第20章 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR'S CONFESSION(3)
"To a superficial observer,their life would have seemed terribly monotonous.There was something chilling about the appearance of the interior of the house.Day after day I used to see everything,even the furniture in constant use,always standing in the same place,and this uniform tidiness pervaded the smallest details.Yet there was something very attractive about their household ways.I had been used to the pleasures of variety,to the luxury and stir of life in Paris;it was only when I had overcome my first repugnance that I saw the advantages of this existence;how it lent itself to continuity of thought and to involuntary meditation;how a life in which the heart has undisturbed sway seems to widen and grow vast as the sea.It is like the life of the cloister,where the outward surroundings never vary,and thought is thus compelled to detach itself from outward things and to turn to the infinite that lies within the soul!
"For a man as sincerely in love as I was,the silence and simplicity of the life,the almost conventual regularity with which the same things are done daily at the same hours,only deepened and strengthened love.In that profound calm the interest attaching to the least action,word,or gesture became immense.I learned to know that,in the interchange of glances and in answering smiles,there lies an eloquence and a variety of language far beyond the possibilities of the most magnificent of spoken phrases;that when the expression of the feelings is spontaneous and unforced,there is no idea,no joy nor sorrow that cannot thus be communicated by hearts that understand each other.How many times I have tried to set forth my soul in my eyes or on my lips,compelled at once to speak and to be silent concerning my passion;for the young girl who,in my presence,was always serene and unconscious had not been informed of the reason of my constant visits;her parents were determined that the most important decision of her life should rest entirely with her.But does not the presence of our beloved satisfy the utmost desire of passionate love?In that presence do we not know the happiness of the Christian who stands before God?
If for me more than for any other it was torture to have no right to give expression to the impulses of my heart,to force back into its depths the burning words that treacherously wrong the yet more ardent emotions which strive to find an utterance in speech;I found,nevertheless,in the merest trifles a channel through which my passionate love poured itself forth but the more vehemently for this constraint,till every least occurrence came to have an excessive importance.
"I beheld her,not for brief moments,but for whole hours.There were pauses between my question and her answer,and long musings,when,with the tones of her voice lingering in my ears,I sought to divine from them the secret of her inmost thoughts;perhaps her fingers would tremble as I gave her some object of which she had been in search,or I would devise pretexts to lightly touch her dress or her hair,to take her hand in mine,to compel her to speak more than she wished;all these nothings were great events for me.Eyes and voice and gestures were freighted with mysterious messages of love in hours of ecstasy like these,and this was the only language permitted me by the quiet maidenly reserve of the young girl before me.Her manner towards me underwent no change;with me she was always as a sister with a brother;yet,as my passion grew,and the contrast between her glances and mine,her words and my utterance,became more striking,I felt at last that this timid silence was the only means by which she could express her feelings.Was she not always in the salon whenever I came?
Did she not stay there until my visit,expected and perhaps foreseen,was over?Did not this mute tryst betray the secret of her innocent soul?Nay,whilst I spoke,did she not listen with a pleasure which she could not hide?
"At last,no doubt,her parents grew impatient with this artless behavior and sober love-making.I was almost as timid as their daughter,and perhaps on this account found favor in their eyes.They regarded me as a man worthy of their esteem.My old friend was taken into their confidence;both father and mother spoke of me in the most flattering terms;I had become their adopted son,and more especially they singled out my moral principles for praise.In truth,I had found my youth again;among these pure and religious surroundings early beliefs and early faith came back to the man of thirty-two.
"The summer was drawing to a close.Affairs of some importance had detained the family in Paris longer than their wont;but when September came,and they were able to leave town at last for an estate in Auvergne,her father entreated me to spend a couple of months with them in an old chateau hidden away among the mountains of Cantal.Ipaused before accepting this friendly invitation.My hesitation brought me the sweetest and most delightful unconscious confession,a revelation of the mysteries of a girlish heart.Evelina.DIEU!"exclaimed Benassis;and he said no more for a time,wrapped in his own thoughts.
"Pardon me,Captain Bluteau,"he resumed,after a long pause."For twelve years I have not uttered the name that is always hovering in my thoughts,that a voice calls in my hearing even when I sleep.Evelina (since I have named her)raised her head with a strange quickness and abruptness,for about all her movements there was an instinctive grace and gentleness,and looked at me.There was no pride in her face,but rather a wistful anxiety.Then her color rose,and her eyelids fell;it gave me an indescribable pleasure never felt before that they should fall so slowly;I could only stammer out my reply in a faltering voice.The emotion of my own heart made swift answer to hers.She thanked me by a happy look,and I almost thought that there were tears in her eyes.In that moment we had told each other everything.So I went into the country with her family.Since the day when our hearts had understood each other,nothing seemed to be as it had been before;everything about us had acquired a fresh significance.
"Love,indeed,is always the same,though our imagination determines the shape that love must assume;like and unlike,therefore,is love in every soul in which he dwells,and passion becomes a unique work in which the soul expresses its sympathies.In the old trite saying that love is a projection of self--an egoisme a deux--lies a profound meaning known only to philosopher and poet;for it is ourself in truth that we love in that other.Yet,though love manifests itself in such different ways that no pair of lovers since the world began is like any other pair before or since,they all express themselves after the same fashion,and the same words are on the lips of every girl,even of the most innocent,convent-bred maiden--the only difference lies in the degree of imaginative charm in their ideas.But between Evelina and other girls there was this difference,that where another would have poured out her feelings quite naturally,Evelina regarded these innocent confidences as a concession made to the stormy emotions which had invaded the quiet sanctuary of her girlish soul.The constant struggle between her heart and her principles gave to the least event of her life,so peaceful in appearance,in reality so profoundly agitated,a character of force very superior to the exaggerations of young girls whose manners are early rendered false by the world about them.All through the journey Evelina discovered beauty in the scenery through which we passed,and spoke of it with admiration.When we think that we may not give expression to the happiness which is given to us by the presence of one we love,we pour out the secret gladness that overflows our hearts upon inanimate things,investing them with beauty in our happiness.The charm of the scenery which passed before our eyes became in this way an interpreter between us,for in our praises of the landscape we revealed to each other the secrets of our love.Evelina's mother sometimes took a mischievous pleasure in disconcerting her daughter.
"'My dear child,you have been through this valley a score of times without seeming to admire it!'she remarked after a somewhat too enthusiastic phrase from Evelina.
"'No doubt it was because I was not old enough to understand beauty of this kind,mother.'
"Forgive me for dwelling on this trifle,which can have no charm for you,captain;but the simple words brought me an indescribable joy,which had its source in the glance directed towards me as she spoke.
So some village lighted by sunrise,some ivy-covered ruin which we had seen together,memories of outward and visible things,served to deepen and strengthen the impressions of our happiness;they seemed to be landmarks on the way through which we were passing towards a bright future that lay before us.
"We reached the chateau belonging to her family,where I spent about six weeks,the only time in my life during which Heaven has vouchsafed complete happiness to me.I enjoyed pleasures unknown to town-dwellers --all the happiness which two lovers find in living beneath the same roof,an anticipation of the life they will spend together.To stroll through the fields,to be alone together at times if we wished it,to look over an old water-mill,to sit beneath a tree in some lovely glen among the hills,the lovers'talks,the sweet confidences drawn forth by which each made some progress day by day in the other's heart.Ah!
sir,the out-of-door life,the beauty of earth and heaven,is a perfect accompaniment to the perfect happiness of the soul!To mingle our careless talk with the song of the birds among the dewy leaves,to smile at each other as we gazed on the sky,to turn our steps slowly homewards at the sound of the bell that always rings too soon,to admire together some little detail in the landscape,to watch the fitful movements of an insect,to look closely at a gleaming demoiselle fly--the delicate creature that resembles an innocent and loving girl;in such ways as these are not one's thoughts drawn daily a little higher?The memories of my forty days of happiness have in a manner colored all the rest of my life,memories that are all the fairer and fill the greater space in my thoughts because since then it has been my fate never to be understood.To this day there are scenes of no special interest for a casual observer,but full of bitter significance for a broken heart,which recall those vanished days,and the love that is not forgotten yet.
"I do not know whether you noticed the effect of the sunset light on the cottage where little Jacques lives?Everything shone so brightly in the fiery rays of the sun,and then all at once the whole landscape grew dark and dreary.That sudden change was like the change in my own life at this time.I received from her the first,the sole and sublime token of love that an innocent girl may give;the more secretly it is given,the closer is the bond it forms,the sweet promise of love,a fragment of the language spoken in a fairer world than this.Sure,therefore,of being beloved,I vowed that I would confess everything at once,that I would have no secrets from her;I felt ashamed that Ihad so long delayed to tell her about the sorrows that I had brought upon myself.
"Unluckily,with the morrow of this happy day a letter came from my son's tutor,the life of the child so dear to me was in danger.I went away without confiding my secret to Evelina,merely telling her family that I was urgently required in Paris.Her parents took alarm during my absence.They feared that there I was entangled in some way,and wrote to Paris to make inquiries about me.It was scarcely consistent with their religious principles;but they suspected me,and did not even give me an opportunity of clearing myself.
"One of their friends,without my knowledge,gave them the whole history of my youth,blackening my errors,laying stress upon the existence of my child,which (said they)I intended to conceal.Iwrote to my future parents,but I received no answers to my letters;and when they came back to Paris,and I called at their house,I was not admitted.Much alarmed,I sent to my old friend to learn the reason of this conduct on their part,which I did not in the least understand.As soon as the good soul knew the real cause of it all,he sacrificed himself generously,took upon himself all the blame of my reserve,and tried to exculpate me,but all to no purpose.Questions of interest and morality were regarded so seriously by the family,their prejudices were so firmly and deeply rooted,that they never swerved from their resolution.My despair was overwhelming.At first Itried to deprecate their wrath,but my letters were sent back to me unopened.When every possible means had been tried in vain;when her father and mother had plainly told my old friend (the cause of my misfortune)that they would never consent to their daughter's marriage with a man who had upon his conscience the death of a woman and the life of a natural son,even though Evelina herself should implore them upon her knees;then,sir,there only remained to me one last hope,a hope as slender and fragile as the willow-branch at which a drowning wretch catches to save himself.
"I ventured to think that Evelina's love would be stronger than her father's scruples,that her inflexible parents might yield to her entreaties.Perhaps,who knows,her father had kept from her the reasons of the refusal,which was so fatal to our love.I determined to acquaint her with all the circumstances,and to make a final appeal to her;and in fear and trembling,in grief and tears,my first and last love-letter was written.To-day I can only dimly remember the words dictated to me by my despair;but I must have told Evelina that if she had dealt sincerely with me she could not and ought not to love another,or how could her whole life be anything but a lie?she must be false either to her future husband or to me.Could she refuse to the lover,who had been so misjudged and hardly entreated,the devotion which she would have shown him as her husband,if the marriage which had already taken place in our hearts had been outwardly solemnized?Was not this to fall from the ideal of womanly virtue?What woman would not love to feel that the promises of the heart were more sacred and binding than the chains forged by the law?
I defended my errors;and in my appeal to the purity of innocence,Ileft nothing unsaid that could touch a noble and generous nature.But as I am telling you everything,I will look for her answer and my farewell letter,"said Benassis,and he went up to his room in search of it.
He returned in a few moments with a worn pocketbook;his hands trembled with emotion as he drew from it some loose sheets.
"Here is the fatal letter,"he said."The girl who wrote those lines little knew the value that I should set upon the scrap of paper that holds her thoughts.This is the last cry that pain wrung from me,"he added,taking up a second letter;"I will lay it before you directly.
My old friend was the bearer of my letter of entreaty;he gave it to her without her parents'knowledge,humbling his white hair to implore Evelina to read and to reply to my appeal.This was her answer:
"'Monsieur.'But lately I had been her 'beloved,'the innocent name she had found by which to express her innocent love,and now she called me MONSIEUR!That one word told me everything.But listen to the rest of the letter:
"'Treachery on the part of one to whom her life was to be intrusted is a bitter thing for a girl to discover;and yet I could not but excuse you,we are so weak!Your letter touched me,but you must not write to me again,the sight of your handwriting gives me such unbearable pain.We are parted for ever.I was carried away by your reasoning;it extinguished all the harsh feelings that had risen up against you in my soul.I had been so proud of your truth!But both of us have found my father's reasoning irresistible.Yes,monsieur,Iventured to plead for you.I did for you what I have never done before,I overcame the greatest fears that I have ever known,and acted almost against my nature.Even now I am yielding to your entreaties,and doing wrong for your sake,in writing to you without my father's knowledge.My mother knows that I am writing to you;her indulgence in leaving me at liberty to be alone with you for a moment has taught me the depth of her love for me,and strengthened my determination to bow to the decree of my family,against which I had almost rebelled.So I am writing to you,monsieur,for the first and last time.You have my full and entire forgiveness for the troubles that you have brought into my life.Yes,you are right;a first love can never be forgotten.I am no longer an innocent girl;and,as an honest woman,I can never marry another.What my future will be,Iknow not therefore.Only you see,monsieur,that echoes of this year that you have filled will never die away in my life.But I am in no way accusing you."I shall always be beloved!"Why did you write those words?Can they bring peace to the troubled soul of a lonely and unhappy girl?Have you not already laid waste my future,giving me memories which will never cease to revisit me?Henceforth I can only give myself to God,but will He accept a broken heart?He has had some purpose to fulfil in sending these afflictions to me;doubtless it was His will that I should turn to Him,my only refuge here below.Nothing remains to me here upon this earth.You have all a man's ambitions wherewith to beguile your sorrows.I do not say this as a reproach;it is a sort of religious consolation.If we both bear a grievous burden at this moment,I think that my share of it is the heavier.He in whom I have put my trust,and of whom you can feel no jealousy,has joined our lives together,and He puts them asunder according to His will.Ihave seen that your religious beliefs were not founded upon the pure and living faith which alone enables us to bear our woes here below.
Monsieur,if God will vouchsafe to hear my fervent and ceaseless prayers,He will cause His light to shine in your soul.Farewell,you who should have been my guide,you whom once I had the right to call "my beloved,"no one can reproach me if I pray for you still.God orders our days as it pleases Him.Perhaps you may be the first whom He will call to himself;but if I am left alone in the world,then,monsieur,intrust the care of the child to me.'
"This letter,so full of generous sentiments,disappointed my hopes,"Benassis resumed,"so that at first I could think of nothing but my misery;afterwards I welcomed the balm which,in her forgetfulness of self,she had tried to pour into my wounds,but in my first despair Iwrote to her somewhat bitterly:
"Mademoiselle--that word alone will tell you that at your bidding Irenounce you.There is something indescribably sweet in obeying one we love,who puts us to the torture.You are right.I acquiesce in my condemnation.Once I slighted a girl's devotion;it is fitting,therefore,that my love should be rejected to-day.But I little thought that my punishment was to be dealt to me by the woman at whose feet I had laid my life.I never expected that such harshness,perhaps I should say,such rigid virtue,lurked in a heart that seemed to be so loving and so tender.At this moment the full strength of my love is revealed to me;it has survived the most terrible of all trials,the scorn you have shown for me by severing without regret the ties that bound us.Farewell for ever.There still remains to me the proud humility of repentance;I will find some sphere of life where I can expiate the errors to which you,the mediator between Heaven and me,have shown no mercy.Perhaps God may be less inexorable.My sufferings,sufferings full of the thought of you,shall be the penance of a heart which will never be healed,which will bleed in solitude.For a wounded heart--shadow and silence.
"'No other image of love shall be engraven on my heart.Though I am not a woman,I feel as you felt that when I said "I love you,"it was a vow for life.Yes,the words then spoken in the ear of "my beloved"were not a lie;you would have a right to scorn me if I could change.
I shall never cease to worship you in my solitude.In spite of the gulf set between us,you will still be the mainspring of all my actions,and all the virtues are inspired by penitence and love.
Though you have filled my heart with bitterness,I shall never have bitter thoughts of you;would it not be an ill beginning of the new tasks that I have set myself if I did not purge out all the evil leaven from my soul?Farewell,then,to the one heart that I love in the world,a heart from which I am cast out.Never has more feeling and more tenderness been expressed in a farewell,for is it not fraught with the life and soul of one who can never hope again,and must be henceforth as one dead?Farewell.May peace be with you,and may all the sorrow of our lot fall to me!'"Benassis and Genestas looked at each other for a moment after reading the two letters,each full of sad thoughts,of which neither spoke.
"As you see,this is only a rough copy of my last letter,"said Benassis;"it is all that remains to me to-day of my blighted hopes.
When I had sent the letter,I fell into an indescribable state of depression.All the ties that hold one to life were bound together in the hope of wedded happiness,which was henceforth lost to me for ever.I had to bid farewell to the joys of a permitted and acknowledged love,to all the generous ideas that had thronged up from the depths of my heart.The prayers of a penitent soul that thirsted for righteousness and for all things lovely and of good report,had been rejected by these religious people.At first,the wildest resolutions and most frantic thoughts surged through my mind,but happily for me the sight of my son brought self-control.I felt all the more strongly drawn towards him for the misfortunes of which he was the innocent cause,and for which I had in reality only myself to blame.In him I found all my consolation.
"At the age of thirty-four I might still hope to do my country noble service.I determined to make a name for myself,a name so illustrious that no one should remember the stain on the birth of my son.How many noble thoughts I owe to him!How full a life I led in those days while I was absorbed in planning out his future!I feel stifled,"cried Benassis."All this happened eleven years ago,and yet to this day,Icannot bear to think of that fatal year.My child died,sir;Ilost him!"The doctor was silent,and hid his face in his hands;when he was somewhat calmer he raised his head again,and Genestas saw that his eyes were full of tears.
"At first it seemed as if this thunderbolt had uprooted me,"Benassis resumed."It was a blow from which I could only expect to recover after I had been transplanted into a different soil from that of the social world in which I lived.It was not till some time afterwards that I saw the finger of God in my misfortunes,and later still that Ilearned to submit to His will and to hearken to His voice.It was impossible that resignation should come to me all at once.My impetuous and fiery nature broke out in a final storm of rebellion.
"It was long before I brought myself to take the only step befitting a Catholic;indeed,my thoughts ran on suicide.This succession of misfortunes had contributed to develop melancholy feelings in me,and I deliberately determined to take my own life.It seemed to me that it was permissible to take leave of life when life was ebbing fast.There was nothing unnatural,I thought about suicide.The ravages of mental distress affected the soul of man in the same way that acute physical anguish affected the body;and an intelligent being,suffering from a moral malady,had surely a right to destroy himself,a right he shares with the sheep,that,fallen a victim to the 'staggers,'beats its head against a tree.Were the soul's diseases in truth more readily cured than those of the body?I scarcely think so,to this day.Nor do I know which is the more craven soul--he who hopes even when hope is no longer possible,or he who despairs.Death is the natural termination of a physical malady,and it seemed to me that suicide was the final crisis in the sufferings of a mind diseased,for it was in the power of the will to end them when reason showed that death was preferable to life.So it is not the pistol,but a thought that puts an end to our existence.Again,when fate may suddenly lay us low in the midst of a happy life,can we be blamed for ourselves refusing to bear a life of misery?
"But my reflections during that time of mourning turned on loftier themes.The grandeur of pagan philosophy attracted me,and for a while I became a convert.In my efforts to discover new rights for man,Ithought that with the aid of modern thought I could penetrate further into the questions to which those old-world systems of philosophy had furnished solutions.
"Epicurus permitted suicide.Was it not the natural outcome of his system of ethics?The gratification of the senses was to be obtained at any cost;and when this became impossible,the easiest and best course was for the animate being to return to the repose of inanimate nature.Happiness,or the hope of happiness,was the one end for which man existed,for one who suffered,and who suffered without hope,death ceased to be an evil,and became a good,and suicide became a final act of wisdom.This act Epicurus neither blamed nor praised;he was content to say as he poured a libation to Bacchus,'As for death,there is nothing in death to move our laughter or our tears.'