly, on doing herself the utmost violence, had scarce strength to advance and put her hand to the pen. At the instant she would have signed, her eyes were covered with a mist, her whole body was seized with a sudden trembling, her knees bent under her, and she was on the point of falling, if Blanford had not supported her. Shocked, petrified with fear, he looks at Nelson, and sees him with the paleness of death on his countenance. Lady Albury had ran up to Coraly, in order to assist her. “ O Heaven,” cried Blandford, “ what is it that I see ! Sorrow, death surround me. What was I going to do ? What have you concealed from me?” “Ah, my friend, could it be possible ! ” “ See the light again, my dear Coraly, I am not cruel, I am not unjust ; I wish only for your happiness ! ” The women who surrounded Coraly exerted them- selves to revive her, but Nelson remained immovable, with his eyes fixed on the ground like a criminal. Blanford comes up to him, and clasps him in his arms, “ Am I no longer thy friend ?” said he. “ Art thou not still the half of myself? Open thy heart to me, and tell me what has passed. No, tell me nothing, I know all. This poor girl could not see thee, hear hi. i 130 Classic Tales . thee, and live with thee, without loving thee. She has sensibility, she has been touched with thy good- ness and with thy virtues. Thou hast condemned her to silence ; thou hast required of her the most griev- ous sacrifice. Ah, Nelson, had it been accomplished, what a misfortune! Just Heaven would not permit it ! Nature, to whom thou didst violence, has re- sumed her rights. Do not afflict thyself ; it is a crime which she has spared thee. Yes, the devotion of Coraly was the crime of friendship.” “ I confess,” replied Nelson, throwing himself at his knees, “ I have been the innocent cause of thy unhappiness, of my own, and that of this amiable girl ; but I call fidelity, friendship, honour, to witness — ” “No oaths,” interrupted Blanford ; “ they wrong us both. No, my friend,” continued he, raising him, “thou wouldest not be in my arms, if I had been able to suspect thee of a shameful perfidy. What I foresaw is come to pass, but without thy consent. What I have just now seen is a proof of it, and that very proof is unnecessary; thy friend has no need of it.” “ It is certain,” replied Nelson, “ that I have nothing to reproach myself, but my presumption and imprudence. But that is enough, and I shall be punished for it. Coraly will not be thine, but I will not be hers.” “Is it thus that you answer a generous friend?” replied Blanford to him in a firm and grave tone of voice. “ Do you think yourself obliged to observe childish punctilios with me? Coraly shall not be mine, because she would not be happy with me. But an honest man for a husband, whom but for you she would have loved, is a loss to her, of which you are Friendship Put to the Test . 1 3 1 the cause, and which you must repair. The contract is drawn up, they shall change the names ; but I insist that the articles remain. What I meant to give Coraly as a husband, I now give her as a father. Nelson, make me not blush by a humiliating re- fusal.” “ I am confounded, and not surprised,” said Nelson, “ at this generosity, which overpowers me. I must subscribe to it with confusion, and revere it in silence. If I knew not how well respect reconciles itself to friendship, I should no longer dare to call you my friend.” During the conversation Coraly had recovered, and again saw with terror the light which was restored to her. But what was her surprise, and the revolution which was suddenly wrought in her soul ! “ All is known, all is forgiven !” said Nelson, embracing her. “Fall at the feet of our benefactor ; from his hand I receive yours.” Coraly would have been profuse in her acknowledgments. “You are a child,” said Blanford to her. “You should have told me every- thing. Let us talk no more of it ; but let us never forget that there are trials to which virtue itself would do well not to expose herself. ” THE CONNOISSEUR. Celicour, from the age of fifteen, had been in the country what is called a little prodigy. He made the most gallant verses in the world. There was not one handsome woman in the neighbourhood whom he had not celebrated, and who had not discovered that his eyes had still more spirit than his verses. It was a pity to suffer such great talents to lie buried in a little country town. Paris ought to be their theatre, and he managed so well that his father resolved to send him there. This father was an honest man, who loved wit, without having any himself, and who admired, without knowing why, everything that came from the capital ; he had even some literary relations there, and in the number of his correspondents was a Connoisseur called M. de Fintac. It was particularly to him that Celicour was recommended. Fintac received the son of his friend with the kind- ness of one who takes persons under his protection. 44 Sir,” said he, 44 1 have heard of you. I know that you have had success in the country; but in the country, believe me, arts and sciences are yet in their infancy. Without taste, wit and genius produce nothing but what is deformed, and there is no taste but at Paris. Begin, then, by persuading yourself that you are but just born, and by forgetting all that you have learned.” 44 What would I not forget?” 133 The Connoisseur . 133 said Celicour, casting his eyes on a niece of eighteen, whom the Connoisseur had with him. “Yes, sir, it is to-day that I begin to live. I know not what charm breathes in these places ; but it unfolds in me faculties unknown to me before ; I seem to myself to have acquired new senses, a new soul.” 44 Good,” cried Fintac ; 4 4 there now is enthusiasm ; he is born a poet, and from this single stroke I warrant him one.” 44 There is no poetry in that,” replied Celi- cour; 44 it is plain and simple nature.” 44 So much the better, there is the true talent. And at what age did you feel yourself animated with this divine fire ? ” 44 Alas, sir! I have had some sparks of it in the country, but I never experienced there this lively and sudden heat which penetrates me at this instant.” 44 It is the air of Paris,” said Fintac. 44 It is the air of your house,” said Celicour ; 44 1 am in the temple of the Muses.” The Connoisseur found that this young man had happy dispositions. Agathe, the most beautiful little wag that love ever formed, lost not one word of this conversation ; and certain sly looks, a certain smile which played on her lips, gave Celicour to understand that she did not mistake the double meaning of his replies. 44 1 am greatly pleased with your father,” added the Con- noisseur, 44 for having sent you hither at an age when the mind is docile enough to receive right impres- sions ; but guard yourself against bad. You will find at Paris more false connoisseurs than good judges. Do not go and consult everybody, but stick close to the instruction of a man who has never been mistaken in anything.” Celicour, who did not imagine that 134 Classic Tales. one might praise one’s self with so much openness, had the simplicity to ask who that infallible man was. “It is I, sir,” replied Fintac, with a tone of con- fidence; “I, who have passed myself with all the artists and literati of greatest consideration ; I, who for these forty years have exercised myself in distin- guishing in things both of fancy and of taste, the real and permanent beauties, the beauties of mode and of convention. I say it, because it is well known ; and there is no vanity in agreeing to a known fact.” Extraordinary as this language was, Celicour hardly paid any attention to it, he was engaged by an object more interesting. Agathe had sometimes deigned to lift up her eyes upon him, and those eyes seemed to tell him the most obliging things in the world ; but was it their natural vivacity, or the pleasure of seeing their triumph, that animated them? That was a point to be cleared up. Celicour therefore begged the Connoisseur to allow him the honour of visiting him often, and Fintac himself pressed him to it. On his second visit, the young man was obliged to wait till the Connoisseur was visible, and to pass a quarter of an hour tete-a-tete with the lovely niece. She made him many excuses ; and he replied that there was no occasion for them. “ Sir,” said Agathe to him, “my uncle is charmed with you.” “That is a very pleasing piece of success to me ; but, madam, there is one which would touch me still more.” “ My uncle says you are formed to succeed in every- thing.” “Ah! why do not you think the same?” “ I am pretty often of my uncle’s opinion.” “Assist The Connoisseur . *35 me, then, to merit his kindness.” “You seem to me to want no assistance.” “ Pardon me ! I know that great men have, almost all of them, their singularities, sometimes even weaknesses. To flatter their tastes, their opinions, their temper, one must know them ; to know them one must study them ; and, if you please, beautiful Agathe, you can abridge that study for me. After all, what is the point? To gain the good-will of your uncle ! Nothing in the world is more innocent.” “Is it the custom, then, in the country to come to an understanding with the nieces, in order to succeed with the uncles? That is very dexterous indeed ! ” “ Nothing in it but what is very natural.” “ But if my uncle had, as you say, singu- larities and foibles, must I tell you of them ?” “Why not ? would you suspect me of wanting to make an ill use of them?” No; but his niece — ” “Very well, his niece ought to wish that one should endeavour to please him. He is past the time of life in which we correct ourselves ; nothing remains, then, but to manage him.” “An admirable remover of scruples ! ” “ Ah ! you would not have any if you knew me better; but no, you have dissembled.” “Truly, I see the gentleman for the second time; how can I have any secrets from him ? ” “I am indis- creet, I confess, and I ask your pardon.” “No, it is I who have been wrong, to let you fancy the thing more serious than it is. The fact is this, my uncle is a good man, and would never have pretended to anything more, if they had not put it into his head to know everything, to judge of arts and letters, to be the guide, estimator, and arbiter of talents. That Classic Tales. 136 hurts nobody, but it draws a crowd of blockheads to our house, whom my uncle protects, and with whom he shares the ridicule of being a wit. It were much to be wished, for his own ease, that he would abandon this chimera ; for the public seem to have made it their business never to be of his opinion, and we have every day some new scene.” “You afflict me.” “You are now in possession of all the secrets of the family, and we have nothing more to conceal from you.” Just as she finished, word was brought to Celicour that the Connoisseur was visible. The study into which he was introduced announced the multiplicity of his studies and the variety of his knowledge ; the floor was covered with folios, piled up on one another in the utmost confusion ; rolls of prints, maps lying open, and manuscripts jumbled together ; on a table, a Tacitus open near a sepulchral lamp surrounded by antique medals ; farther off, a telescope on its carriage, the sketch of a picture on the easel, a model of bas-relief in wax, scraps of natural history ; and in the fretwork of the ceiling a representation of books picturesquely overturned. The young man knew not where to set his foot, and his embarrassment gave the Connoisseur infinite pleasure. “Forgive,” said he to him, “the con- fusion in which you find me. This is my study ; I have occasion for all these things at hand ; but do not imagine that the same disorder reigns in my head ; everything there is in its place ; the variety, nay, the number itself causes no confusion there.” “Wonderful!” said Celicour, who knew not what he said, for his thoughts were still on Agathe. “ Oh, The Connoisseur. 137 very wonderful !” replied Fintac, “ and I am often surprised myself when I reflect on the mechanism of the memory, and the manner in which the ideas class and arrange themselves as fast as they arise ; it seems as if there were drawers for every different kind of knowledge. For example, across that multitude of things which had passed through my imagination, who will explain to me how I came to retrace in my memory, to a given point, what I had read formerly on the return of the comet? — for you are to know that it was I who gave the watchword to our astronomers.” “You, sir?” “ They never thought of it ; and but for me the comet had passed incognito over our horizon. I have not boasted of it, as you may plainly see ; I tell it you in confidence.” “ And why suffer yourself to be deprived of the glory of so important a piece of intelligence?” “Good! I should never have done if I were to lay claim to all that they steal from me. In general, my lad, take it for granted that a solution, a discovery, a piece of poetry, of painting, or of eloquence, belong not, so much as it is imagined, to the person who takes the credit of it to himself. But what is the object of a Connoisseur ? To encourage talents at the same time that he enlightens them. Whether the thought of this bas-relief, the disposition of this picture, the beauties of the parts, or the whole, of this play, be the artist’s or mine, is matter of indifference to the progress of the art ; now that is all my concern. They come, I tell them my thought ; they listen to me, they make their advantage of it. It is excellent. I am recompensed when they have succeeded.” Classic Tales . 138 “ Nothing finer,” said Celicour; “ the arts ought to regard you as their Apollo. And does Mademoiselle Agathe condescend to be also their Muse?” “ No, my niece is a madcap, whom I wanted to bring up with care ; but she has no taste for study. I had engaged her to cast her eye over history : she returned me my books, saying that it was not worth while to read for the sake of seeing in all ages illustrious madmen and rogues sporting with a crowd of fools. I wanted to try if she had a greater taste for eloquence : she pretended that Cicero, Demos- thenes, etc., were only dexterous jugglers ; and when one had good reasons there was no need of so many words. For morality, she maintains that she knows it all by heart, and that Lucas, her foster-father, is as wise as Socrates. There is nothing, therefore, but poetry that amuses her sometimes ; and then she prefers fables to the more sublime poems, and tells you plainly that she had rather hear Fontaine’s animals speak than the heroes of Virgil and Homer. In a word, she is at eighteen as much a child as at twelve ; and in the midst of the most serious, the most interesting conversations, you would be surprised to see her amusing herself with a trifle, or growing dull the moment one would captivate her attention.” Celicour, laughing within himself, took leave of M. de Fintac, who did him the favour to invite him to dine with him the next day. The young man was so transported that he slept not that night. To dine with Agathe ! it was the happiest day of his life. He arrives, and by his beauty, by his youth, by the air of serenity diffused The Connoisseur. 139 over his countenance, one might have imagined they saw Apollo, if Fintac’s Parnassus had been better composed ; but as he wanted none but dependents and flatterers, he drew to his house only such persons as were fit to be so. He introduced Celicour to them as a young poet of the greatest expectation, and made him take his place at table at his right hand. From that moment behold all the eyes of envy fixed upon him. Each of the guests thought he saw his own place usurped, and swore in the bottom of their souls to take revenge on him by decrying the first work he should publish. In the meantime Celicour was generously received, caressed by all these gentlemen, and took them from that instant for the most honest people in the world. A new-comer excited emulation : wit hoisted all her sails : they judged the republic of letters ; and as it is just to mingle commendation with criticism, they praised generously all the dead, and tore in pieces the living ; the present company always excepted. All the new works which had succeeded without passing under the inspection of Fintac could but have their day, and that a short one ; all those to which he had given the seal of his approbation were to attain to immortality, whatever the present age thought of them. They ran through all kinds of literature ; and, in order to give more scope to erudition and criticism, they brought on the carpet this entirely new question, viz. “ which merited the preference, Corneille or Racine?” They said also on the subject the finest things in the world ; when the little niece, who had not spoken a word, took it 140 Classic Tales . into her head to ask simply which of the two fruits, the orange or the peach, had the most exquisite taste, and merited the most commendation. Her uncle blushed at her simplicity, and the guests all looked down without deigning to reply to this idle foolery. “ Niece, ” said Fintac, “at your age one should hear and hold one’s tongue.” Agathe, with an imperceptible half-smile, looked at Celicour, who had understood her perfectly well, and whose glance consoled her for the contempt of the company. I forgot to mention that he was placed opposite to her, and you may easily imagine that he listened very little to what was said around him. But the Connoisseur, who examined his countenance, per- ceived in it a very extraordinary fire. “See,” said he to his geniuses, “ see how talent pierces.” “ Yes,” replied one of them, “ we see it transpire like water through the pores of an eolipile.” Fintac, taking Celicour by the hand, said to him, “There is a comparison now ! Poetry and philosophy blended together ! It is thus that the talents border on each other, and that the Muses join hands. “ Confess,” continued he, “ that such dinners are not found in your country towns, where you see nothing ; there are days when these gentlemen have even a hundred times more wit.” “ It would be hard not to have it,” said one of them ; “we are at the fountain head, et pur- pureo bibimus ore nectar .” “Ah ! purpereo ! ” replied Fintac modestly, “ you do me a great deal of honour.” “Hark, young man, learn to quote.” The young man was all the while very attentive to catch Agathe’s looks, who on her side thought him very handsome. The Connoisseur . 141 On rising from table they went to walk in the garden, where the Connoisseur had taken care to get together rare plants from all quarters. He had, among other wonders, a parti-coloured cab- bage, which drew the admiration of naturalists. Its folds, its festoon, the mixture of its colours, was the most astonishing thing in the world. “Let them show,” said Fintac, “ a foreign plant, which nature has taken the trouble to form with more labour and delicacy. It is for the sake of avenging Europe on the prejudice of certain virtuosi , in favour of everything that comes from the Indies and the new world, that I have preserved this fine cabbage. ” While they were admiring this prodigy, Agathe and Celicour had joined each other, as it were, without intending it, in a neighbouring walk. “ Beautiful Agathe ! ” said the young man, show- ing her a rose, “ would you let this flower die on the stalk ? ” “ Where then would you have it die ? ” “Where I would die myself.” Agathe blushed at this answer ; and in that instant her uncle, with two wits, came and seated themselves in an adjacent arbour, from whence, without being perceived, he could overhear them. “ If it is true,” continued Celicour, “ that souls pass from one body into another, I wish after my death to be such a rose as that. If any profane hand advances to gather me, I will conceal myself amid the prickles ; but if some charming nymph deign to cast her eyes on me, I will lean towards her, expand my bosom, exhale my perfumes, mingle them with her breath ; and the desire of pleasing her shall animate my colours.” 142 Classic Tales . ‘‘Very well ; you will do so much that you will be plucked off your stalk, and the moment after you will be no more.” “Ah, Madam ! do you consider as nothing the happiness of being one moment — ” His eyes finished saying what his mouth had begun. “And I,” said Agathe, disguising her confusion, “ if I had my choice, would wish to be changed into a dove, which is gentleness and innocence itself. ” “ Add to these, tenderness and fidelity ; yes, beautiful Agathe, the choice is worthy of you. The dove is the bird of Venus ; Venus would distinguish you among your fellows ; you would be the ornament of her car ; Love would repose himself on your wings, or rather, he would cherish you in his bosom. It would be from his divine mouth that your bill would take ambrosia.” Agathe, interrupted him, saying that he carried his fictions too far. “ One word more,” said Celicour : “a dove has a mate; if it depended on you to choose yours, what kind of a soul would you give him ? ” “ That of a female friend,” replied she. At these words Celicour looked on her with two eyes, in which were painted love, reproach, and grief. “Very well !” said the uncle, getting up; “very well ! there, now, is fine and good poetry for you. The image of this rose is of a freshness worthy Vanhuysum ; that of the dove is a little picture of Boucher, the freshest, the most gallant in the world, ut pictura poesis . Courage, my lad, courage ! the allegory is extremely well supported ; we shall make something of you. Agathe, I have been pretty well pleased with your dialogue, and here is M. de The Connoisseur . 143 Lexergue, who is as much surprised at it as I.” “ It is certain,” said M. de Lexergue, “ that there is in Miss’s language something Anacreontic ; it is the impression of her uncle’s taste ; he says nothing which is not stamped with the mark of sound antiquity.” M. Lucide found in Celicour’s fictions the molle atque fucetum. “We must conclude this little scene,” said Fintac; “we must put it into verse ; it will be one of the prettiest things we have ever seen.” Celicour said, that in order to complete it, he stood in need of Agathe’s assistance ; and, that the dialogue might have more ease and freedom in it, they thought ft right to leave them alone. “To the dove, your mate, the soul of a female friend l” resumed Celicour. “ Ah, beautiful Agathe ! is your heart made only for friendship? Is it for that Love has delighted to assemble in you so many charms? ” “ There, now,” said Agathe, smiling, “is the dialogue excellently renewed. I have but to take the reply ; there is matter enough to carry us a great way.” “If you please,” said Celicour, “it is easy to abridge it.” “Let us talk of something else,” interrupted she. “ Did the dinner amuse you ? ” “I heard there but one single word full of sense and refinement, which they had the folly to take for a simple question ; all the rest escaped me. My soul was not at my ear.” “ It was very happy ? ” “ Ah, very happy ! for it was in my eyes.” “If I pleased, I might pretend not to hear, or not to understand you ; but I never put on disguise. I think it very natural, then, under favour of our wits, for you to take more pleasure in looking at me than in listening to them ; and I confess to 144 Classic Tales . you, in my turn, that I am not sorry at having one to speak to me, though it were only by his eyes, in order to save me from the spleen that they give me. Now, then, we are come to a right understanding, and we shall amuse ourselves, for we have originals enter- taining enough of their kind. For example, this M. Lucide thinks he always sees in things what nobody else has perceived in them. He seems as if nature had told her secret in his ear ; but everybody is not worthy to know what he thinks. He chooses in a circle a privileged confidant. This is commonly the most distinguished person ; he leans mysteriously towards that person, and whispers his opinion. As for M. de Lexergue, he is a scholar of the first class ; full of contempt for everything modern, he esteems things by the number of ages. He would choose even that a young woman should have the air of antiquity, and he honours me with his attention, because he thinks I have the profile of the Empress Poppsea. In the group which you see below there is an unpright starch man, who makes pretty little nothings, but does not know what he means by them. He demands a day for reading ; he names his auditory himself ; he requires that the gate should be shut against every profane person ; he arrives on his tiptoes, places himself before a table between two flambeaus ; draws mysteriously out of his pocket a rose-coloured portfolio ; throws around him a gracious look, which demands silence ; announces a little romance of his own making which has had the good fortune to please some persons of consideration ; reads it deliberately, in order to be the better tasted ; The Connoisseur. i45 and goes quite to the end without perceiving that everybody yawns at him. That little fidgeting man near him, so full of gesticulation, excites a pity in me which I am not able to express. Wit is to him like those sneezings which are going to come but which never do come. We see him dying with the desire of saying fine things ; he has them at his tongue’s end ; but they seem to escape him the moment he is going to catch them. Ah, he is much to be pitied ! That dry and tall man, who walks alone apart from them, is the most thoughtful and most empty person I know. Because he has a bob-wig and the vapours, he thinks himself an English philosopher ; he grows heavy on the wing of a fly, and is so obscure in his ideas that one is sometimes tempted to think him profound.” While Agathe’s wit was exercising itself on these characters, Celicour had his eyes fixed on hers. “Ah!” said he, “that your uncle, who knows so many things, should know so little of his niece’s understanding ! He represents you as a child ! ” “ Oh, to be sure ; and all these gentlemen consider me as such. Accordingly they put no restraint upon themselves, and the absurdity of wit is with me quite at its ease. Do not go and betray me now.” “ Never fear ; but we must, beautiful Agathe, cement our understanding by stricter ties than those of friendship.” “You do injustice to friendship,” replied Agathe ; “ there is something sweeter, perhaps ; but there is nothing more solid.” At these words they came to interrupt them, and the Connoisseur, walking along with Celicour, asked in. K 146 Classic Tales. him if the dialogue with his niece had been cleverly resumed. “It is not precisely what I wanted,” said the young man ; “ but I will endeavour to supply it.” “I am sorry,” says Fintac, “that we interrupted you. Nothing is so difficult as to recover the natural thread when once we let it escape. This giddy girl has not caught your idea. She has sometimes lights ; but all of a sudden they vanish. I hope at least that marriage will form her.” “You think, then, of marrying her?” demanded Celicour, with a faltering voice. “Yes, replied Fintac, “and I depend upon you for the worthy celebration of that festival. You have seen M. de Lexergue ; he is a man of great sense and profound erudition. It is to him that I give my niece.” If Fintac had observed Celicour’s countenance, he would have seen it grow pale at this news. “A man so serious, and so full of application, has need,” continued he, “of something to dissipate him. He is rich ; he has taken a liking to this girl, and in a week’s time he is to marry her ; but he exacts the greatest secrecy, and my niece herself knows nothing of it yet. As for you, it is highly necessary that you should be initiated into the mystery of a union which you are to celebrate. O Hymen l O Hymence ! you understand me. It is an epithalamium that I ask of you ; and here, now, is an opportunity to signalize yourself.” “Ah, sir ! — ” “No modesty; it smothers all talents.” “Excuse me.” “You shall execute it; it is apiece in your own way, and which will do you a great deal of honour. My niece is young and handsome, and with an imagination and soul one is not exhausted on The Connoisseur. 147 such a subject. With respect to the husband, I have already told you he is an extraordinary man. Nobody so knowing in antiques. He has a cabinet of medals which he values at forty thousand crowns. He was even going to see the ruins of Herculaneum, and was very near making a voyage to Palmyra. You see how many images all this presents to poetry. But you are ruminating upon it already ; yes, I see on your countenance that profound medita- tion which hatches the buds of genius, and disposes them to fruitfulness. Go, then ; go, and profit of such precious moments. I am going also to bury myself in study.” Seized with consternation at what he had just heard, Celicour burned with impatience to see Agathe again. The next day he made a pretence to go and consult the Connoisseur ; and before he went into his study, he asked if she was to be seen. “Ah, Mademoiselle ! ” said he to her, “ you see a man driven to despair.” “What ails you?” “I am undone ; you are to marry M. de Lexergue.” “ Who has told you that story?” “Who! M. de Fintac himself.” “Seriously?” “He has charged me to write your epithalamium.” “Very well, will it be a pretty one ? ” “You laugh ! you think it charming to have M. de Lexergue for a husband!” “Ob, very charming!” “Ah! at least, cruel maid, in pity to me who adore you, and who am to lose you ! ” Agathe interrupted him as he fell on his knees. “ Confess,” said she to him, “ that these moments of distraction are convenient for a declaration. As the person that makes it is not himself, so she who hears 148 Classic Tales. him dares not complain ; and, by favour of this dis- order, love thinks it may risk everything. But softly, moderate yourself, and let us see what dis- tracts you.” “ Your tranquillity, cruel as you are.” “You would have me afflict myself, then, at a mis- fortune which I am not afraid of? ” “ I tell you that it is determined that you shall marry M. de Lexergue.” “ How ! would you have them determine, without me, on that which, without me, cannot be put into execution ? ” “ But if your uncle has given his word?” “If he has given it, he shall retract it.” “How, would you have the courage?” “The courage of not saying Yes — a fine effort of resolu- tion ! ” “ Ah, I am at the summit of joy ! ” “ And your joy is a folly as well as your grief.” “ You will not be M. de Lexergue’s ! ” “Very well; what then?” “You will be mine.” “Oh, to be sure ! there is no medium ; and every woman who will not be his wife will be yours, that is clear ! Indeed, you argue like a country poet. Go, go see my uncle ; and take care that he has no suspicion of the informa- tion that you have given me.” “Well, is the epithalamium in forwardness?” said the Connoisseur to him, as soon as he came into his presence. “I have the plan in my head.” “ Let us see ! ” “I have taken the allegory of Time espousing Truth.” “The thought is beautiful; but it is gloomy, and, besides, Time is very old.” “ M. de Lexergue is an antiquary.” “True; but we do not love to be told that we are as old as Time.” “ Would you like the nuptials of Venus and Vulcan?” “Vulcan! on account of bronzes and The Connoisseur . 149 medals. No ; the adventure of Mars is too dis- agreeable. You will find out, on consideration, some thought still more happy. But apropos of Vulcan, will you come this evening with us to see the essay of an artificer whom I protect ? It is some Chinese rockets, of which I have given him the composition. I have even added something to it ; for I must always put in something of my own.” Celicour doubted not but Agathe would be of the party, and repaired thither with eagerness. The spectators were seated. Fintac and his niece took up one window, and there remained on Agathe’s side a small space, which she had contrived to leave vacant. Celicour stole timorously into it, and leaped with joy on seeing himself so near Agathe. The uncle’s eyes were attentive to follow the flight of the rockets ; Celicour’s were fixed upon the niece. The stars might have fallen from the heavens, and not have disturbed him. His hand met on the side of the window a hand softer than the down of flowers ; a trembling seized him, which Agathe must have perceived. The hand he touched scarce made a motion to withdraw itself ; his made one to retain it. Agathe’s eyes turned upon him, and met his, which asked for pardon. She perceived that she should afflict him by withdrawing that dear hand, and, whether through weakness or pity, she thought proper to leave it immovable. This was a great deal, but not quite enough. Agathe’s hand was shut, and Celicour’s could not clasp it. Love inspired him with the courage to open it. Gods ! what was his surprise and joy when he found her yield insensibly 150 Classic Tales . to this soft violence ! He holds Agathe’s hand open in his, he presses it lovingly — conceive^ his felicity ! It is not yet perfect ! the hand he presses replies not to his ; he draws it towards him, inclines towards her, and dares to rest it on his heart, which advances to meet it. It wants to get from him, he stops it, he holds it captive ; and love knows with what rapidity his heart beats under this timid hand. This was a loadstone to her. O triumph ! O rapture ! It is no longer Celicour that presses it ; it is the hand itself that answers the beatings of Celicour’s heart. Those who have never loved have never known this emotion ; and even those who have loved have never tasted it but once. Their looks were mingled with that touching langour which is the sweetest of all declara- tions, when the branch of the fireworks displayed itself in the air. Then Agathe’s hand made a new effort to impress itself on the heart of Celicour ; and while around them they applauded the glittering beauty of the rockets, our lovers, taken up with themselves, expressed by burning sighs the regret of separation. Such was this dumb scene, worthy to be cited among the examples of eloquent silence. From this moment, their hearts understanding each other, there was no longer any secret between them ; both tasted, for the first time, the pleasure of loving ; and this blossom of sensibility is the purest essence of the soul. But love, which takes the complexion of characters, was timid and serious in Celicour ; lively, joyous, and waggish in Agathe. However, the day appointed for informing her of her marriage with M. de Lexergue arrives. The The Connoisseur . iSi antiquary comes to see her, finds her alone, and makes her a declaration of his love, founded on the consent of her uncle. “ I know,” said she, rallying, “ that you love me in profile ; but for me, I should like a husband that I could love in front ; and to speak frankly, you are not the thing for me. You have, you say, my uncle’s consent, but you shall not marry me without my own ; and I believe I may assure you that you will not have it as long as I live.” In vain did Lexergue protest to her that she united in her eyes more charms than the Venus de Medicis. Agathe wished him antique Venuses, and assured him that she was not one. “ You have your choice,” said she to him, “ to expose me to displease my uncle, or to spare me that chagrin. You will afflict me in charg- ing me with the rupture, you will oblige me by taking it upon yourself ; and the best thing we can do when we are not loved, is to endeavour not to be hated. And so your very humble servant.” The antiquary was mortally offended at Agathe’s refusal ; but out of pride he would have concealed it if the reproach cast upon him of failing in his word had not extorted the confession from him. Fintac, whose authority and consideration were now brought into question, was enraged at the opposition of his niece, and did all that was possible to conquer it ; but he never could draw from her any other answer but that she was no medal, and he concluded by telling her in a passion that she should never have any other husband. This was not the only obstacle to the happiness of our lovers. Celicour could hope for only part of a small inheritance ; and Agathe was Classic Tales. 152 entirely dependent on her uncle, who was now less than ever disposed to strip himself of his wealth for her. In happier times he might have taken upon him their little family affairs ; but after this refusal of Agathe’s, it required a little miracle to engage him to it ; and it was love himself that wrought it. “ Flatter my uncle,” said Agathe to Celicour ; “ intoxicate him with encomiums, but carefully conceal from him our love. For that purpose let us diligently avoid being found together, and con- tent yourself with informing me of your conduct en passant . Fintac dissembled not to Celicour his resentment against his niece. “ Can she have,” said he, “any secret inclination? If I knew it — but, no ! she is a little fool, who loves nothing, and feels nothing. Ah ! if she reckons upon my inheritance, she is mistaken ; I know better how to dispose of my favours.” The young man, terrified at the menaces of the uncle, took the first opportunity to inform the niece of it. She only rallied upon the occasion. “He is raving mad against you, my dear Agathe.” “That is quite indifferent to me.” “ He says he will disinherit you.” “ Say as he says, gain his confidence, and leave the rest to love and time.” Celicour followed Agathe’s advice, and at every commendation that he bestowed on Fintac, Fintac thought he dis- covered in him a new degree of merit. “The justness of understanding, the penetration of this young man is without example at his age,” said he to his friends. At last the confidence he placed in him was such that he thought he could trust to him what he called the secret of his life ; this was a dramatic piece which he The Connoisseur . *53 had composed, and which he had hot had the resolution to read to any one, for fear of risking his reputation. After demanding an inviolable secrecy, he appointed the time for reading it. At this news Agathe was transported with joy. “That is well,” said she. “ Courage ! redouble the dose of incense ; good or bad, in your eyes this piece has no equal.” Fintac, tite-a-ttte with the young man, after double locking his study door, drew out of a casket this precious manuscript, and read with enthusiasm the coldest, the most insipid comedy that ever was written. It cost the young man a deal of mortifica- tion to applaud such flat stuff ; but Agathe had recommended it to him. He applauded it, there- fore, and the Connoisseur was transported. “ Con- fess,” said he to him, after reading it, “ confess, that this is fine.” “Oh, very fine ! ” “Very well, it is time to tell you, then, why I have chosen you for my only confidant. I have burned with desire this great while to see this piece on the stage, but I would not have it go under my name.” Celicour trembled at these words. “ I was unwilling to trust anybody ; but, in short, I think you worthy of this mark of my friendship : you shall present my work as your own ; I will have nothing but the pleasure of success, and I leave the glory of it to you.” The thought of imposing upon the public would alone have terrified the young man, but that of seeing appear and being damned under his name so contemptible a work, shocked him still more. Confounded at the proposal he withstood it a long time, but his opposition was to no purpose. “ My secret being confided,” said Classic Tales . 154 Fintac, “ engages you in honour to grant me what I ask. It is indifferent to the public whether the piece be yours or mine, and this friendly imposition can hurt nobody. My piece is my treasure ; I make you a present of it ; the very remotest posterity will know nothing of it. Here, then, your delicacy is spared every way ; if, after this, you refuse to present this work as your own, I shall think that you do not like it, that you only deceive me in praising it, and that you are equally unworthy of my friendship and esteem.” What would not Agathe’s lover resolve upon rather than incur the hatred of her uncle ? He assured him that he was only restrained by laudable motives, and asked twenty-four hours to determine. “ He has read it to me,” said he to Agathe. “Well?” “ Well, it is execrable.” “ I thought so. ” “He wants me to bring it on the stage in my name.” “What?” “To have it pass for mine.” “Ah, Celicour, Heaven be praised ! have you accepted it?” “Not yet, but I shall be forced to it.” “So much the better.” “ I tell you it is detestable.” “ So much the better.” “ It will be damned.” “So much the better, I tell you ; we must submit to everything.” Celicour did not sleep that night, for vexation, and the next day went to the uncle, and told him that there was nothing which he would not sooner resolve upon than to displease him. “ I would not expose you rashly,” said the Connoisseur ; “ copy put the piece with your own hand ; you shall read it to our friends, who are excellent judges, and if they do not think the success infallible, you shall not be bound to anything. I require only one thing The Connoisseur . 155 of you ; and that is to study it in order to read it well.” This precaution gave the young man some hope. “ I am,” said he to Agathe, “to read the piece to his friends ; if they think it bad, he excuses me from bringing it out.” “They will think it good, and so much the better ; we should be undone if they were to dislike it.” “Explain yourself.” “ Get thee gone ! they must not see us together.” What she had foreseen came to pass. The judges being assembled, the Connoisseur announced this piece as a prodigy, and especially in a young poet. The young poet read his best, and, after Fintac’s example, they were in ecstasies at every line, and applauded every scene. At the conclusion they clapped and huzzaed ; they discovered in it the delicacy of Aristophanes, the elegance of Plautus, the comic force of Terence, and they knew no piece of Moliere fit to be set in com- petition with this. After this trial there was no room to hesitate. The players were not of the same opinion with the wits ; for they knew beforehand that these good people had no taste, but there was an order to perform the piece. Agathe, who had assisted at the reading, had applauded with all her might ; there were even pathetic passages at which she appeared to be moved, and her enthusiasm for the work had a little reconciled her with the author. “ Could it be possible,” said Celicour to her, “ that you should have thought that good!” “Excellent!” said she, “excellent for us ! ” and at these words she left him. While the piece was in rehearsal Fintac ran from house to house to dispose the wits in favour of a young poet of such great expectation. At last the Classic Tales . r S6 great day arrives, and the Connoisseur assembles his friends to dinner. “ Let us go, gentlemen,” said he, “ to support your own performance. You have judged the piece admirable, you have warranted the success, and your honour is concerned. As to me, you know how great my weakness is. I have the bowels of a father for all rising geniuses, and I feel in as lively a manner as themselves the uneasinesses they suffer in those terrible moments.” After dinner, the good friends of the Connoisseur tenderly embraced Celicour, and told him that they were going into the pit to be the witnesses rather than the instruments of his triumph. They repaired thither ; the piece was played ; it did not go through, and the first mark of impatience was given by these good friends. Fintac was in the house, trembling and pale as death ; but all the time that the play lasted this un- happy and tender father made incredible efforts to encourage the spectators to succour his child. In short, he saw it expire, and then sinking beneath his grief, dragged himself to his coach, confounded, dejected, and murmuring against Heaven for having been born in so barbarous an age. And where was poor Celicour ? Alas ! they had granted him the honours of a latticed box, where, sitting on thorns, he had seen what they called his piece, tottering in the first act, stumbling in the second, and tumbling in the third. Fintac had promised to go and take him up, but had forgot it. What was now to become of him ? How escape through that multitude, who would not fail to know him again, and to point him out with the The Connoisseur. *57 finger ? At last, seeing the front of the house empty, he took courage and descended ; but the stove-rooms; the galleries, the stairs were yet full ; his consterna- tion made him be taken notice of, and he heard on all sides — “ It is he without doubt — yes, there he is ; that is he l Poor wretch ! — it is a pity ! — he will do better another time.” He perceived in a corner a group of authors, cracking jests on their companions. He saw also the good friends of Fintac, who triumphed in his fall, and, on seeing him, turned their backs upon him. Overwhelmed with confusion and grief, he repaired to the true author’s, and his first care was to ask for Agathe ; he had entire liberty of seeing her, for her uncle had shut himself up in his closet. “ I fore- warned you of it ; it is fallen, and fallen shamefully,” said Celicour, throwing himself into a chair. “So much the better,” said Agathe. “What! so much the better, when your lover is covered with shame, and makes himself, in order to please you, the talk and ridicule of all Paris ? Ah ! it is too much. No, Mademoiselle, it is no longer time to jest. I love you more than my life ; but in the state of humiliation in which you now see me I am capable of renouncing both life and yourself. I do not know how it has happened that the secret has not escaped me. It is but little to expose myself to the contempt of the public. Your cruel uncle will abandon me. I know him, he will be the first to blush at seeing me again ; and what I have done to obtain you, perhaps, cuts off my hope for ever. Let him prepare, however, to resume his piece, or to give me your hand. There is but one way to console me, and to oblige me to Classic Tales. 15 * silence. Heaven is my witness that if, through an impossibility, his work had succeeded, I should have given to him the honour of it. It is fallen, and I bear the shame ; but it is an effort of love, for which you alone can be the recompense.” “It must be confessed,” said the wicked Agathe, in order to irritate him still more, “that it is a cruel thing to see one’s self hissed for another. ” ‘ ‘ Cruel to such a degree that I would not play such a part for my own father".” “With what an air of contempt they see a wretch pass along whose play is damned.” “The contempt is unjust,, that is one comfort ; but insolent pity, there is the mortification ! ” “I suppose you were greatly confused in coming down-stairs ! Did you salute the ladies ? ” “I could have wished to annihilate myself.” “ Poor boy ! and how will you dare to appear in the world again?” “ I will never appear again, I swear to you, but with the name of your husband, or till after I have retorted on M. de Fintac the humiliation of this failure.” “You are resolved, then, to drive him to the wall?” “ Fully resolved, do not doubt it. Let him determine this very evening. If he refuses me your hand, all the newspapers shall publish that he is the author of the damned piece.” “And that is what I wanted,” said Agathe with triumph ; “there is the object of all those so much the betters which put you so much out of patience. Go to my uncle ; hold firm, and be assured that we shall be happy.” “Well, sir, and what say you to it?” demanded Celicour of the Connoisseur. “ I say, my friend, that the public is a stupid animal, and that we must The Connoisseur . 159 renounce all labour for it. But console yourself ; your work does you honour in the opinion of men of taste.” “ My work ! it is all yours.” “ Talk lower, I beseech you, my dear lad ; talk lower I” “ It is very easy for you to moderate yourself, sir — you, who have prudently saved yourself from the fall of your piece ; but I, whom it crushes — ” “ Ah ! do not think that such a fall does you any injury. The more enlightened persons have discerned in this work strokes that proclaim genius.” “No, sir, I do not flatter myself ; the piece is bad ; I have purchased the right of speaking of it with freedom, and all the world are of the same opinion. If it had succeeded I should have declared that it was yours, if it had been but partly condemned I should have taken it upon myself ; but so thorough a condemnation is above my strength, and I beg of you to take the burden upon yourself.” “I, child ! I, on my decline, incur this ridicule ! To lose in one day a respect which is the work of forty years, and which forms the hope of my old age, would you have the cruelty to require it?” “ Have not you the cruelty to render me the victim of my complaisance? You know how much it has cost me.” “ I know all that I owe to you ; but, my dear Celicour, you are young, you have time enough to take your revenge, and there needs but one instance of success to make you forget this mis- fortune. In the name of friendship support it -with constancy, I conjure you, with tears in my eyes.” “ I consent, sir ; but I perceive too well the consequences of this first essay to expose myself to the prejudice which it leaves behind it. I renounce the theatre, i6o Classic Tales. poetry, the belles lettres — ” “Well, you are in the right ; for a young man of your age there are many other objects of ambition.” “ There is but one for me, sir, and that depends on you.” “Speak, there is no service which I would not do you ; what do you require ? ” ‘ ‘ Y our niece’s hand. ” c ‘ Agathe’s hand ! ” “Yes, I adore her; and it was she, who to please you, made me consent to everything that you desired.” “ My niece in the secret ? ” “ Yes, sir.” “ Ah ! her giddiness will, perhaps — Holloa ! somebody, run to my niece, and bid her come here.” “Compose yourself ; Agathe is less a child, less giddy than she appears.” “ Ah ! you make me tremble — . My dear Agathe, you know what has passed, and the mis- fortune which has just happened.” “Yes, uncle.” “Have you revealed this fatal secret to any one?” “To nobody in the world.” “Can I thoroughly depend upon it?” “Yes, I swear to you.” “Well then, my children, let it die with us three. I ask it of you as I would ask my life. Agathe, Celicour loves you ; he renounces, out of friendship to me, the theatre, poetry, letters ; and I owe him your hand as the price of so great a sacrifice.” “ He is too well paid,” cried Celicour, seizing Agathe’s hand. “ I marry an unsuccessful author,” said she smiling, “but I engage to console him for his misfortune. The worst of the matter is that they deny him wit, and so many honest people are content without it. And now, my dear uncle, while Celicour renounces the glory of being a poet, had you not as well renounce that of being a Connoisseur? You will be a great deal the easier.” Agathe was interrupted by The Co?inoisseur. 161 the arrival of Clement, the faithful valet of her uncle. “Ah, sir!” said he, quite out of breath, “your friends, your good friends!” “Well, Clement?” “ I was in the pit ; they were all there.” I know it. Did they applaud ? ” Applaud, the traitors ! If you had seen with what fury they mangled this unfortunate young man. I beg, sir, you will discharge me if such people are ever to enter your house again.” “Ah ! the rascals, scoundrels!” said Fintac. “Yes, it is done ; I will burn my books, and break off all con- nection with these men of letters.” “Keep your books for your amusement,” said Agathe, embracing her uncle ; “and with respect to men of letters, wish to have none but your friends, and you will find some worthy of esteem. ” III. L SOLIMAN II. It is pleasant to see grave historians racking their brains, in order to find out great causes for great events. Sylla’s valet de chambre would perhaps have laughed heartily to hear the politicians reason on the abdication of his master ; but it is not of Sylla that I am now going to speak. Soliman II. married his slave in contempt of the laws of the Sultans. It is natural at first to paint to ourselves this slave as an accomplished beauty, with an elevated soul, an uncommon genius, and a profound skill in politics. No such thing; the fact was as follows : — Soliman grew splenetic in the midst of his glory ; the various but ready pleasures of the seraglio were become insipid to him. “These slaves move my pity. Their soft docility has nothing poignant, nothing flattering. It is to hearts nourished in the bosom of liberty that it would be delightful to make slavery agreeable.” The whims of a Sultan are laws to his ministers. Large sums were instantly promised to such as should bring European slaves to the seraglio. In a short time there arrived three, who, like the three Graces, seemed to have divided among themselves all the charms of beauty. Features noble and modest, eyes tender and 162 Soliman II. 163 languishing, an ingenuous temper, and a sensible soul, distinguished the touching Elmira. The entrance to the seraglio, the idea of servitude, had chilled her with a mortal terror : Soliman found her in a swoon in the arms of his women. He approaches ; he recalls her to life ; he encourages her ; she lifts towards him a pair of large blue eyes, bedewed with tears ; he reaches forth his hand to her ; he supports her himself ; she follows him with a tottering step. The slaves retire ; and as soon as he is alone with Her — “ It is not with fear, beautiful Elmira,” said he to her, “that I would inspire you. Forget that you have a master; see in me only a lover.” “The name of lover,” said she to him, “ is not less unknown to me than that of master ; and both the one and the other make me tremble. They have told me (and I still shudder at the thought) that I am destined to your pleasures. Alas ! what pleasure can it be to tyrannize over weakness and innocence ! Believe me, I am not capable of the compliances of servitude ; and the only pleasure possible for you to taste with me is that of being generous. Restore me to my parents and my country ; and in the respect you show for my virtue, my youth, and my misfortunes, merit my gratitude, my esteem, and my regret.” This discourse from a slave was new to Soliman ; his great soul was moved by it. “No,” said he, “my dear child, I will owe nothing to violence. You charm me ! I will make it my happiness to love and please you ; and I will prefer the torment of never seeing you more to that of seeing you unhappy. 164 Classic Tales. However, before I restore you to liberty, give me leave to try, at least, whether it be not possible for me to dissipate that terror which the name ot slave strikes into you. I ask only one month’s trial ; after which, if my love cannot move you, I will avenge, myself on your ingratitude in no other way than by delivering you up to the inconstancy and perfidy of mankind.” “Ah! my lord!” cried Elmira, with an emotion mixed with joy, “how unjust are the prejudices of my country, and how little are your virtues known there ! Continue such as I now see you, and I no longer reckon this day unfortunate.” Some moments after, she saw slaves enter, carry- ing baskets filled with stuffs and valuable trinkets. “ Choose,” said the Sultan to her ; “ these are clothes, not ornaments, that are here presented to you ; nothing can adorn you.” “Decide for me,” said Elmira to him, running her eyes over the baskets. “Do not consult me,” replied the Sultan; “I hate without distinction everything that can rob me of one of your charms.” Elmira blushed, and the Sultan perceiving she preferred the colours most favourable to the character of her beauty, he con- ceived a pleasing hope from that circumstance : for care to adorn one’s self is almost a desire to please. The month of trial passed away in timid gallantries on the part of the Sultan, and on Elmira’s side in complaisance and delicate attentions. Her confid- ence in him increased every day without her perceiv- ing it. At first he was not permitted to see her till after the business of the toilette and on condition Soliman II * 6 5 to depart when she prepared to undress again. In a short time he was admitted both to her toilet and dishabile. It was there that the plan of their afnuse- ments for that day and the next was formed. What- ever either proposed was exactly what the other was going to propose. Their disputes turned only on the stealing of thoughts. Elmira, in these disputes, perceived not some small slips which escaped her modesty. A pin misplaced, or a garter put on unthinkingly, etc., afforded the Sultan pleasures which he was cautious not to testify. He knew (and it was much for a Sultan to know) that it was impolitic to advertise modesty of the dangers to which it exposes itself ; that it is never fiercer than when alarmed ; and that in order to subdue it one should render them familiar. Nevertheless, the more he discovered of Elmira’s charms the more he per- ceived his fears increase, on account of the approach of the day that might deprive him of them. The fatal period arrives. Soliman causes chests to be prepared, filled with stuffs, precious stones, and perfumes. He repairs to Elmira, followed by these presents. “ It is to-morrow,” said he, “ that I have promised to restore you to liberty, if you still regret the want of it. I now come to acquit myself of my promise, and to bid adieu to you for ever.” “ What ! ” said Elmira trembling, “is it to-morrow ? I had forgot it.” “ It is to-morrow,” resumed the Sultan, “that, delivered up to my despair, I am to become the most unhappy of men.” “You are very cruel, then, to yourself, to put me in mind of it ! ” “ Alas 1 it depends only on you, Elmira, that I should forget i66 Classic Tales . it for ever.” “I confess,” said she to him, “that your sorrow touches me ; that your proceedings have interested me in your happiness ; and if, to show my gratitude, it were necessary only to prolong the time of my slavery — ” “ No, madam, I am but too much accustomed to the happiness of possessing you. I perceive that the more I shall know of you, the more terrible it would be to me to lose you. This sacrifice will cost me my life ; but I shall only render it the more grievous by deferring it. May your country prove worthy of it ! May the people whom you are going to please deserve you better than I do ! I ask but one favour of you, which is that you would be pleased cordially to accept these presents, as the feeble pledges of a love the most pure and tender that yourself, yes, that yourself, are capable of inspiring.” “ No,” said she to him, with a voice almost smothered, “ I will not accept your presents. I go ; you will have it so ! But I shall carry away from you nothing but your image.” Soliman lifting up his eyes to Elmira, met hers bedewed with tears. “Adieu, then, Elmira!” “Adieu, Soliman!” They bid each other so many and such tender adieus, that they concluded by swearing not to separate for life. The avenues of pleasure through which he had passed so rapidly with his slaves from Asia appeared to him so delicious with Elmira that he found an inexpressible charm in going through them step by step ; but arrived at the happiness itself, his pleasures had from that time the same defect as before. They became too easy of access, and in a short time after too languid. Their days, so well filled up till then, Soliman //. 167 began to hang heavy. In one of these moments, when complaisance alone retained Soliman with Elmira — “ Would it be agreeable to you,” said he, “ to hear a slave from your own country, whose voice has been greatly commended to me ? ” Elmira, at the proposal, plainly perceived that she was lost ; but to put any constraint on a lover who begins to grow tired is to tire him still more. “ I am for anything,” said she, “that you please”; and the slave was ordered to enter. Delia (for that was the singer’s name) had the figure of a goddess. Her hair exceeded the ebony in blackness, and her skin the whiteness of ivory. Two eyebrows, boldly arched, crowned her sparkling eyes. As soon as she began singing, her lips, which were of the finest vermilion, displayed two rows of pearl set in coral. At first she sung the victories of Soliman, and the hero felt his soul elevated at the remembrance of his triumphs. His pride hitherto, more than his taste, applauded the accents of that thrilling voice, w’hich filled the whole saloon with its harmony and strength. Delia changed her manner, to sing the charms of pleasure. She then took the theorbo, an instrument favourable to the display of a rounded arm, and to the movements of a delicate and light hand. Her voice, more flexible and tender, now resounded none but the most touching sounds. Her modulations, connected by imperceptible gradations, expressed the delirium of a soul intoxicated with pleasure, or exhausted with sentiment. Her sounds, sometimes expiring on her lips, sometimes swelled and sunk i68 Classic Tales . with rapidity, expressed by turns the sighs of modesty and the vehemence of desire ; while her eyes still more than her voice animated these lively descrip- tions. Soliman, quite transported, devoured her both with his ears and eyes. “ No,” said he, “ never before did so beautiful a mouth utter such pleasing sounds. With what delight must she, who sings so feelingly of pleasure, inspire and relish it ! How charming to draw that harmonious breath, and to catch again in their passage those sounds animated by love ! ” The Sultan, lost in these reflections, perceived not that all the while he kept beating time on the knee of the trembling Elmira. Her heart oppressed with jealousy, she was scarce able to breathe. “How happy is Delia,” said she in a low voice to Soliman, “ to have so tuneful a voice ! Alas ! it ought to be the organ of my heart ! everything that she expresses, you have taught me to feel.” So said Elmira, but Soliman did not listen to her. Delia changed her tone a second time to incon- stancy. All that the changeful variety of nature contains, either interesting or amiable, was re- capitulated in her song. It seemed like the fluttering of the butterfly over roses, or like the zephyrs losing themselves among the flowers. ‘ ‘Listen to the turtle,” said Delia; “ she is faithful but melancholy. See the inconstant sparrow. Pleasure moves his wings ; his warbling voice is exerted merely to return thanks to love. Water freezes only in stagnation ; a heart never languishes but in constancy. There is but one mortal on earth whom it is possible to love Soliman II 169 always. Let him change, let him enjoy the advan- tage of making a thousand hearts happy ; all prevent his wishes, or pursue him. They adore him in their own arms ; they love him even in the arms of another. Let him give himself up to our desires, or withdraw himself from them, still he will find love wherever he goes, wherever he goes will leave the print of love on his footsteps.” Elmira was no longer able to dissemble her dis- pleasure and grief. She gets up and retires. The Sultan does not recall her ; and while she is over- whelming herself with tears, repeating a thousand times, “ Ah, the ungrateful ! ah, the perfidious man ! ” Soliman, charmed with his divine song- stress, prepares to realize with her some of those pictures which she had drawn so much to the life. The next morning the unhappy Elmira wrote a billet filled with reproach and tenderness, in which she puts him in mind of the promise he had made her. “ That is true,” said the Sultan, “ let us send her back to her country, laden with marks of my favour. This poor girl loves me dearly, and I am to blame on her account.” The first moments of his love for Delia were no more than an intoxication ; but as soon as he had time for reflection he perceived that she was more petulant than sensible, more greedy of pleasure than flattered in administering it — in a word, fitter than himself to have a seraglio at command. To feed his illusion, he sometimes invited Delia, that he might hear that voice which had enchanted him ; but that voice was no longer the same. The impression made Classic Tales . 170 by it became every day weaker and weaker by habitude; and it was now no more than a slight emotion, when an unforeseen circumstance dissipated it for ever. The chief officer of the seraglio came to inform the Sultan that it was impossible to manage the untract- able vivacity of one of the European slaves, that she made a jest of his prohibitions and menaces, and that she answered him only by cutting railleries and im- moderate bursts of laughter. Soliman, who was too great a prince to make a state affair of what merely regarded the regulation of his pleasures, entertained a curiosity of seeing this young madcap. He repaired to her, followed by the eunuch. As soon as she saw Soliman — “ Heaven be praised!” said she, “here comes a human figure ! You are without doubt the sublime Sultan, whose slave I have the honour to be ? Do me the favour to drive away this old knave, who shocks my very sight.” The Sultan had a great deal of difficulty to refrain from laughing at this beginning. “ Roxalana,” said he to her, for so she was called, “ show some respect, if you please, to the minister of my pleasures ; you are yet a stranger to the manners of the seraglio ; till they can instruct you in them, contain yourself and obey.” “A fine compliment J” said Roxalana. “Obey! Is that your Turkish gallantry ? Sure you must be mightily beloved, if it is in this strain you begin your addresses to the ladies! Respect the minister of my pleasures ! You have your pleasures, then ? and, good Heaven ! what pleasures, if they resemble their minister ! an old amphibious monster, who keeps us here, penned in, Soliman II, 171 like sheep in a fold, and who prowls round with his frightful eyes always ready to devour us ! See here the confidante of your pleasures, and the guardian of our prudence ! Give him his due, if you pay him to make yourself hated, he does not cheat you of any of his wages. We cannot take a step but he growls. He forbids us even to walk, and to receive or pay visits. In a short time, I suppose, he will weigh out the air to us, and give us light by the yard. If you had seen him rave last night, because he found me in these solitary gardens ! Did you order him to forbid our going into them ? Are your afraid that it should rain men? and if there should fall a few from the the clouds, what a misfortune ! Heaven owes us this miracle.” While Roxalana spoke thus, the Sultan examined, with surprise, the fire of her looks and the play of her countenance. “By Mahomet!” said he to himself, “here is the prettiest looking romp in all Asia. Such faces as these are made only in Europe. Roxalana had nothing fine, nothing regular in her features ; but, taken all together, they had that smart singularity which touches more than beauty. A speaking look, a mouth fresh and rosy, an arch smile, a nose somewhat turned up, a neat and well-made shape ; all these circumstances gave her giddiness a charm which disconcerted the gravity of Soliman. But the great, in his situation, have the resource of silence ; and Soliman, not knowing how to answer her, fairly walked off, concealing his embarassment under an air of majesty. The eunuch asked him what orders he would be 172 Classic Tales . pleased to give with respect to this saucy slave. “She is a mere child,” replied the Sultan, “you must pass over some things in her.” The air, the tone, the figure, the disposition of Roxalana had excited in the soul of Soliman an anxiety and emotion which sleep was not able to dispel. As soon as he awoke he ordered the chief of the eunuchs to come to him. “You seem to me,” said he, “ to be but little in Roxalana’s good graces ; in order to make your peace, go and tell her I will come and drink tea with her.” On the arrival of the officer, Roxalana’s women hastened to wake her. “What does the ape want with me?” cried she, rubbing her eyes. “ I come,” replied the eunuch, “from the Emperor, to kiss the dust off your feet, and to inform you that he will come and drink tea with the delight of his soul.” “ Get away with your strange speeches ! My feet have no dust, and I do not drink tea so early.” The eunuch retired without replying, and gave an account of his embassy. “ She is in the right,” said the Sultan; “why did you wake her? You do everything wrong.” As soon as it was broad day with Roxalana, he went thither. “You are angry with me ? ” said he. “They have disturbed your sleep, and I am the innocent cause of it. Come, let us make peace; imitate me. You see that I forget all that you said to me yesterday.” “You forget it! so much the worse. I said some good things to you. My frankness displeases you, I see plainly ; but you will soon grow accustomed to it. And are you not too happy to find a friend in a slave? Yes, a friend who Soliman II. 173 interests herself in your welfare, and who would teach you to love. Why have not you made a voyage to my country ? It is there that they know love. It is there that it is lively and tender ; and why ? Because it is free. Sentiment is involuntary, and does not come by force. The yoke of marriage amongst us is much lighter than that of slavery ; and yet a husband that is beloved is a prodigy. Everything under the name of duty saddens the soul, blasts the imagination, cools desire, and takes off that edge of self-love which gives all the relish and seasoning to affection. Now, if it be so difficult to love a husband, how much harder is it to love a master, especially if he has not the address to conceal the fetters he puts upon us ! ” “ And I,” replied the Sultan ; “ I will forget nothing to soften your servitude ; but you ought in your turn — ” “I ought ! nothing but what one ought! Leave off, I prythee, now, these humiliating phrases. They come with a very ill grace from the mouth of a man of gallantry, who has the honour of talking to a pretty woman.” “ But, Roxalana, do you forget who I am, and who you are?” “ Who you are , and who I am 1 ! You are powerful, I am pretty; and so we are even.” “ Maybe so,” replied the Sultan haughtily, “ in your country ; but here, Roxalana, I am master, and you a slave.” “Yes, I know you have purchased me ; but the robber who sold me could transfer to you only those rights over me which he had himself, the rights of rapine and violence — in one word, the rights of a robber; and you are too honest a man to think of abusing them. After all, you are my master, because my life is in your hands ; i74 Classic Tales. but I am no longer your slave, if I know how to despise life, and truly the life one leads here is not worth the fear of losing it.” “What a frightful notion ! ” cried the Sultan ; “ do you take me for a barbarian? No, my dear Roxalana, I would make use of my power only to render this life delightful to yourself and me.” “ Upon my word,” said Roxalana, “ the prospect is not very promising. These guards, for instance, so black, so disgusting, so ugly, are they the smiles and sports which here accompany love ? ” “ These guards are not set upon you alone. I have five hundred women, whom our manners and laws oblige me to keep watched.” “ And why five hun- dred women ? ” said she to him, with an air of con- fidence. “ It is a kind of state which the dignity of Sultan imposes upon me.” “But what do you do with them, pray? for you lend them to nobody.” “Inconstancy,” replied the Sultan, “has introduced this custom. A heart void of love stands in need of variety. Lovers only are constant, and I never was a lover till I saw you. Let not the number of these women give you the shadow of uneasiness. They shall serve only to grace your triumph. You shall see them all eager to please you, and you shall see them attentive to no one but yourself.” “ Indeed,” said Roxalana, with an air of com- passion, “ you deserve better luck. It is pity you are not a plain private gentleman in my country. I should then be weak enough to entertain some sort of kindness for you, for, at the bottom, it is not yourself that I hate ; it is that which surrounds you. You are much better than ordinary for a Turk. You have Soliman II. X 7S even something of the Frenchman about you ; and, without flattery, I have loved some who were not so deserving as yourself.” “ You have loved !.” cried Soliman with horror. “ O Heavens, what do I hear ! I am betrayed ! — I am lost ! Destruction seize the traitors who meant to impose upon me ! ” “Forgive them,” said Roxalana ; “the poor crea- tures are not to blame. The most knowing are often deceived. And then the misfortune is not very great. Why do not you restore me to my liberty if you think me unworthy of the honours of slavery?” “Yes, yes, I will restore you to that liberty, of which you have made so good use.” At these words the Sultan retired in a rage, saying to himself, “ I plainly fore- saw that this little turned-up nose had made a slip.” It is impossible to describe the confusion into which this imprudent avowal of Roxalana’s had thrown him. Sometimes he had a mind to have sent her away, sometimes that they should shut her up, next that they should bring her to him, and then again that she should have been sent away. The great Soliman no longer knows what he says. “ My lord,” remon- strated the eunuch, “can you fall into despair for a trifle ? One girl more or less ; is there anything so uncommon in her ? Besides, who knows whether the confession she has made be not an artifice to get her- self sent back to her own country?” “What say you ? How ! can it be possible ? It is the very thing ! He opens my eyes. Women are not used to make such confessions. It is a trick — a stratagem ! Ah, the perfidious hussy ! Let me dissemble in my turn ; I will drive her to the last extremity. Hark 176 Classic Tales . ye ! go and tell her that I invite her to sup with me this evening. But no ; order the songstress to come here. It is better to send her.” Delia was charged to employ all her art to engage the confidence of Roxalana. As soon as the latter had heard all that she had got to say — “ What ! ” said she, “ young and handsome as you are, does he charge you with his messages, and have you the weakness to obey him ? Get you gone ; you are not worthy to be my countrywoman ? Ah ! I see plainly that they spoil him, and that I alone must take upon me to teach this Turk how to live. I will send him word that I keep you to sup with me ; I must have him make some atonement for his impertinence.” “ But, madam, he will take it ill.” “ He ! I should be glad to see him take anything ill of me.” “ But he seemed desirous of seeing you alone.” “Alone, ah ! it is not come to that yet ; and I shall make him go over a good deal of ground before we have any- thing particular to say to each other.” The Sultan was as much surprised as piqued to learn that they should have a third person. How- ever, he repaired early to Roxalana’s. As soon as she saw him coming, she ran to meet him with as easy an air as if they had been upon the best footing in the world together. “There,” said she, “is a handsome man come to sup with us ! Do you like him, madam ? Confess, Soliman, that I am a good friend. Come, draw near, salute the lady. There ; very well. Now, thank me. Softly ; I do not like to have people dwell too long on their acknowledg- ments. Wonderful ! I assure you he surprises me. Soliman II 177 He has had but two lessons, and see how he is im- proved ! I do not despair of making him one day or other an absolute Frenchman.” Do but imagine the astonishment of a Sultan; a Sultan ! — the conqueror of Asia! — to see himself treated like a school-boy by a slave of eighteen. During supper her gaiety and extravagance w r ere incon- ceivable. The Sultan was beside himself with trans- port. He questioned her concerning the manners of Europe. One picture followed another. Our pre- judices, our follies, our humours, were all laid hold of, all represented. Soliman thought himself in Paris. “The witty rogue!” cried he; “the witty rogue!” From Europe she fell upon Asia. This was much worse ; the haughtiness of the men, the weakness of the women, the dulness of their society, nothing escaped her, though she had only seen but cursorily. She was preparing to enlarge upon the honour that this circumstance of his reign would do him in history ; but he begged her to spare him. “ Well,” said she, “ I perceive that I take up those moments which Delia could fill up much better. Throw yourself at her feet, to obtain from her one of those airs which they say she sings with so much taste and spirit.” Delia did not suffer herself to be entreated. Roxalana appeared charmed ; she asked Soliman, in a low voice, for a handkerchief ; he gave her one, without the least suspicion of her design. “ Madam,” said she to Delia, presenting it to her, “I am desired by the Sultan to give you the handkerchief ; you have well deserved it.” “Oh, to be sure!” said ill. M i7» Classic Tales. Soliman, carried away with anger ; and present- ing his hand to the songstress, retired along with her. As soon as they were alone — “ I confess,’’ said he to her, “ that this giddy girl confounds me. You see the style in which she treats me. I have not the courage to be angry with her. I short, I am mad, and I do not know what method to take to bring her to reason.” “My lord,” said Delia, “I believe I have discovered her temper. Authority can do nothing. You have nothing for it but extreme cold- ness or extreme gallantry. Coldness may pique her ; but I am afraid we are too far gone for that. She knows that you love her. She will enjoy the pain that this will cost you ; and you will come too sooner than she. This method, besides, is disagreeable and painful ; and if one moment’s weakness should escape you, you will have all to begin again.” “Well then,” said the Sultan, “ let us try gallantry.” From that time there was in the seraglio every day a new festival, of which Roxalana was the object ; but she received all this as an homage due to her, without concern or pleasure, but with a cool com- plaisance. The Sultan sometimes asked her, “ How did you like those sports, those concerts, those spectacles?” “ Well enough,” said she, “ but there was something wanting.” “And what?” “Men and liberty.” Soliman was in despair ; he had recourse to Delia. “ Upon my word,” said the songstress, “ I know nothing else that can touch her ; at least, unless glory have a share in it. You receive to-morrow the Soliman IT. 179 ambassadors of your allies ; cannot I bring her to see this ceremony behind the curtain, which may conceal us from the eyes of your court?” “And do you think,” said the Sultan, “ that this would make any impression on her ? ” “I hope so,” said Delia ; “ the women of her country love glory.” “You charm me ! ” cried Soliman ; “ yes, my dear Delia, I shall owe my happiness to you.” At his return from this ceremony, which he took care to render as pompous as possible, he repaired to Roxalana. “Get you gone,” said she to him, “out of my sight, and never see me more.” The Sultan remained motionless and dumb with astonishment. “Is this, then,” pursued he, “your art of love?” “ Glory and grandeur, the only good things worthy to touch the soul, are reserved for you alone ; shame and oblivion, the most insupportable of all evils, are my portion ; and you would have me love you ! I hate you worse than death ! ” The Sultan would fain have turned this reproach into raillery. “ Nay, but I am serious,” resumed she; “if my lover had but a hut, I would share his hut with him, and be content. He has a throne ; I will share his throne, or he is no lover of mine. If you think me unworthy to reign over the Turks, send me back to my own country, where all the handsome women are sovereigns, and much more absolute than I should be here ; for they reign over hearts.” “ The sovereignty of mine, then, is not sufficient for you?” said Soliman, with the most tender air in the world. “No, I desire no heart which has pleasures that I have not. Talk to me no more of your feasts, all mere pastimes for i8o Classic Tales . children! I must have embassies.” “But, Roxa- lana,”you are either mad or you dream!” “And what do you find, then, so extravagant, in desiring to reign with you ? Am I formed to disgrace a throne ? and do you think that I should have displayed less greatness and dignity than yourself in assuring our subjects and allies of our protection?” “I think,” said the Sultan, “that you would do everything with grace ; but it is not in my power to satisfy your ambition, and I beseech you to think no more of it.” “Think no more of it! Oh! I promise you I shall think of nothing else ; and I will from hence- forward dream of nothing but a sceptre, a crown, an embassy.” She kept her word. The next morning she had already contrived the design of her diadem, and had already settled everything, except the colour of a ribbon which was to tie it. She ordered rich stuffs to be brought her for her habits of ceremony ; and as soon as the Sultan appeared, she asked his opinion on the choice. lie exerted all his endeavours to divert her from this idea ; but contradiction plunged her into the deepest melancholy ; and to draw her out of it again he was obliged to flatter her illusion. Then she displayed the most brilliant gaiety. He seized these moments to talk to her of love ; but, without listening, she talked to him of politics. All her answers to the harangues of the deputies, on her accession to the crown, were already prepared. She had even formed projects of regula- tions for the territories of the Grand Seignor. She would make them plant vines and build opera houses ; suppress the eunuchs because they were good Soliman II 181 for nothing ; shut up the jealous because they dis- turbed society ; and banish all self-interested persons because sooner or later they become rogues. The Sultan amused himself for some time with these follies ; nevertheless he still burned with the most violent love, without any hope of being happy. On the least suspicion of violence she became furious, and was ready to kill herself. On the other hand, Soliman found not the ambition of Roxalana so very foolish — “ For, in short,” said he, “is it not cruel to be alone deprived of the happiness of associating to my fortune a woman whom I esteem and love ? All my subjects may have a lawful wife ; an absurd law forbids marriage to me alone.” Thus spoke love, but policy put him to silence. He took the resolution of confiding to Roxalana the reasons which restrained him. “I would make it,” said he, “ my happiness to leave nothing wanting to yours ; but our manners — ” “Idle stories!” “Our laws — ” “Old songs!” “The priests — ” “What care they ! ” “ The people and the soldiery — ” “ What is it to them ? Will they be more wretched when you shall have me for your comfort? You have very little love if you have so little courage ! ” She pre- vailed so far that Soliman was ashamed of being so timid. He orders the Mufti, the Vizier, the Camaican, the Aga of the Sea, and the Aga of the Janissaries, to come to him ; and he says to them, “ I have carried, as far as I was able, the glory of the crescent ; I have established the power and peace of my empire ; and I desire nothing by way of recompense for my labours, but to enjoy, with the good-will of my 182 Classic Tales. subjects, a blessing which they all enjoy. I know not what law, but it is one that is not derived down to us from the Prophet, forbids the Sultans the sweets of the marriage-bed ; thence I perceive myself reduced to the condition of slaves, whom I despise ; and I have resolved to marry a woman whom I adore. Prepare my people, then, for this marriage. If they approve of it, I receive their approbation as a mark of their gratitude ; but if they dare to murmur at it, tell them that I will have it so.” The assembly received the Sultan’s orders with a respectful silence, and the people followed their example. Soliman, transported with joy and love, went to fetch Roxalana, in order to lead her to the mosque ; and said to himself in a low voice, as he was conducting her thither, “Is it possible that a little turned-up nose should overturn the laws of an empire ? ” THE TWO UNFORTUNATE LADIES. In the convent of the visitation of Cl — had for some short time retired the Marchioness of Clarence. The calm and serenity which she saw reign in this solitude did but render more lively and bitter the grief that burdened her. “ How happy,” said she, “ are those innocent doves which have taken their flight towards heaven ! Life is to them a cloudless day ; they know neither the sorrows nor pleasures of the world.” Amidst these pious maidens, whose happiness she envied, one only, named Lucilia, seemed to her to be pensive and pining. Lucilia, still in the bloom of her youth, had that style of beauty which is the image of a sensible heart ; but sorrow and tears had taken off its freshness, like a rose which the sun has withered, but which leaves us still capable of judging, in its languishing state, of all the beauty it had in the morning. There seems to be a dumb language between tender souls. The Marchioness read in the eyes of this afflicted fair one what nobody had dis- covered there before. So natural is it to the unhappy to complain, and love their partners in affliction ! She took a liking to Lucilia. Friendship, which in the world is hardly a sentiment, in the cloister is a passion. Their connection in a short time became very intimate, but on both sides a concealed sorrow 183 184 Classic Tales . poisoned its sweetness. They were sometimes a whole hour sighing together, without presuming to ask each other the secret of their griefs. The Marchioness at last broke the silence. “A mutual confession,” said she, “would spare us perhaps a great deal of uneasiness. We stifle oui sighs on both sides ; ought friendship to keep any. thing a secret from the breast where a mutual friend- ship is found.” At these words a modest blush animated the features of Lucilia, and the veil of her eyelids dropped over her fine eyes. “Ah! why,” replied the Marchioness, “ why this blush ? Is it the effect of shame ? Is it thus that the thought of happiness ought to colour beauty? Speak, my Lucilia, pour out your heart into the bosom of a friend, more, without doubt, to be lamented than yourself, but who would console herself for her own happiness, if she could but soften yours.” “What is it you ask of me, madam? I share all your sorrows, but I have none of my own to confide to you. The alteration of my health is the only cause of that languor into which you see me plunged. I am decaying insensibly ; and, thanks to Heaven, my end approaches.” She spoke these last words with a smile, at which the Marchioness was greatly affected. “ Is that, then,” said she, “ your only consolation ? Yet, though impatient to die, you will not confess to me what it is that renders life odious to you. How long have you been here?” “Five years, madam.” “ Were you brought hither by compulsion ? ” “No, madam, by reason, by Heaven, which was pleased to attract my heart entirely to itself?” “That heart, The Two Unfortunate Ladies . 185 then, was attached to the world ? ” “ Alas ! yes, for its own punishment.” “Finish.” “I have told you all.” “Were you in love, Lucilia, and had the fortitude to bury yourself alive? Was it some per- fidious wretch whom you have abandoned ?” “ The most virtuous, most tender, and most valuable of mankind. Ask no more ; you see the guilty tears that steal from my eyes ; all the wounds of my heart open afresh at the thought.” “ No, my dear Lucilia, it is not a time for us now to keep anything a secret. I would penetrate into the inmost recesses of your heart, in order to pour consolation into it ; believe me, the poison of grief exhales not but by complaints ; shut up in silence, it only becomes the more violent.” “You will have it, madam ? Weep, then, over the unfortunate Lucilia ; weep over her life, and shortly over her death. “ Scarce had I appeared in the world, when this fatal beauty attracted the eyes of a fickle and im- prudent youth, whose homage could not dazzle me. One man alone, yet in the age of innocence and candour, taught me that I was sensible of love. The equality of our years, birth, fortune ; the connection also between our families ; and above all, a mutual inclination, had united us to each other. My lover lived only for me : he saw with pity this immense void of the world, where pleasure is only a shadow, where love is but a gleam ; our hearts full of them- selves. But I lose myself. Ah, madam, what do you now oblige me to call to mind ! ” “ What, my dear, do you reproach yourself for having been just ? When Heaven has formed two virtuous and sensible 1 86 Classic Tales . hearts, does it make it criminal in them to seek each other, to attract, to captivate reciprocally? If so, why has it made them?” “ It formed, no doubt, with pleasure that heart in which mine lost itself ; where virtue took place of reason, and where I saw nothing that was a reproach to nature. Oh, madam, who was ever loved like me ! Would you believe that I was obliged to spare my lover’s delicacy even the confession of those tender in- quietudes which sometimes afflict love ? He would have deprived himself of life, if Lucilia had been jealous of it. When he perceived in my eyes any mark of sorrow, it was to him as if all nature had been eclipsed ; he supposed himself always the cause, and reproached himself for all my faults. “It is but too easy to judge to what excess the most amiable of men must have been loved. Interest, which dissolves all ties except those of love, interest disunited our families ; a fatal lawsuit, commenced against my mother, was to us the era and source of our misfortunes. The mutual hatred of our friends raised itself as an eternal barrier between us ; we were obliged to give over seeing each other. The letter which he wrote to me will never be effaced out of my memory — “ ‘ Everything is lost to me, my dear Lucilia : they tear from me my only happiness. I am just come from throwing myself at my father’s feet, I am just come from conjuring him, bathing him at the same time with my tears, to give over this fatal lawsuit. He received me as a child. I protested to him that your fortune was sacred to me, that my own would become odious. He has treated my disinterestedness as a folly. Man- kind conceive not that there is something above riches ; and yet The Two Unfortunate Ladies . 187 what should I do with wealth if I lose you ? They say that one day I shall be glad they did not listen to me. If I believed that age, or what they call reason, could so far debase my soul, I should cease to live from this moment, terrified at what was to come. No, my dear Lucilia, no ; all I have or ask is yours. The laws would in vain give me a part of your inheritance : my laws are in my heart, and my father there stands condemned. A thousand pardons for the uneasiness he occasions you ! Pray God that I offer up no criminal wishes ; I could cut off from my own days to add to my father’s ; but, if ever I am master of those riches he is now accumulating, and with which he would overload me in spite of myself, ample reparation shall be made for all. But yet I am deprived of you. They will dispose, perhaps, of the heart which you have given me. Ah ! beware of ever consenting to it : think that my life is at stake, think that our oaths are written in heaven. But can you withstand the imperious will of a mother ? I shudder at the thought l Speak comfort to me, in the name of the most tender love.’ ” “You answered him, without doubt?” “Yes, madam, but in a very few words — “ ‘ I upbraid you with nothing. I am unhappy, but I know how to be so ; learn from me to suffer.’ “The lawsuit, however, was begun and carried on with rigour. One day, alas ! one terrible day, while my mother was reading with indignation a memorial published against her, somebody asked to speak with me. ‘ Who is it ? * said she ; ‘ let them come in.’ The servant, confounded, hesi- tates for some time, stammers in his answers, and concludes by confessing that he was charged with a billet to me. * For my daughter — from whom ? ’ I was present ; judge of my situation ; judge of the indignation of my mother when she heard the name of the son of the person whom she called her persecutor. If she had vouchsafed to read i88 Classic Tales. the billet, which she sent back without opening, perhaps she had been moved by it. She would have seen, at least, the extreme purity of our sentiments ; but whether the vexations into which this lawsuit had plunged her required only an opportunity to vent itself, or that a secret correspondence between her daughter and her enemies was in her eyes a real crime, there are no reproaches with which I was not loaded. I fell down confounded at my mother’s feet, and submitted to the humiliation of her upbraidings, as if I had deserved them. It was determined on the spot that I should go and conceal in a cloister what she called my shame and her own. Being brought here the day after, orders were given not to suffer me to see anybody ; and I was here three whole months, as if my family and the world had been entirely annihilated to me. The first and only visit I received was my mother’s ; I presaged from her embraces the sentence she was going to pro- nounce. £ I am ruined,’ said she to me, as soon as we were alone ; i iniquity has prevailed ; I have lost my lawsuit, and with it all means of establishing you in the world. Scarce enough remains for my son to support himself according to his birth. As to you, my daughter, God has called you here ; here you must live and die : to-morrow you take the veil.’ At these words, which were strengthened by the cold and absolute tone in which they were pronounced, my heart was struck and my tongue frozen ; my knees gave way beneath me, and I fell senseless on the ground. My mother called for assistance, and laid hold of that opportunity to withdraw herself from The Two Unfortunate Ladies. 189 my tears. When I was come to myself again, I found myself surrounded with those pious damsels whose companion I was to be, and who invited me to partake with them the sweet tranquillity of their condition. But that state, so fortunate for an innocent and disengaged soul, presented to my eyes nothing but struggles, perjuries, and remorse. A dreadful abyss was going to be opened betwixt my lover and me ; I found my better part torn from me ; I saw no longer anything around me but silence and vacuity ; and in this immense solitude, in this renunciation of all nature, I found myself in the presence of Heaven, with my heart full of the lovely object which it was necessary I should forget for its sake. These holy damsels told me, with the strongest conviction, all that they knew of the vanities of the world ; but it was not to the world that I was attached ; the most horrible desert would have seemed a happy abode with the man whom I had left in that world which to me was nothing. “ I desired to see my mother again ; she pretended at first to have taken my swooning for a natural accident. 4 No, madam, it is the effect of the violent situation into which you have thrown me ; for it is no longer time to feign. You have given me life, you may take it from me ; but, madam, have you conceived me only as a victim devoted to the torment of a lingering death ? and to whom is it you sacrifice me? Not to God. I feel that He rejects me; the Almighty demands only pure victims, voluntary sacri- fices. He is jealous of the offerings made Him, and Classic Tales . 190 the heart which presents itself to Him ought thence- forward to be His alone. If violence drags me to the altar, perjury and sacrilege attend me there.’ ‘ What say you, wretched girl ? ’ ‘A terrible truth, which . despair forces from me. Yes, madam, my heart has given itself away without your consent ; innocent or culpable, it is no longer mine ; God only can break the band by which it is tied.’ ‘Go, unworthy daughter, go and ruin yourself ; I will never acknowledge you more.’ ‘Dear mother, by your own blood, abandon me not ; see my tears, my despair, see hell open at my feet.’ ‘ Is it in this light, then, that a fatal passion makes thee view the asylum of honour, the tranquil port of innocence? What is there, then, but the world in thy eyes? Know, however, that this world has but one idol — interest. All our homages are for the successful ; oblivion, desertion, and contempt are the portion of the unfortunate.’ “ ‘Ah, madam ! separate from that corrupt multi- tude the man — ’ ‘ Whom you love ; is it not so ? I know all that he can have said to you. He is no accomplice in the iniquity of his father ; he disclaims it, he complains to you of it ; he will repair the injury done you ! Vain promises — the fine speeches of a young man, which will be forgot to-morrow. But were he constant in his passion, and faithful in his promises, his father is young, he will grow old, for the wicked grow old ; and in the meantime love becomes extinct, ambition prompts, duty commands ; rank, alliance, fortune, present themselves to him, and the credulous, beguiled maid becomes the public The Tzvo Unfortunate Ladies. 191 talk. Such is the lot that awaited you ; your mother has preserved you from it. I now cost you some tears, but you will one day bless me for it. I leave you, my daughter ; prepare yourself for the sacrifice which God requires of you. The more painful this sacrifice, the more worthy will it be of Him.’ “In a word, madam, I was obliged to resolve. I took this veil, this bandage ; I entered the path of penitence ; and, during the time of probation, in which we are yet free, I flattered myself with the hopes of subduing myself, and attributed my irreso- lution and weakness solely to the fatal liberty of having it in my power to return. I thought the time long till I could bind myself by an irrevocable oath. I took that oath ; I renounced the world, an easy matter. But, alas ! I renounced also my lover, and that was more than renouncing my life. On pro- nouncing those vows, my soul fluttered on my lips, as if ready to leave me. Scarce had I strength enough to drag me to the foot of the altar, whence they were obliged to carry me away as dead. My mother came to me transported with a cruel joy. Pardon me, my God ; I respect, I love her still ; I will love her to my last gasp.” These words of Lucilia were inter- rupted by sighs, and two rivulets of tears overflowed her face.” “The sacrifice was now completed,” resumed she after a long silence; “I was the Almighty’s, I was no longer my own. All sensual ties were now to be broken ; I was become dead to the earth ; I presumed to believe it. But what was my terror, on searching into the abyss of my own soul, I there still found 192 Classic Tales. love, but a frantic and criminal love ; love covered with shame and despair ; love rebelling against Heaven, against nature, against myself ; love con- sumed by regret, torn with remorse, and transformed into rage. * What have I done ! ’ cried I to myself a thousand times ; ’ ‘ what have I done ! This adored man, whom I must see no more, presents him- self to my imagination in all his charms/ The happy knot which was to made us one, all the moments of a delicious life, all the emotions of two hearts which death alone would have separated, presented themselves to my distracted soul. Ah, madam, how grievous was the image 1 There is nothing which I have not done in order to blot it from my memory. For these five years past have I by turns banished it from my sight, and seen it recur without ceasing. In vain do I sink myself in sleep, which only revives it in my mind ; in vain do I abstract myself in solitude, where it awaits me ; I find it at the foot of the altar, I bear it into the bosom of God Himself. Meantime that God, who is the Father of mercies, has at length taken pity on me. Time, reason, penance, have weakened the first shocks of this criminal passion, but a painful langour has succeeded. I feel myself dying every moment, and the thought that I am drawing near to my grave is my sole consolation. ” “Oh, my dear Lucilia ! ” cried the Marchioness, after hearing her, “which of us is most to be pitied ! Love has been the cause both of your misfortunes and mine ; but you loved the tenderest, the most faithful, the most grateful of men ; and I the most perfidious, the most ungrateful, the most crueh You devoted The Two Unfortunate Ladies . 193 yourself to Heaven, I delivered up myself to a villain ; your retreat was a triumph, mine is a reproach ; people lament you, love you, and respect you ; but me they revile and traduce ( ‘Of all lovers, the most passionate before mar- riage was the Marquis of Clarence. Young, amiable, attractive in the highest degree, he promised a most happy disposition. He seemed to possess all the virtues, as he really did all the graces. The docile ease of his temper received in so lively a manner the impression of virtuous sentiments, that they seemed as if they could never have been effaced. It was too easy for him, alas ! to inspire me with the passion which he had himself, or at least thought he had, for me. All the conveniences which make great matches coincided with this mutual inclination ; and my parents, who had seen it rising in my bosom, consented to crown it. Two years passed in the tenderest union. O Paris ! O theatre of vices ! O dreadful rock of love, innocence, and virtue ! My husband, who till then had been but little conversant with those of his own age, and that merely to amuse himself, as he said, with their irregularities and follies, imbibed insensibly the poison of their example. The noisy preparation for their insipid meetings, the mysterious confidence of their adventures, the proud recitals of their empty pleasures, the commendations lavished on their worthless conquests, all excited his curiosity. The sweetness of an innocent and peaceful union had no longer the same charms for him. I had myself no other talents than those which a virtuous education bestows ; I perceived that he HI. N 194 Classic Tales. required more in me. ‘ 1 am undone,* said I to myself ; ‘ my heart is no longer a sufficient return for his.* Indeed his attentions from that time were nothing more than complaisance ; he no longer pre- ferred those conversations, those private interviews, so delicious to me, to the ebb and flow of a tumultu- ous society. He himself persuaded me to abandon myself to dissipation, only in order to authorize him to be abandoned. I became more pressing, and restrained him. I took the resolution of leaving him at liberty, that he might wish for me, and see me again with pleasure, after a comparison which I thought must be to my advantage ; but young cor- rupters seized that soul, unfortunately too flexible ; and from the instant he had steeped his lips in the poisoned cup, his intoxication was without remedy, and his wandering without return. I wanted to recall him, but it was too late. ‘You destroy yourself, my dear,’ said I to him ; ‘and though it be dreadful to me to see a husband torn from me who formed all my delight, yet it is more for your sake than my own that I lament your error. You seek happiness where it is most assuredly not to be found. False delights, shameful pleasures, will never satisfy your soul. The art of deceiving is the whole of that worldly art that now charms you ; your wife knows it not, and you know it no better than she ; that infamous school is not formed for our hearts ; yours suffers itself to be lost in its intoxication : but it will last only for a time ; the illusion will vanish like a dream ; you will return to me, and find me still the same ; an indul- gent and faithful love waits your return, and all will The Two Unfortunate Ladies . 195 be forgotten. You will have neither reproach nor complaint to fear from me : happy if I can console you, for all the chagrins which you may have occa- sioned me ! But you, who know the value of virtue, and have tasted of her charms ; you, whom vice shall have plunged from one abyss into another ; you, whom it shall dismiss perhaps with contempt, to conceal at home with your wife the languishing days of a premature old age, your soul a prey to cruel remorse, how will you reconcile yourself to yourself? — how will you be able still to relish the pure pleasure of being beloved by me ? Alas ! my love itself will be your punishment. The more lively also and tender that love will be, the more humiliating will it be for you. It is this, my dear Marquis, it is this that grieves and overpowers me. Cease to love me if you please. I can forgive you, since I have ceased to be agreeable ; but never render yourself unworthy of my tenderness, and contrive at least not to be obliged to blush before me.’ Would you believe it, my dear Lucilia, a piece of raillery was all his answer. He told me that I talked like an angel, and that what I had said deserved to be committed to writing. But seeing my eyes brimful of tears, ‘ Nay, do not play the child ! * said he to me. ‘ I love you, you know it ; suffer me to amuse myself, and be assured that nothing attaches me.’ “ However, some officious friends failed not to inform me of everything that could grieve and con- found me. Alas ! my husband himself in a short time desisted from keeping himself under my restraint, and even from flattering me. Classic Tales. 196 “ I shall not tell you, my dear Lucilia, the many marks of humiliation and disgust that I endured. Your griefs in comparison of mine would even appear light to you. Imagine, if possible, the situation of a virtuous and feeling soul, lively and delicate to excess, receiving every day new outrages from the only object of its affection ; still living for him alone, when he lives no longer for her, when he is not ashamed to live for objects devoted to contempt. I spare your delicacy the most horrible part of this picture. Rejected, abandoned, sacrificed by my husband, I devoured my grief in silence ; and if I afforded some profligate companies a topic of ridicule, a more just and compassionate public consoled me with its pity ; and I enjoyed the sole good which his vice could not take from me, a spotless character. I have since lost that, my dear Lucilia. The wickedness of the women, whom my example humbled, could not bear to see me irreproachable. They interpreted, accord- ing to their wishes, my solitude and apparent tran- quility ; they ascribed to me as a lover, the first man who had the impudence to conceive that he was well received by me. My husband, to whom my presence was a continual reproach, and who found himself not yet sufficiently at liberty, in order to rid himself of my importunate grief, took the first pretext that was presented to him, and banished me to one of his country seats. Unknown to the world, far from the sight of my misfortunes, I at least enjoyed in solitude the liberty of indulging my grief ; but the cruel man caused it to be notified to me, that I might choose a convent ; that his seat of Florival was sold, and that The Two Unfortunate Ladies. 197 I must retire from thence.” “ Florival !” interrupted Lucilia, in a violent emotion. “ That was the place of my exile,” resumed the Marchioness. “Ah, madam ! what name have you pronounced ? ” “ The name of my husband before he acquired the Mar- quisate of Clarence.” “ What do I hear ! O Heaven! O just Heaven! is it possible?” cried Lucilia, throwing herself upon the bosom of her friend. “ What is the matter — what troubles you — what sudden revolution ? — Lucilia, recover your senses.” “How, madam! is Florival, then, the perfidious wretch, the villain, who betrays and dis- honours you?” “Do you know him?” “ It is the man, madam, whom I adored, whom I have mourned for these five years past ; the man who would have had my last sighs ! ” “ What say you ? ” “ It is he, madam ! Alas, what had been my lot ! ” At these words, Lucilia, bowing her face to the ground, “ O my God ! ” said she, “ O my God ! it was Thou who stretchedst out Thine hand towards me.” The Mar- chioness was confounded, and unable to recover from her astonishment. “Doubt it not,” said she to Lucilia, “the designs of Heaven are visibly mani- fested upon us ; it brings us together, inspires us with a mutual confidence, and opens our hearts to each other, as two sources of light and consolation. Well, my worthy and tender friend, let us endeavour to forget at once both our misfortunes, and the person who occasioned them.” From this time the tenderness and intimacy of their friendship increased to the highest degree ; their solitude had pleasures known only to the un- 198 Classic Tales . fortunate. But, in a little time, this calm was interrupted by the news of the danger which threatened the Marquis. His dissipations cost him his life. At the point of death he asked for his virtuous wife. She tears herself from the arms of her forlorn companion, hastens to him, arrives, and finds him expiring. “ Oh, you, whom I have so greatly and so cruelly injured,” said he to her on recollecting her, “ see the fruit of my irregularities, see the dread- ful stroke which the hand of God hath inflicted upon me. If I am yet worthy of your pity, raise up to Heaven your innocent voice, and lay my remorse before it. The distracted wife would have thrown herself on his bosom. “ Stand off,” said he ; “I shudder at myself, my breath is the blast of death ” ; adding, after a long silence, “ Do you know me again in this state, to which my crimes have reduced me ? Is this that pure soul that used to mix itself with thine ? Is this that half of thyself? Perfidious friends, detestable enchantresses ; come, see, and shudder ! O my soul ! who will deliver thee from this hideous prison? Sir,” said he to his physician, “have I long to live ? My pains are intolerable. Leave me not, my generous friend ; I should fall, but for thee, into the most dreadful despair. . . . Cruel death, complete, complete the expiation of my life. There are no evils which I do not deserve ; I have betrayed, dishonoured, basely persecuted innocence and virtue itself.” The Marchioness, in the agonies of grief, made every moment new efforts to throw herself on the bed, from which they endeavoured to remove her. The Two Unfortunate Ladies. 199 At last the unhappy man expired, his eyes fixed upon her, and his voice died away in asking her pardon. The only consolation the Marchioness was capable of arose from that religious confidence with which so good a death inspired her. “ He was,” said she, ‘‘more weak than wicked, and more frail than culpable. The world led him astray by its pleasures; God brought him back again by his afflictions ; He has chastised and pardons him. Yes, my husband, my dear Clarence,” cried she, “now, disencumbered of the ties of blood and the world, thou waitest me in the bosom of thy God.” Her soul filled with these holy ideas, she went to join her friend, whom she found at the foot of the altar. Lucilia’s heart was rent within her at the relation of this cruel and virtuous death. They wept together for the last time ; and some time after the Marchioness consecrated to God, with the same vows as Lucilia, that heart, those charms, those virtues, of which the world was unworthy. THE GOOD HUSBAND. Felisonde, one of those good fathers of a family who recall the golden age to our minds, had married his only daughter, Hortensia, to the Baron de Val- sain ; and his niece, Amelia, to the President de Lusane. Valsain, gallant without assiduity, sufficiently tender without jealousy, too much taken up about his own glory and advancement to make himself the guardian of his wife, had left her, upon the strength of her own virtue, to deliver herself up to the dissipations of a world, in which, being launched himself, he took a delight in seeing her shine. Lusane, more retired, more assiduous, breathed only for Amelia ; who, on her side, lived but for him. The mutual care of pleasing was their constant employment, and to them the most sacred of duties was the sweetest of pleasures. Old Felisonde was enjoying the union of his family, when the deaths of Amelia and Valsain diffused sorrow and mourning over it. Lusane in his grief had not even the consolation of being a father ; Val- sain left Hortensia two children with very little to support them. The first sorrows of the young widow were only for her husband ; but we forget ourselves in vain, we return thither insensibly. The time of mourning was that of reflection. The Good Husband. 201 At Paris, a young woman, resigned to dissipation, is exempt from censure as long as she is in the power of a husband. They suppose that the person most interested ought to be the most rigid, and what he approves they dare not blame ; but, delivered up to herself, she falls again under the tutelage of a severe and jealous public, and it is not at twenty-two that widowhood is a free state. Hortensia then saw clearly that she was too young to depend only on herself, and Felisonde saw it still clearer. One day this good father communicated his fears to his nephew Lusane. “My friend,” said he, “you are much to be pitied, but I am still more so. I have but one daughter. You know how I love her, and you see the dangers that she runs. The world, which has allured her, invites her back again. Her mourning over, she will resign herself to it ; and I am afraid, old as I am, I may live long enough to have occasion to be ashamed. My daughter has a fund of virtue ; but our virtue is within ourselves, and our honour, that honour so dear, is placed in the opinion of others.” “I understand you, sir; and to say the truth, I share your uneasiness. But can we not engage Hortensia to a new match?” “Ah, my friend! what reasons she has to oppose me ! two children, two children without fortune ; for you know I am not rich, and that their father was ruined.” “No matter, sir ; consult Hortensia. I know a man, if it should be agreeable to her, who thinks justly enough, who has a heart good enough to serve as a father to her children.” The good old man thought he under- stood him. “Oh, you,” said he to him, “who 202 Classic Tales. formed the happiness of my niece Amelia, you whom I love as my own son. Lusane ! Heaven reads in my heart — But tell me, does the husband whom you propose know my daughter ? Is not he afraid of her youth, her levity, the flight she has taken in the world ? ” “ He knows her as well as you do, and he esteems her no less.” Felisonde delayed not to speak to his daughter. “Yes, my father, I agree,” said she, “ that my situation is delicate. To be observant of one’s self, to be afraid of one’s self without ceasing, to be in the world as before one’s judge, is the lot of a widow at my age ; it is painful and dangerous.” ‘ ‘ Well, then, daughter, Lusane has talked to me of a husband who would suit you.” Lusane, my father ? Ah, if it be possible, let him give me one like himself ! Happy as I was myself with Valsain, I could not help envying sometimes the lot of his wife.” The father, transported with her answer, went to give an account of it to his nephew. “ If you do not flatter me,” said Lusane, “ to-morrow we shall all be happy.” “ What, my friend, is it you ? ” “I myself.” “ Alas ! my heart had told me so.” “Yes, it is I, sir, who would console your old age, by bring- ing back to her duty a daughter worthy of you. Without going into indecent extravagancies, I see that Hortensia has assumed all the airs, all the follies of a woman of fashion. Vivacity, caprice, the desire of pleasing and of amusement, have engaged her in the labyrinth of a noisy and frivolous acquaintance ; the point is to withdraw her from it. To do that, I have occasion for a little courage and resolution. I shall have tears, perhaps, to contend with, and that The Good Husband . 203 is much for a heart so sensible as mine ; nevertheless, I can answer for myself. But you, sir, you are a father ; and if Hortensia should come to complain to you — ” li Fear nothing. Dispose of my daughter. I confide her to thy virtue ; and if the authority of a husband be not enough, I resign to you that of a father. ,, Lusane was received by Hortensia with the most touching graces. “ Think that you see in me,” said she to him, “ the wife that you have lost. If I take her place in your heart, I have nothing to regret. ” When they came to draw up the articles — “ Sir,” said Lusane to Felisonde, “ let us not forget that we have two orphans. Their father’s estate has not permitted him to leave them a large inheritance. Let us not deprive them of their mother’s, nor let the birth of my children be a misfortune to them.” The old man was moved even to weeping with the generosity of his nephew, whom he called from that moment his son. Hortensia was not less sensible to the proceedings of her new husband. The most elegant equipage, the richest dresses, the most precious trinkets, a house in which everything breathed taste, elegance, wealth, proclaimed to this young lady a husband attentive to all her pleasures. But the joy she felt was not of long duration. As soon as a calm had succeeded to the tumult of the wedding, Lusane thought it his duty to come to an explanation with her on the plan of life which he wanted to trace out to her. Fie took for this serious discourse the peaceful moment of her waking ; that moment in which the silence of the senses leaves the 204 Classic Tales . reason its perfect freedom, wherein the soul herself, lulled by the trance of sleep, seems to revive with pure ideas, and, being wholly mistress of herself, con- templates herself, and reads in her own bosom, as we see to the bottom of clear and smooth water. “My dear Hortensia,” said he to her, “I want you to be happy, and to be always so. But it will cost you some slight sacrifices, and I had much rather ask them plainly of you than engage you to them by indirect methods, which would show dis- trust. “You have passed with the Baron de Valsain some agreeable years. Made for the world, and for pleasures, young, brilliant, and dissipated himself, he inspired you with all his tastes. My character is more serious, my condition more modest, my temper a little more severe ; it is not possible for me to assume his manners, and I believe it is the better for you. The path you have yet followed is strewed with flowers and snares ; that which we are going to pursue has fewer attractions and fewer dangers. The charm which surrounded you would have been dis- sipated with youth ; the serene days I prepare for you will be the same in all seasons. It is not in the midst of the world that an honest woman finds happiness ; it is in the midst of her own family, in the love of her duties, the care of her children, and the intimate companionship of a worthy set of ac- quaintances.” The preamble gave Hortensia some surprise ; above all, the word family startled her ear ; but, assuming a tone of raillery, “ l shall become The Good Husband. 205 perhaps, some day or other,” said she, “ an excellent manager of a family ; at present I know nothing of it. My duty is to love you, I fulfil it ; my children do not yet want me ; as to my acquaintance, you know that I see none but genteel people.” “ Let us not confound, my dear, genteel people with good people.” “ I understand your distinction ; but in point of acquaintances it ought not to be so difficult. The world, such as it is, amuses me ; and the way of living in it has nothing incompatible with the decency of your condition ; it is not I who wear the robe, and I do not see why Madame Lusane should be more obliged to be a mope than Madame de Valsain. Be, then, my dear husband, as grave as you please ; but do not take it amiss that your wife be giddy a few years longer : every year will bring its likings along with it.” “ It is a pity,” replied Lusane, “ to bring you back to seriousness, for you are a charming trifler. There is a necessity, however, for talking reason to you. In the world, do you love without distinction everything that composes it?” “Not separately ; but the medley pleases me well enough altogether.” “What of the dealers in scandal, for instance?” “The scandal-mongers have their charms. ” “ They give a ridiculous turn to the plainest things, a criminal air to the most innocent ; and publish, with exaggeration, the foibles or irregularities of those whom they have just flattered.” “It is true that at the first glance we are frightened at these characters, but at bottom they are very little dangerous. From the moment that we rail at all the world, railing does no harm ; it is a species of contagion which weakens 206 Classic Tales . in proportion as it extends itself.” “ And those fops, whose very looks are an insult to a virtuous woman, and whose conversation dishonours her, what say you to them ?” “ One never believes them.” “ I would not imitate them in speaking ill of your sex ; there are many valuable women, I know, but there are — ” “Just as it is amongst you, a mixture of virtues and vices.” “ Very well ; and what prevents our making a choice in this mixture?” “We do make one intimacy, but in the world we live with the world.” “But I, my dear, I would live only with people who by their manners and character are deserving to be my friends.” “Your friends, sir, your friends ! and how many of them have we in life ? ” “ A great many, when we are worthy, and know how to cultivate them. I speak not of that generous friendship, the devotion of which proceeds almost to heroism ; I call those friends who come to me with the desire of finding joy and peace, disposed to pardon my foibles, to conceal them from the eyes of the public, to treat me when present with frankness, when absent with tenderness. Such friends are not so rare ; and I presume to hope that I shall have such.” “ With all my heart ; we will introduce our several acquaintance to each other.” “ I will not have two sets of acquaintance.” “What, sir, will not your door be open?” “Open to my friends, always; to every comer, never, I give you my word.” “No, sir, I will not suffer you to revolt against the public by odious distinctions. We may not love the world, but we ought to fear it, and not offend it.” “ Oh, be easy, my dear, that is my concern. They will say The Good Husband. 207 that I am a brute — jealous, perhaps ; that signifies little to me.” “It signifies to me. I would have my husband be respected, and not have cause to reproach me with having made him the town-talk. Form your own company as you should think proper, but leave me to cultivate my old acquaintance, and prevent the court and town from letting their tongues loose upon you.” Lusane admired the address of a young woman in defending her liberty. “My dear Hortensia,” said he to her, “ it is not as a whim that I have taken my resolution ; it is upon thorough consideration, you may believe me, and nothing in the world can change it. Choose, among the persons whom you see, such a number of decent women and prudent men as you shall think proper, my house shall be theirs ; but that choice made, take leave of the rest. I will join my friends to yours ; our two lists united shall be deposited with my porter for his constant rule ; and if he deviates from it, he shall be discharged. This is the plan I propose to myself, and which I wanted to communicate to you. ” Hortensia remained confounded at seeing all her fine projects vanish in a moment. She could not believe that it was Lusane, that gentle and com- plaisant man, who had just been talking to her. “After this,” said she, “who can trust men? See the tone this man assumes ; with what composure he dictates his will to me ! To see only virtuous women and accomplished men — a fine chimera ! And then the amusing society which this circle of respectable friends must afford ! * Such is my plan , 208 Classic Tales . said he, as if there was nothing but to obey when he had said it. See how we spoil them. My cousin was a good little woman, who moped as much as he pleased. She was as happy as a queen the moment her husband deigned to smile upon her ; and quite transported with one caress, she would come to me and boast of him as a divinity. He believes, without doubt, that according to her example I shall have nothing else to do but to please him. He is mistaken ; and if he intends to put me in leading-strings, I will let him see that I am no longer a child.” From that moment, to the joyous, free, and endear- ing manner which she had observed with Lusane, succeeded a cold and reserved air, which he saw plain enough, but took no notice of it to her. She had not failed to make her marriage known to that swarm of slight acquaintances who are called friends. They came in crowds to congratulate her, and Lusane could not decline returning with her those visits of ceremony ; but he infused into his politeness such striking distinctions, that it was not difficult for Hortensia to discern those whom he wished to see again. In this number was not included one Olympia, who with a sovereign contempt for the opinion of the public, pretends that everything which pleases is right, and joins the example to the precept ; nor one Climene, who does not know why a woman should make any scruple to change her lovers when she is tired of the man she has taken, and thinks the timid precautions of secresy too much beneath her quality. The Good Husband. 209 In this number were not included those smart toilet and scene hunters, who, leading in Paris a life of idle- ness and inutility {grubs in the mornings and butter- flies in the evening *) pass one half of their time in having nothing to do, and the other half in doing nothing ; nor those obliging gentry by profession, who, having no personal existence in the world, attach themselves to a handsome woman to pass for one of her danglers, and who ruin her in order to support themselves. Hortensia retired to her own apartment uneasy and pensive. She thought she saw herself on the point of being deprived of everything that makes life agree- able ; vanity, a taste for pleasure, the love of liberty, everything revolted against the empire which her husband wanted to assume. However, having armed herself with resolution, she thought it her duty to dissemble for a time, the better to choose the moment of breaking out. The next day Lusane asked her if she had made out her list. “No, sir,” said she, “I have not, and shall not make any.” “ Here is mine,” continued he, without any discomposure ; “ see, if in the number of your friends and of mine I have forgot any one you like, and that is fit for us.” “ I have told you, sir, that I shall not meddle in your arrange- ments, and I beg of you, once for all, not to interfere 1 Grubs in the morning, and butterflies in the evening, Chenilles le matin , et papillions le soir. The humour of this passage, being in some degree local, cannot be entirely preserved in the translation. It is an allusion to dress en chenille being at Paris a common cant phrase for a morning dishabille. III. O 2 10 Classic Tales. in mine. If our acquaintance do not suit, let us do like all the rest of the world ; let us divide them without constraining ourselves. Have those whom you like to dinner ; I will have those whom I like to supper.” “Ah, my dear Hortensia ! what you propose to me is far from my principles. Do not think of it ; never in my house shall such a custom take place. I will make it as agreeable as I can to you ; but no distinction, if you please, between your friends and mine. This evening all whom this list contains are invited to sup with you. Receive them well, I beseech you, and prepare yourself to live with them.” At these words he retired, leaving the list for Hortensia to peruse. “ There,” said she, “his law is laid down !” And running it over, she was encouraging herself not to submit to it, when the Countess de Fierville, Valsain’s aunt, came to see her, and found her with tears in her eyes. This haughty woman had taken Hortensia into her friend- ship, and, as she flattered her inclinations, had gained her confidence. The young lady, whose heart stood in need of consolation, told her the cause of her chagrin. “ How — what ! ” cried the Countess, “after having had the folly to dispose of yourself so unsuit- ably, will you also be so weak as to degrade yourself? You a slave! and to whom? a man of the robe? Remember that you have had the honour to be Madame de Valsain.” Hortensia was now ashamed of having had the weakness to expose her husband. “ Though he might be in the wrong,” said she, “ that should not hinder me from respecting him ; he is the most .honest man in the world, and what he has done The Good Husband. 21 1 for my children — ” “ An honest man ! and who is not so? That is a merit to be met with in every street. And what has this honest man done so wonderful for your children ? He has not robbed them of their fortune. To be sure it would have been worth while to have abused your father’s weak- ness ! No, madam, he has not acquired the right of talking so magisterially. Let him preside in his own court, but leave you to command at home.” At these words Lusane entered. “ In my house, madam, it is neither my wife nor I that commands, it is reason ; and probably it is not you that she may choose for an arbitress.” “No, sir,” replied the Countess, with a commanding tone, “it is not for you to make laws for this lady. You have heard me, and I am glad of it ; you know my opinion of the absurdity of your proceedings.” “Madam,” replied Lusane, “if I were as wrong as you suppose me, I am not to be corrected by affronts. Gentleness and modesty are the arms of your sex, and Hortensia by herself is much more powerful than with your assist- ance. Leave our agreements to ourselves, since we are the persons who must live together. Though you should have rendered her duties odious to her, you could not have dispensed with her fulfilling them ; though you should have made her lose the confidence and friendship of her husband, you could not have made her amends for them. Spare her that advice which she neither will nor ought to follow. To another they might have been dangerous ; to her, thank Heaven, they are only useless. Hortensia,” added he, going, “ you have not desired to give me 2 T 2 Classic Tales. uneasiness, but let this serve you as a lesson.” “See how you defend yourself ! ” said Madame de Fier- ville to Hortensia, who had not even dared to lift up her eyes. “ Obey, my dear, obey ! it is the portion of weak souls. Good Heaven ! ” said she, going out, “ I am the gentlest, the most virtuous woman on the face of the earth ; but if a husband had dared to treat me thus, I should have taken a handsome revenge of him ! ” Hortensia had scarce strength enough to get up to attend Madame de Fierville, so great was her terror and confusion. She perceived the advantage that her imprudence gave her husband ; but, far from availing himself of it, he did not even so much as reproach her with it, and his delicacy punished her more than his resentment would have done. In the evening, the visitors being assembled, Lusane seized the moment when his wife was yet in her own apartment. “Here, said he to them, “is the rendezvous of friendship ; if you like it, come often, and let us pass our life together. ” They all replied with one voice that they desired nothing better. “There,” continued he, presenting to them the good Felisonde, “ there is our worthy and tender father, who will be the soul of our pleasures. At his age, joy has something more sensible and tender in it than youth, and nothing is more amiable than an amiable old man. He has a daughter, whom I love, and whom I would make happy. Assist me, my friends, to keep her among us ; and let love, nature, and friendship conspire to render her house every day more agreeable to her. She entertains for the world the prepossessions of her age ; but when we shall The Good Husband . 213 have tasted the charms of a virtuous society, this vain world will touch her but little. ” While Lusane spoke thus, old Felisonde could not refrain letting fall some tears. “ Oh, my friend ! ” said he clasping him in his arms; “ happy the father who at his death can leave his daughter in such good hands ! ” The instant after arrived Madame de Lusane. All hearts flew out to meet her ; but her own was not easy. She disguised her ill temper under the reserved air of ceremony ; and her politeness, though grave, still appeared amiable and touching, such a gift having the natural graces of embellishing everything. They played. Lusane made Hortensia observe that all his company played low. “It is,” said he, “the way to maintain union and joy. High play prepossesses and alienates our minds ; it afflicts those who lose, it imposes on those who win the duty of being grave, and I think it incompatible with the openness of friendship.” The supper was delicious ; transport and good humour were diffused round the table. The heart and the mind were at ease ; the gallantry was such as modesty might smile at, and neither decency nor liberty were under restraint. Hortensia in another situation would have relished these tranquil pleasures, but the idea of constraint which she attached to them embittered their sweet- ness. The day after Lusane was surprised to find her of a freer and pleasanter air ; he suspected she had taken some new resolution. “ What shall we do to-day?” said he. “I am going to the play,” said she, “and I shall come home to supper.” “ Very well ; and who are the ladies you are going 214 Classic Tales . with?” “Two of Valsain’s friends, Olympia and Artenice.” “It is cruel to me,” said the husband, “to be obliged to give you uneasiness continually; but why, Hortensia, will you expose me to it ? Do you think me so inconsistent in the principles I have laid down as to consent that you should be seen in public with those women?” “ To be sure you must consent to it, for the party is settled, and I shall certainly not fail in it.” “ Pardon me, madam ; you shall fail in it, that you may not fail in the regard due to yourself.” “Is it failing in regard to myself to see women whom all the world sees ? ” “Yes, it is to expose yourself to be ranked with them in the opinion of the public.” “The public, sir, is not unjust ; and in the world all persons answer for themselves.” “The public, madam, supposes, with reason, that those who are allied in pleasures are allied in manners, and you ought not to have anything in common with Olympia and Artenice. If you would not break off with them too abruptly there is a way ; excuse yourself only from the play, and invite them to supper : my door shall be shut against all my friends, and we will be alone with them.” “ No, sir ! no !” said she to him with ill-humour ; “ I will not abuse your complaisance.” And she wrote to excuse herself. Nothing had cost her so much as this billet ; tears of anger bedewed it. “To be sure,” said she, “I care very little for these women, the play interests me still less ? but to see one’s self opposed in everything, never to have a will of one’s own ! to be subjected to that of another, to hear him dictating his laws to me with The Good Husband . 215 an insulting tranquillity, — that is what drives me mad, and what will make me capable of everything.” It was certain, however, that the tranquillity of Lusane was far from having an insulting air, and it was easy to see that he did violence to himself. His father-in-law, who came to sup with him, perceived the melancholy into which he was plunged. “ Ah, sir! ” said Lusane to him, “ I see that I have entered into an engagement with you very painful to fulfil ! ” He told him what happened. “ Courage, my friend,” said this good father to him, “let us not be dis- couraged ; if it pleases Heaven you will render her worthy your cares and love. In pity to me, in pity to my daughter, maintain your resolution. I am going to see her, and if she complain — ” “If she complain, console her, sir, and appear sensible to her grief ; her reason will be more tractable when her heart is comforted. Let her hate me just at present ; I expected it, and am not surprised at it ; but if the bitterness of her temper should alter the sentiments of nature in her soul, if her confidence in you should be weakened, all would be lost. The goodness of her heart is my only resource, and it is only by an unalterable gentleness that we can prevent her being exasperated. After all, the trials to which I put her are grievous at her time of life, and you must be her support.” These precautions were useless ; whether from vanity or delicacy, Hortensia had the power to conceal her chagrin from the eyes of her father. “A good sign,” said Lusane ; “she knows how to subdue herself ; and there are none but weak souls of whom Classic Tales . 216 we ought to despair.’’ The day following they dined together alone, and in the most profound silence. At their getting up from table Hortensia ordered the horses to be put to. “Where are you going?” said her husband. “ To make an excuse, sir, for the rudeness I was guilty of yesterday.’* “Go, Hortensia, since you will have it so ; but, if my repose be dear to you, take your last leave of those women.” Artenice and Olympia, to whom Madame de Fierville had related the scene she had had with Lusane, suspected that it was he who had hindered Hortensia from going to the play with them. “ Yes,” said they to her, “it was he; we saw him but for a minute, but we have formed our opinion of him. He is a morose absolute man, and one who will make you unhappy.” “ He has hitherto talked to me only in the style of friendship. It is true that he has his particular principles, and a way of living but little compatible with the customs of the world, but — ” “ But let him live by himself,” replied Olympia ; “and let him leave us to amuse ourselves in peace. Do you ask him to follow you ? A husband is the man in the world we can best spare, and I do not see why you have occasion for his advice to receive whomsoever you think proper, and to go and see whom you please.” “No, madam,” said Hortensia to her, “it is not so easy as you imagine, to put one’s self, at my age, above the will of a husband who has behaved so well to me.” “ She gives way ; see, she is quite tamed,” replied Artenice. “ Ah, my dear, you do not know what it is to yield once to a man with whom one is to pass one’s life. Our The Good Husband. 217 husbands are our tyrants if they are not our slaves. Their authority is a torrent which swells as it runs ; we can stop it only at its source ; and I speak from experience, for having been guilty of an unfortunate complaisance to my husband twice, I have been for six months together obliged to struggle with him for the ascendency which my weakness had given him ; and but for an unparalleled effort of courage it would have been all over with me — I was a gone woman.” “That depends upon tempers,” said Hortensia ; “and my husband is not one of those who are to be brought down by obstinacy.” “Un- deceive yourself,” replied Olympia; “there is not one whom gentleness ever reconciles ; it is by opposing them that we rule them ; it is by the dread of ridicule and shame that we hold them ; what are you afraid of? We are very strong when we are handsome, and have nothing to reproach ourselves. Your case is that of all the women ; and the men themselves, the men who know how to live, will be on your side.” Hortensia instanced the example of her cousin whom Lusane had made happy. They replied that her cousin was a weak woman ; that if the life which she had led was a good one to her, it was because she knew no better ; but that a woman, launched into the great world, who had tasted the charms of it, and formed its ornament, was not made to bury herself in the solitude of her own house, and the narrow circle of an obscure acquaintance. They talked to her of a superb ball which the Duchess of was to give the next day. “All the handsome women will be invited there,” 21 8 Classic Tales said they to her; “if your husband prevents your going it is a stroke that will cry out for vengeance ; and we advise you as friends to seize that occasion to make a noise, and to part.” Though Hortensia was very far from wishing to follow these violent counsels, she still retained a bitterness in her soul at seeing that her unhappiness was going to be known in the world, and that they would look for her in vain at those feasts where, but for this, she would have seen herself adored. On her return home, a card was put into her hands ; she read it with impatience, and sighed after having read it. Her trembling hand still held it, when her husband accosted her. “It is,” said she to him carelessly, “a card of invitation to the Duchess of — ’s ball.” “Well, madam!” “Well, sir, I shall not go; be easy.” “Why, then, Hortensia, deprive yourself of decent pleasures ? Have I forbade them you ? The honour that is done you pleases me as much and more than it does yourself. Go to the ball ; eclipse everything there that is most lovely ; that will be a triumph to me.” Hortensia was not able to dissemble her surprise and joy. “Ah, Lusane ! ” said she to him, “ why are you not always the same ? There, now, is the husband I promised myself. I recover him now ; but is it for a long time ? ” Lusane’s company assembled in the evening, and Hortensia was adorable. They proposed suppers, parties to the play ; she engaged herself to them with the best grace. Cheerful with the men, engaging with the women, she charmed them all. Lusane alone dared /i^Dt yet deliver himself up to the joy The Good Husband. 219 which she inspired ; he foresaw that this good humour would not continue long without clouds. In the meantime he said just one word to his valet de chambre ; and the next day, when his wife asked for her domino, it was like a surprise in a play. They presented her with a dress for the ball, which the hand of Flora seemed to have varied with the most beautiful colours of the spring ; those flowers in which the art of Italy equals nature and deceives the ravished eyes ; those flowers ran in garlands over the light waves of a silk tissue of the most brilliant fresh- ness. Hortensia, in love with her dress, her husband, and herself, could not conceal her transport. Her glass being consulted, promised her the most striking successes, and that oracle never deceived her ; accord- ingly, on appearing at the assembly, she enjoyed the flattering emotions occasioned by unanimous admira- tion ; and to a young woman this ebb and flow, this murmur, have altogether something so touching ! It is easy to judge that at her return Lusane was pretty well treated ; it seemed as if she wanted to paint all the transports which she had raised. At first he received her caresses without reflection, for the wisest sometimes forget themselves ; but when he recollected himself — “A ball,” said he, “a domino, turns this young head ! Ah ! what conflicts have I yet to sustain before I see her such as I could wish her ! ” Hortensia had seen at the ball all those giddy young people from whom her husband wanted to detach her. “Fie does right,” said they to her, “to grow reasonable, and to restore you to your 220 Classic Tales. friends ; he was going to become the public jest, and we had made a league to distress him wherever he appeared ; tell him, then, for his own ease, to vouch- safe to let us see you. If we have the unhappiness to displease him, we give him leave to put himself under no restraint ; but let him be contented with rendering himself invisible, without requiring that his wife should be so.” Intimidated by these menaces, Hortensia gave her husband to understand that they took it ill that his door was shut against them, that people of fashion complained of it, and proposed to remonstrate even to him upon it. “ If they do,” said he, “I will teach them how to take their revenge on me ; let each of them marry a handsome woman, live at home with their friends, and shut their doors in my face every time that I go to trouble them.” Some days after, two of these young fellows, piqued at not having been able to introduce them- selves to Hortensia, saw Lusane at the opera, and went up to him, in order to ask him the reason of the [rude behaviour of his Swiss. ‘‘Sir,” said the Chevalier de St. Placide to him, “have they told you that the Marquis de Cirval and myself have been twice at your house?” “Yes, gentlemen, I know that you have given yourselves that trouble.” “Neither yourself nor your lady were to be seen.” “ That is very often the case.” “Yet you see com- pany.” “Only friends.” “We are Hortensia’s friends, and in Valsain’s time we always saw her. Ah, sir, what an agreeable man was Yalsain ! she has not lost by the exchange ; but he was the genteelest, the most complaisant, of all husbands.” The Good Husband . 221 “ I know it.” “ He, for example, was not jealous.” “ Happy man ! ” “You speak as if you envied him ; can it be true, as they say, that you are not so easy ? ” “Ah, gentlemen, if ever you marry, take care you do not love your wives ; it is a cruel thing, this jealousy!” “What, are you really come to that?” “Alas, yes, for my sins.” “But Hortensia is so virtuous ! ” “I know it.” “ She lived like an angel with Valsain.” “ I hope she will live the same with me too.” “ Why, then, do her the injustice of being jealous?” “It is an involuntary emotion, which I cannot account for.” “You confess, then, it is a folly?” “To such a degree that I cannot see neai my wife any man of handsome figure or distinguished merit but my head turns ; and this is the reason that my gate is shut against the most amiable people in the world.” “ The Marquis and I,” said the Chevalier, “are not dangerous, and we hope — ” “You, gentlemen, you are among those who would make me unhappy all my life. I know you too well not to fear you ; and since I must confess it, I have myself required of my wife that she should never see you again.” “But, Mr. President, that is but a sorry kind of a compliment.” “Ah, gentlemen, it is the most agreeable one that a jealous husband can make you.” “Chevalier,” said the Marquis, when Lusane had quitted them, “we wanted, I thought, to make a jest of this man.” “ That was my design.” “ I am afraid, God forgive me, that he makes a jest of us.” “I have some suspicion of it; but I will take my revenge on him.” “How?” “As men revenge themselves on a husband.” 222 Classic Tales . The same evening, at supper, at the Marchioness of Bellune’s, they represented Lusane as the most odious of men. “ And the little woman,” said the Marchioness, “ has the meanness to suffer him to restrain her ! Ah ! I will give her a lesson.” Madame de Bellune’s house was the rendezvous of all the giddy people both of city and court, and her secret for drawing them together was to assemble the handsomest women. Hortensia was invited to a ball which she gave. There was a necessity of acquaint- ing Lusane with it beforehand ; but, without having any appearance of asking his consent, she just dropped a word en passant. “No, my dear,” said Lusane to Hortensia, “ Madame de Bellune’s house is in a style that does not suit you. Her ball is a rendezvous at which you ought not to be. The public is not obliged to believe you more infallible than another, and in order to prevent all suspicion of miscarriage, the surest way is to avoid the hazard of it.” The young woman, so much the more irritated at this refusal, as she did not expect it, burst into complaints and reproaches. “You abuse,” said she to him, “ the authority which I have confided to you ; but beware of driving me to extremities.” “ I under- stand you, madam,” replied Lusane, in a firmer and graver tone ; “ but as long as I esteem you, I shall not fear this menace, and I should fear it still less, if I were to cease to esteem you.” Hortensia, who had attached no import to the words that had just escaped her, blushed at the meaning they seemed to carry with them, and replied only by tears. Lusane seized the moment when resentment yielded to confusion. The Good Husband . 223 “ I grow odious to you,” said he, “yet what is my crime? that of saving your youth from the dangers which surround it, of detaching you from that which might cast a blemish, — I do not say on your innocence, but on your reputation ; of wanting to make you love soon what it is necessary that you must love always.” “Yes, sir, your intentions are good ; but you have a bad method of carrying them into execution. You want to make me love my duty, and you make a slavery of it ; there may be some ill consequences to be foreseen in my connections ; but I must dissolve instead of breaking them, and detach myself insensibly from the people who displease you, without making you an object of ridicule, by imprisoning me in my own house.” “When the ridicule is without founda- tion,” replied Lusane, “ it recoils on those who give it. The prison of which you complain is the asylum of virtue, and will also be that of peace and happiness, Whenever you shall think proper to make it so. You upbraid me with not having used a little delicacy towards these people and yourself; I have had my reasons for cutting to the quick. I know that at your time of life the contagion of fashion, example, and habitude make new progress every day ; and that, without cutting off all communication, there is no way of guarding against it. It gives me inexpres- sible uneasiness to talk to you in an absolute tone ; but it is my affection for you that gives me the courage ; a friend ought to know T on occasion how to contradict a friend. Be well assured, then, that as long as I love you I shall have the strength to resist you, and woe to you if I abandon you !” “Woe to 224 Classic Tales . me ! you esteem me very little, if you think me lost the moment you cease to lead me in a string. No, sir, I knew how to conduct myself long ago ; and Valsain, who did me justice, never had occasion to repent of his confidence. I own to you, that in my husband I did not intend to create myself a tyrant. In order to submit to your will, one ought to have a strength or a weakness which I have not ; all the denials you impose on me are grievous, and I will never accustom myself to them.” Lusane, left alone to himself, reproached himself for the tears he had made her shed. “ What have I undertaken ? ” said he, “ and what a trial to my soul ! t her tyrant ! I, who love her more than my life, and tvhose heart is torn in pieces with her complaints ! If I persist, I drive her to distraction, and if I give way one single moment I lose the fruit of my persever- ance. One step into this round of company which she loves, will engage her in it anew. I must support this cruel character, this character so much more cruel to myself than to her. ” Hortensia passed the night in the greatest trouble ; all violent measures presented themselves to her mind, but the probity of her mind shuddered at them. “Why discourage myself?” said she, when her wrath was a little appeased. “ This man com- mands himself and rules me because he does not love me ; but if he should ever come to love me, I should soon reign in my turn. Let me use the only arm nature has given us, gentleness. Lusane, who had not closed his eyes, came to ask her in the morning, with an air of friendship, how The Good Husband. 225 she had passed the night. “You know how,” said she to him ; you who take a pleasure in disturbing my repose. Ah, Lusane ! was it for you to be the cause of my unhappiness ! who could have told me that I should have repented of a choice which I made with such a good will, and such good intentions ? ” In pronouncing these words, she had stretched out her hand to him ; and two eyes, the most eloquent that love ever yet made speak, reproached him for his ingratitude. “ My better half,” said he to her, embracing her, “ believe that I have placed all my glory and happiness in making you happy. I would have your life strewed with flowers ; but permit me to pluck away the thorns. Wish for what may never cost you any regret, and be assured it shall be fulfilled in my soul, as soon as formed in thine. The law which I impose upon you is only your own will ; not that of a moment, which is a whim, a caprice ; but that which will arise from reflection and experience, that which you will have ten years hence. I entertain for you the tenderness of a lover, the frankness of a friend, and the uneasy vigilance of a father. There is my heart, it is worthy of you ; and if you are still unjust enough to complain of it, you shall not • Fl ^ Ion A Day Keturn this book on or before the Latest Date stamped below. A charge is made on all overdue books. University of Illinois Library 3 0112 046497332 mm