Antonia

I-3

"The sort of marriage? You surprise me; explain yourself!"

"I mean to say that you are too fascinating not to be married for love."

"Very good; but will it be someone whom I shall be able to love?"

"If the man, instead of being a spendthrift and a fool, is really rich and well-born, for that is most important of all, and you cannot descend socially without blame; if he has breeding, tact, and the instincts of a man of quality; and, lastly, if he is an honorable man—what more can you ask? You must not expect that he will be in his first youth, and built like the hero of a novel.—We see but few of those magnificent creatures who are disposed to select a person of great merit for her lovely eyes; everybody is more or less hard up in these days!"

"I understand you," replied Madame d'Estrelle, with a sad smile. "You wish me to marry some excellent old man, some friend of yours, for I do not believe that you would propose a monster to me. Thanks, my dear baroness, I don't propose again to hire myself out to an invalid for large wages; for, to put things baldly, that is the sort of good-fortune which you have in mind for me. But, although I should be capable of waiting upon and nursing a father, if I had one, with the utmost tenderness, or even an old friend who needed me, I am firmly resolved never again to put my neck in the yoke of an infirm and morose stranger. I conscientiously fulfilled those depressing duties to Monsieur d'Estrelle, and everybody gave me credit for it. Now I am free, and I propose to remain free. I have no relatives left—only a few friends. I desire nothing more, and I ask you in all seriousness not to seek happiness for me according to your ideas, which I do not share. You, my friend, are still what I was at sixteen, when I was married. You have retained the illusions which were dinned into my ears; you believe that one cannot do without wealth and show, and, therefore, are younger than I. So much the better for you, since fate has bound you to a husband who denies you nothing. That is all that you need, is it not? But I should be more exacting; I should like to love. You laugh? Ah! yes, I know your theories. 'The honeymoon is short,' you have said to me a hundred times; 'but the golden moon is the light which never goes out.' For my part, I am foolish enough to say to myself that on the first day of my married life I propose to love and believe, even though it last but a day! Otherwise, I know by experience, marriage is a shame and a martyrdom."

"If that is so," said the baroness, rising, "I leave you to your reveries, my dear friend, and humbly beg pardon for interrupting them."

She took her leave somewhat piqued, for she was perspicacious, although foolish, and she realized that the gentle-mannered Julie, in that outbreak of rebellion, had told her a home-truth; but she was not evil-minded, and an hour later had forgotten her spleen. Indeed, she felt a little depressed, and at times was quite ready to say to herself:

"Perhaps Julie is right!"

Julie, on her part, felt that all her courage failed her as soon as she was left alone, and her pride melted away in tears. She was strong only as a result of nervous reactions, and perhaps of a more eager craving for love than she confessed to herself. Naturally she was timid, even shrinking. She knew the baroness's kind heart too well to fear a real rupture with her; but she too said to herself:

"Perhaps Amélie is right! I seek the impossible, the surroundings of rank and fortune in conjunction with love! Who ever obtains that? No one in my position. For lack of the best, I may be going to fall into the worst, which is solitude and sadness."

She took her parasol, one of those flat white parasols which produced a prettier effect among the shrubbery than our modern mushrooms, and placing the heels of her little slippers softly on the turf, her skirt turned gracefully back over the straight petticoat, she strolled pensively along under the lilac bushes in her garden, inhaling the air of spring in silent misery, starting at the voice of the nightingale, thinking of nobody, yet carried outside of herself by a boundless aspiration.

She went from lilac to lilac until she drew near the pavilion, where, an hour earlier, Julien Thierry, the painter's son, the rich man's nephew, the solicitor's cousin, was at work. The garden was large for a garden in Paris, and was beautiful, both as to its arrangement and its contents. Every day Madame d'Estrelle walked around it two or three times, casting a melancholy or loving glance at each of the flower-beds with which the turf was studded. When she came in sight of the windows of the Louis XIII. pavilion, she did not turn away nor worry about being seen, for the pavilion had been long unoccupied. Julien and his mother had been settled there only a month; Madame d'Estrelle had complained to Marcel Thierry because the marquis, her father-in-law, being unwilling to sacrifice the trifling revenue from so worthless a piece of property, had let it to strange tenants. Marcel had reassured her by informing her that the new tenant was the venerable and most respectable widow of his uncle the artist. He had not mentioned Julien. It may be that the countess did not know that the painter had left a son. At all events it had not occurred to her to make inquiries about him. She had never seen him at the windows, in the first place because she was very near-sighted and the young women in those days did not wear glasses; and secondly, because Julien, being informed of the proximity of a person of rigid morals, had taken great pains not to show himself. Sometimes Madame d'Estrelle had seen at the first floor window a pale, refined face surmounted by a white cap, which saluted her with deferential reserve. She had returned the sweet-faced widow's salutation pleasantly, even with respect; but they had not as yet exchanged a word.

On this day Julie, seeing that the ground-floor window was partly open, began to ask herself for the first time why she had not entered into neighborly relations with Madame Thierry. She examined the wall of the little building, and noticed that the door at the end of the garden was locked on the outside, as when the house was unoccupied. Madame Thierry could see nothing but the shrubbery, which concealed the countess's mansion and a part of the principal lawn. She had no right even to sit in the sunshine, along the wall of her house, under those flowering shrubs which actually entered her rooms, and which she had no right to prune. Moreover, she was f*******n, by the terms of her lease, to walk on the gravelled walk that ran inside the street wall. In a word, the door was condemned, and the tenant had made no vexatious demands on that subject.

It is true that the countess had anticipated such a demand with the determination to comply with it; but she had not noticed the feeling of timidity or pride which prevented Madame Thierry from making it. She thought of it on that day of self-condemnation, and reproached herself for not forestalling the poor widow's presumed desire.

"If it had been some ruined great lady," she thought, "I should have been careful not to forget the consideration due to age or misfortune. There is another proof of what I was just saying to the baroness: our minds are given a false direction and our hearts are withered by being brought up in the prejudices of rank. I feel that I have been selfish and discourteous in my treatment of this lady, who, as I have been told, is eminently respectable and in very straitened circumstances. How can I have forgotten a bounden duty? But here is an opportunity to make up for everything, and I will not throw it away; for I long to make peace with myself to-day."

The countess resolutely approached the window and coughed two or three times as if to give notice of her presence; and as no one stirred she ventured to tap on the glass.

Julien had gone out, but Madame Thierry was at home. Greatly surprised, she came to the window, and, when she saw that beautiful lady whom she knew perfectly well by sight, although she had never spoken to her, she threw it wide open.

"Excuse me, madame," said the countess, "for choosing this method of making your acquaintance; but I am not quite out of mourning yet, as you see; I do not pay visits, and I have something to say to you with your permission. Can you listen to me for a moment where you are?"

"Assuredly, madame, and with very great pleasure," replied Madame Thierry in a dignified and amiable tone, and with a perfect ease of manner in which there was nothing of the petty bourgeoise dazzled by an overture from one of more exalted station.

The countess was deeply impressed by the distinction of her face, by the excellent taste of her simple dress, by her sweet voice, and by an indefinable savor of refinement exhaled by her whole person.

"Be seated, I beg," she said, spying the arm-chair in the window recess; "I do not wish to keep you standing."

"But you, madame?" rejoined the widow with a smile. "Ah! I have an idea. With your permission I will pass you a chair."

"No, do not take that trouble!"

"Yes, indeed! Here is a very light straw chair; and between us——"

Between them they succeeded in passing the chair over the window-sill, one holding it, the other receiving it, and smiling both at that unceremonious performance, which created a sort of intimacy between them at once.

"This is what I had to say," said Madame d'Estrelle when she was seated. "Hitherto, you have been living in a house belonging to the Marquis d'Estrelle, my father-in-law; but to-day you are living in my house, monsieur le marquis having presented it to me. I do not know as yet the terms of your lease; but there is one which I presume you will consent to modify."

"Be kind enough to tell me which one you refer to, madame la comtesse," replied the widow, bowing slightly, and with a faint cloud upon her face in anticipation of some disagreement.

"I refer," said the countess, "to keeping this miserable door always locked and bolted between us; it is a perfect eyesore to me. If you consent, I propose to have it opened to-morrow. I will give you the keys, and I invite you to walk in my garden for exercise or diversion as much as you please. It will be a great pleasure to me to meet you here. I live very much alone, and if you are willing to stop and rest sometimes in the house I live in, I will do my utmost to prevent your being dissatisfied with me as a neighbor."

Madame Thierry's face had lighted up. The countess's offer gave her genuine pleasure. To have a beautiful garden under one's eyes every hour in the day and not be able to set foot inside it, is a sort of t*****e. Moreover, she was deeply touched by the graceful way in which the invitation was given, and she realized at once that she had to do with a lovable and noble-hearted woman. She thanked her with charming warmth, abating nothing of the gentle dignity of her manners, and they at once began to converse as if they had always known each other, the instinctive sympathy between them was so quick and so entirely reciprocal.