poems, “The Maiden’s Song,” paints these delicious moments, when
gaiety is tender, when aspiration is a need; it is one of my
favorites. Do you want me to put all my flatteries into one? — well
then, I think you worthy to be me!
Your letter, though short, enables me to read within you. Yes, I
have guessed your tumultuous struggles, your piqued curiosity,
your projects; but I do not yet know you well enough to satisfy
your wishes. Hear me, dear; the mystery in which I am shrouded
allows me to use that word, which lets you see to the bottom of my
heart. Hear me: if we once meet, adieu to our mutual
comprehension! Will you make a compact with me? Was the first
disadvantageous to you? But remember it won you my esteem, and it
is a great deal, my friend, to gain an admiration lined throughout
with esteem. Here is the compact: write me your life in a few
words; then tell me what you do in Paris, day by day, with no
reservations, and as if you were talking to some old friend. Well,
having done that, I will take a step myself — I will see you, I
promise you that. And it is a great deal.
This, dear, is no intrigue, no adventure; no gallantry, as you men
say, can come of it, I warn you frankly. It involves my life, and
more than that, — something that causes me remorse for the many
thoughts that fly to you in flocks — it involves my father’s and my
mother’s life. I adore them, and my choice must please them; they
must find a son in you.
Tell me, to what extent can the superb spirits of your kind, to
whom God has given the wings of his angels, without always adding
their amiability, — how far can they bend under a family yoke, and
put up with its little miseries? That is a text I have meditated
upon. Ah! though I said to my heart before I came to you, Forward!
Onward! it did not tremble and palpitate any the less on the way;
and I did not conceal from myself the stoniness of the path nor
the Alpine difficulties I had to encounter. I thought of all in my
long, long meditations. Do I not know that eminent men like you
have known the love they have inspired quite as well as that which
they themselves have felt; that they have had many romances in
their lives, — you particularly, who send forth those airy visions
of your soul that women rush to buy? Yet still I cried to myself,
“Onward!” because I have studied, more than you give me credit
for, the geography of the great summits of humanity, which you
tell me are so cold. Did you not say that Goethe and Byron were
the colossi of egoism and poetry? Ah, my friend, there you shared
a mistake into which superficial minds are apt to fall; but in you
perhaps it came from generosity, false modesty, or the desire to
escape from me. Vulgar minds may mistake the effect of toil for
the development of personal character, but you must not. Neither
Lord Byron, nor Goethe, nor Walter Scott, nor Cuvier, nor any
inventor, belongs to himself, he is the slave of his idea. And
this mysterious power is more jealous than a woman; it sucks their
blood, it makes them live, it makes them die for its sake. The
results, like egotism; but who shall dare to say that the man who
has abnegated self to give pleasure, instruction, or grandeur to
his epoch, is an egoist? Is a mother selfish when she immolates
all things to her child? Well, the detractors of genius do not
perceive its fecund maternity, that is all. The life of a poet is
so perpetual a sacrifice that he needs a gigantic organization to
bear even the ordinary pleasures of life. Therefore, into what
sorrows may he not fall when, like Moliere, he wishes to live the
life of feeling in its most poignant crises; to me, remembering
his personal life, Moliere’s comedy is horrible.
The generosity of genius seems to me half divine; and I place you
in this noble family of alleged egoists. Ah! if I had found
self-interest, ambition, a seared nature where I now can see my
best loved flowers of the soul, you know not what long anguish I
should have had to bear. I met with disappointment before I was
sixteen. What would have become of me had I learned at twenty that
fame is a lie, that he whose books express the feelings hidden in
my heart was incapable of feeling them himself? Oh! my friend, do
you know what would have become of me? Shall I take you into the
recesses of my soul? I should have gone to my father and said,
“Bring me the son-in-law whom you desire; my will abdicates, — marry
me to whom you please.” And the man might have been a notary,
banker, miser, fool, dullard, wearisome as a rainy day, common as
the usher of a school, a manufacturer, or some brave soldier without
two ideas, — he would have had a resigned and attentive servant in
me. But what an awful suicide! never could my soul have expanded
in the life-giving rays of a beloved sun. No murmur should have
revealed to my father, or my mother, or my children the suicide of
the creature who at this instant is shaking her fetters, casting
lightnings from her eyes, and flying towards you with eager wing.
See, she is there, at the angle of your desk, like Polyhymnia,
breathing the air of your presence, and glancing about her with a
curious eye. Sometimes in the fields where my husband would have
taken me to walk, I should have wept, apart and secretly, at sight
of a glorious morning; and in my heart, or hidden in a
bureau-drawer, I might have kept some treasure, the comfort of poor
girls ill-used by love, sad, poetic souls, — but ah! I have you, I
believe in you, my friend. That belief straightens all my thoughts
and fancies, even the most fantastic, and sometimes — see how far
my frankness leads me — I wish I were in the middle of the book we
are just beginning; such persistency do I feel in my sentiments,
such strength in my heart to love, such constancy sustained by
reason, such heroism for the duties for which I was created, — if
indeed love can ever be transmuted into duty.
If you were able to follow me to the exquisite retreat where I
fancy ourselves happy, if you knew my plans and projects, the
dreadful word “folly!” might escape you, and I should be cruelly
punished for sending poetry to a poet. Yes, I wish to be a spring
of waters inexhaustible as a fertile land for the twenty years
that nature allows me to shine. I want to drive away satiety by
charm. I mean to be courageous for my friend as most women are for
the world. I wish to vary happiness. I wish to put intelligence
into tenderness, and to give piquancy to fidelity. I am filled
with ambition to kill the rivals of the past, to conjure away all
outside griefs by a wife’s gentleness, by her proud abnegation, to
take a lifelong care of the nest, — such as birds can only take for
a few weeks.
Tell me, do you now think me to blame for my first letter? The
mysterious wind of will drove me to you, as the tempest brings the
little rose-tree to the pollard window. In your letter, which I
hold here upon my heart, you cried out, like your ancestor when he
departed for the Crusades, “God wills it.”
Ah! but you will cry out, “What a chatterbox!” All the people
round me say, on the contrary, “Mademoiselle is very taciturn.”
O. d’Este M.
CHAPTER XI. WHAT COMES OF CORRESPONDENCE
The foregoing letters seemed very original to the persons from whom the author of the “Comedy of Human Life” obtained them; but their interest in this duel, this crossing of pens between two minds, may not be shared. For every hundred readers, eighty might weary of the battle. The respect due to the majority in every nation under a constitutional government, leads us, therefore, to suppress eleven other letters exchanged between Ernest and Modeste during the month of September. If, later on, some flattering majority should arise to claim them, let us hope that we can then find means to insert them in their proper place.
Urged by a mind that seemed as aggressive as the heart was lovable, the truly chivalrous feelings of the poor secretary gave themselves free play in these suppressed letters, which seem, perhaps, more beautiful than they really are, because the imagination is charmed by a sense of the communion of two free souls. Ernest’s whole life was now wrapped up in these sweet scraps of paper; they were to him what banknotes are to a miser; while in Modeste’s soul a deep love took the place of her delight in agitating a glorious life, and being, in spite of distance, its mainspring. Ernest’s heart was the complement of Canalis’s glory. Alas! it often takes two men to make a perfect lover, just as in literature we compose a type by collecting the peculiarities of several similar characters. How many a time a woman has been heard to say in her own salon after close and intimate conversations: —
“Such a one is my ideal as to soul, and I love the other who is only a dream of the senses.”
The last letter written by Modeste, which here follows, gives us a glimpse of the enchanted isle to which the meanderings of this correspondence had led the two lovers.
To Monsieur de Canalis, — Be at Havre next Sunday; go to church;
after the morning service, walk once or twice round the nave, and
go out without speaking to any one; but wear a white rose in your
button-hole. Then return to Paris, where you shall receive an
answer. I warn you that this answer will not be what you wish;
for, as I told you, the future is not yet mine. But should I not
indeed be mad and foolish to say yes without having seen you? When
I have seen you I can say no without wounding you; I can make sure
that you shall not see me.
This letter had been sent off the evening before the day when the abortive struggle between Dumay and Modeste had taken place. The happy girl was impatiently awaiting Sunday, when her eyes were to vindicate or condemn her heart and her actions, — a solemn moment in the life of any woman, and which three months of close communion of souls now rendered as romantic as the most imaginative maiden could have wished. Every one, except the mother, had taken this torpor of expectation for the calm of innocence. No matter how firmly family laws and religious precepts may bind, there will always be the Clarissas and the Julies, whose souls like flowing cups o’erlap the brim under some spiritual pressure. Modeste was glorious in the savage energy with which she repressed her exuberant youthful happiness and remained demurely quiet. Let us say frankly that the memory of her sister was more potent upon her than any social conventions; her will was iron in the resolve to bring no grief upon her father and her mother. But what tumultuous heavings were within her breast! no wonder that a mother guessed them.
On the following day Modeste and Madame Dumay took Madame Mignon about mid-day to a seat in the sun among the flowers. The blind woman turned her wan and blighted face toward the ocean; she inhaled the odors of the sea and took the hand of her daughter who remained beside her. The mother hesitated between forgiveness and remonstrance ere she put the important question; for she comprehended the girl’s love and recognized, as the pretended Canalis had done, that Modeste was exceptional in nature.
“God grant that your father return in time! If he delays much longer he will find none but you to love him. Modeste, promise me once more never to leave him,” she said in a fond maternal tone.
Modeste lifted her mother’s hands to her lips and kissed them gently, replying: “Need I say it again?”
“Ah, my child! I did this thing myself. I left my father to follow my husband; and yet my father was all alone; I was all the child he had. Is that why God has so punished me? What I ask of you is to marry as your father wishes, to cherish him in your heart, not to sacrifice him to your own happiness, but to make him the centre of your home. Before losing my sight, I wrote him all my wishes, and I know he will execute them. I enjoined him to keep his property intact and in his own hands; not that I distrust you, my Modeste, for a moment, but who can be sure of a son-in-law? Ah! my daughter, look at me; was I reasonable? One glance of the eye decided my life. Beauty, so often deceitful, in my case spoke true; but even were it the same with you, my poor child, swear to me that you will let your father inquire into the character, the habits, the heart, and the previous life of the man you distinguish with your love — if, by chance, there is such a man.”
“I will never marry without the consent of my father,” answered Modeste.
“You see, my darling,” said Madame Mignon after a long pause, “that if I am dying by inches through Bettina’s wrong-doing, your father would not survive yours, no, not for a moment. I know him; he would put a pistol to his head, — there could be no life, no happiness on earth for him.”
Modeste walked a few steps away from her mother, but immediately came back.
“Why did you leave me?” demanded Madame Mignon.
“You made me cry, mamma,” answered Modeste.
“Ah, my little darling, kiss me. You love no one here? you have no lover, have you?” she asked, holding Modeste on her lap, heart to heart.
“No, my dear mamma,” said the little Jesuit.
“Can you swear it?”
“Oh, yes!” cried Modeste.
Madame Mignon said no more; but she still doubted.
“At least, if you do choose your husband, you will tell your father?” she resumed.
“I promised that to my sister, and to you, mother. What evil do you think I could commit while I wear that ring upon my finger and read those words: ‘Think of Bettina?’ Poor sister!”
At these words a truce of silence came between the pair; the mother’s blighted eyes rained tears which Modeste could not check, though she threw herself upon her knees, and cried: “Forgive me! oh, forgive me, mother!”
At this instant the excellent Dumay was coming up the hill of Ingouville on the double-quick, — a fact quite abnormal in the present life of the cashier.
Three letters had brought ruin to the Mignons; a single letter now restored their fortunes. Dumay had received from a sea-captain just arrived from the China Seas the following letter containing the first news of his patron and friend, Charles Mignon: —
To Monsieur Jean Dumay:
My Dear Dumay, — I shall quickly follow, barring the chances of the
voyage, the vessel which carries this letter. In fact, I should
have taken it, but I did not wish to leave my own ship to which I
am accustomed.
I told you that no new was to be good news. But the first words of
this letter ought to make you a happy man. I have made seven
millions at the least. I am bringing back a large part of it in
indigo, one third in safe London securities, and another third in
good solid gold. Your remittances helped me to make the sum I had
settled in my own mind much sooner than I expected. I wanted two
millions fo
r my daughters and a competence for myself.
I have been engaged in the opium trade with the largest houses in
Canton, all ten times richer than ever I was. You have no idea, in
Europe, what these rich East India merchants are. I went to Asia
Minor and purchased opium at low prices, and from thence to Canton
where I delivered my cargoes to the companies who control the
trade. My last expedition was to the Philippine Islands where I
exchanged opium for indigo of the first quality. In fact, I may
have half a million more than I stated, for I reckoned the indigo
at what it cost me. I have always been well in health; not the
slightest illness. That is the result of working for one’s
children. Since the second year I have owned a pretty little brig
of seven hundred tons, called the “Mignon.” She is built of oak,
double-planked, and copper-fastened; and all the interior fittings
were done to suit me. She is, in fact, an additional piece of
property.
A sea-life and the active habits required by my business have kept
me in good health. To tell you all this is the same as telling it
to my two daughters and my dear wife. I trust that the wretched
man who took away my Bettina deserted her when he heard of my
ruin; and that I shall find the poor lost lamb at the Chalet. My
three dear women and my Dumay! All four of you have been ever
present in my thoughts for the last three years. You are a rich
man, now, Dumay. Your share, outside of my own fortune, amounts to
five hundred and sixty thousand francs, for which I send you
herewith a check, which can only be paid to you in person by the
Mongenods, who have been duly advised from New York.
A few short months, and I shall see you all again, and all well, I
trust. My dear Dumay, if I write this letter to you it is because
I am anxious to keep my fortune a secret for the present. I
therefore leave to you the happiness of preparing my dear angels
for my return. I have had enough of commerce; and I am resolved to