Author: Aldous Huxley
Category: Literature
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“I shall come back with pleasure and I shall do nothing; but if I have not made you dislike me I shall consider that I have done a great deal.”
“But I don’t dislike you. When people agree with me, I never dislike them.”
“But how can people fail to agree with you when you say such sensible things?”
“Oh, that’s very easy. M. Hervart doesn’t dispose with disagreement. He contradicts me, laughs at me.”
“Good,” thought Leonor, “she’s in love with Hervart; then she likes being contradicted and even laughed at a little. Or perhaps she’s lying, so as to make me believe that Hervart is indifferent to her. Let’s try and get a rise.”
“At this age that sort of thing is permissible.”
“That’s why I don’t get cross.”
“And besides, he’s very nice.”
“Oh, so nice; I’m very fond of him.”
“It doesn’t take,” thought Leonor. “Hervart, to her, is a god and we might go on talking till to-morrow without her understanding a single one of my insinuations or ironies.”
He went on, nevertheless, picking out all the spiteful things that can be said with politeness.
“Old bachelors often have manias....”
“That’s what I often tell him. For instance, his taste for insects.... But it amuses him so.”
“She’s invulnerable,” said Leonor to himself.
“And then he knows life. He has lived so much.”
“That’s true. Sometimes, when he’s speaking to me, I fed as though a whole world were opening before me.”
“He knows all there is to be known, the arts and the sciences, friendship and love, men, women.... He’s seen a lot of them and of every variety.”
This time it was Rose who paused a moment to reflect, then:
“That’s why I have such immense confidence in him. It’s a real happiness for me that he should come and spend his holidays here. I have learnt more in these few weeks than in all the other years of my life.”
Leonor looked at Rose. He felt a powerful emotion, for to be loved like this seemed to him the height of felicity. He had never believed that it was possible to inspire a young girl with such ingenuous confidence. And how frank she was! What a divine simplicity!
“How does one make oneself so much loved? What’s his secret? Ah! if only I dared ask more! But now, I don’t even want to try and violate an intimacy so charming to contemplate. I’m looking at happiness, and it’s such a rare sight.”
He glanced at Rose once more.
“And with all that she’s very pretty. How graceful she is under this aspect of wildness! What suppleness of form! Everything down to her complexion, gilded and freckled like an apple by the sun, looks lovely in these country surroundings. How well a wife like this would suit me; for I belong to this country and am destined to live here. Why couldn’t Hervart have stayed among his Parisian women?”
“He must be very fond of you,” he went on, “and I envy his happiness in being allowed to be your friend. I shall come back, since you so desire, but I would rather not come back.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to displease you.”
“But it won’t displease me; far from it. Do explain.”
“If I come back, perhaps, I shan’t have the strength of mind not to grow fond of you, and that will make you angry.”
“But why? How odd you are! Make yourself a friend of the house. I shall be very pleased.”
“But then I shan’t be able to like you as you like M. Hervart.”
“Oh! I don’t think that would be possible.”
“And you won’t like me as you like him.”
She broke into such ingenuous laughter that Leonor assured himself that she had not understood anything of his insinuations. However, he was wrong, and her laughter proved it. She had laughed just because the idea had suddenly come to her that another man might have played Xavier’s part in what had happened. The idea seemed to her comic and she had laughed. But the idea had come, and that was a great point.
It was such a great point that in her turn she looked at Leonor, and this time she did not laugh; but she had no time to make any comparison, for at the same moment she pricked up her ears and said, “There he is.”
M. Hervart did not arrive till quite an appreciable time had passed, and Leonor said to himself:
“She scents her lover as a pointer scents the game. Love is extraordinary.”
He abandoned himself to reflection, astonished at having learnt so many things in half an hour’s walk with a young and simple-hearted girl.
Rose was staring with all her eyes in the direction from which the sound of rustling leaves had come. Leonor stooped down behind her and kissed the hem of her skirt.
CHAPTER X
WHILE HE WAS alone, M. Hervart had done his best to make a decision, as he had promised himself to do; but decisions had fluttered like capricious butterflies round his head and would not let themselves be caught. He was neither surprised nor vexed at the fact.
“Rose,” he said to himself at last, “will do all I want.”
This certitude was enough for him. The moment he had a will, Rose would acquiesce.
“Provided my will agrees with hers, that’s obvious. Now Rose’s wish is to become Mme. Hervart. Dear little thing, she’s in love with me....”
He dwelt complacently on this idea, but a moment later it alarmed him and he felt himself a prisoner. A hundred times over he repeated:
“I must have done with it. I will speak to Des Boys this evening, to-morrow morning at latest.... He will laugh at me. But that’s all. He will have to give in afterwards. My will, Rose’s will.... I shall carry her off and take her to Paris. Is it my first adventure? If it’s the last it will at least be a splendid one.”
He pictured to himself all the details of this romantic enterprise. He would, of course, reserve a compartment in the train so as to insure a propitious solitude. It would not be at night, but in the evening. After an amusing little supper and some thrilling kisses, Rose would go to sleep on his shoulder and from time to time he would touch her breast, kiss her eyelids. She would be, at this moment, at once his wife and his mistress, the woman who has given herself, but whom one has not yet taken, a beautiful fruit to be looked at and delicately handled before it is at last relished. What an exquisite creature of love she would be. How docile her curiosity! What a pupil, like clay the hands of the sculptor. An elopement? Why not a marriage tour? No, no elopements! no romantic nonsense! Des Boys will give me his daughter when I want....
But suddenly he had a curious vision. He was standing on the platform of Caen station, amusing himself by peeping indiscreetly into the carriages, and what did he see? — Rose and Leonor huddled together, mouth against mouth. The train moved on, and he was left standing there, looking at the red light disappearing in the smoke....
He got up, full of jealousy; he ran, then slowed down, listening for possible words, questioning the silence. Without his knowing exactly why, Rose’s laugh, heard through the leaves of the wood, reassured him. He saw Leonor stoop down and rise again holding a little pink flower in his hand.
“Sherardia arvensis,” he said, taking the flower. “It has no business to grow here. Its place is in the field next door. Arvensis, you see, arvensis. But there are lots of plants that lose their way.”
“He knows everything,” said Rose. “You see, he knows everything.”
Leonor, who had understood the allusion, did not answer. He walked away, under the pretense of continuing his botanical researches in the wood.
“If love were born at this moment in my heart, it would be most untimely, it would have chosen its place very unfortunately. Does he love as he is loved? That is what I should like to know. Is he capable of perseverance? Who knows? It may be, Rose, that you will one day lie weeping in my arms.”
All three of them made their way back, Leonor walking a little ahead. M. Hervart kept silen
ce, for what he had to say demanded secrecy, and commonplace words were impossible. Rose did not notice the silence; she herself did not think of talking. She was happy, walking dose to her lover. Sometimes, furtively she stretched out her hand and squeezed one of his fingers. M. Hervart allowed his left arm to hang limply on purpose. Leonor did not turn round once, and Rose was grateful to him for that. M. Hervart, who felt that his secret had been guessed, would have preferred a less deliberate, a less suspicious discretion.
“What have these architects come to do here?” he wondered. “It looks as though it had all been arranged by the Des Boys with a view to getting off their daughter. Will they come back? Leonor certainly will. And shall I be able to stay?”
His perplexities began again. When Rose’s hand touched his own, he felt himself her prisoner, her happy slave. As soon as the contact was removed, he was seized by ideas of flight and liberty. He would like to have called Leonor, flung Rose into his arms and made off across country.
“I have never been so much disturbed by any amour. It’s the question of marriage. What complications! I hate this fellow Leonor. But for him.... But for him? But is he the only man in the world? If I don’t take her, it will be somebody else.” Suddenly he drew closer to Rose and whispered frenziedly in her ear a stream of tender and violent words, “Rose, I love you, I desire you with all my being, I want you.”
Rose started, but these words responded so exactly to her own thoughts that she was only surprised by their suddenness. First she blushed, then a smile of happy sweetness lit up her face and her eyes shone with life and desire.
They soon rejoined Lanfranc and M. Des Boys, who were confabulating over a glass of wine. A few minutes later the architects got into their carriage.
At the moment when the groom let go of the horse’s head, Leonor turned round. Rose realised that the gesture was meant for her; she slightly shrugged her shoulders.
“I’m going to do a little painting,” said M. Des Boys.
“I caught sight of an interesting beetle at the top of the garden,” said M. Hervart.
“I’m going up to my room,” said Rose.
Five minutes later the two lovers had met again near the bench on which M. Hervart had meditated in vain.
Without saying a word, Rose let herself fall into her lover’s arms. Her drooping head revealed her neck, and M. Hervart kissed it with more passion than usual. His mouth pushed aside the collar of her dress, seeking her shoulder.
“Let us sit down,” she said at last, when she had had her fill of her lover’s mild caresses. And taking his head between her hands, she in her turn covered him with kisses, but mostly on the eyes and on the forehead. Desiring a more tender contact, he took the offensive, seized the exquisite head and after a slight resistance made a conquest of her lips. There was always, when they were sitting down, a little struggle before he reached this point, although she had often, when they were walking, offered him her lips frankly. On the bench it was more serious, because it was slower and because the kiss irradiated more easily throughout her body.
“No, Xavier, no!”
But she surrendered. For the first time, M. Hervart, having loosened her bodice, touched the soft flesh of her breast, fluttering with fear and passion. He kissed her violently, and when the kiss was slow in coming she provoked it, amorously. A simultaneous start put an end to their double pleasure; and there, sitting close to one another, were a pair of lovers, at once happy and ill satisfied. One of them was wondering if love had not completer pleasures to offer; and the other was saying, what a pity that one is a decent man!
At the moment M. Hervart considered himself very reserved. Later, when he had recovered his presence of mind a little more, he felt certain scruples, for he was delicate and subject to headaches as a result of indecisive pleasures. He felt proud of the at least partial domination, which he could, at scabrous moments, exercise over his nervous centres with his well-constructed, well-conditioned brain.
“Do you love your husband, little Rose?”
“Oh, yes!”
She roused herself to utter this exclamation with energy. M. Hervart felt no further indecision. Furthermore, he began almost at once to give a new direction to his thoughts. He wanted something to eat; Rose acquiesced. As she was slow in getting up he wanted to pick her up in his arms; but his arms, grown strangely weak, were unequal to the light burden. M. Hervart felt, too, that his legs were not as solid as they might have been. He would have liked to eat and at the same time to lie down in the grass. He let himself fall back on the bench.
“You look so tired,” said Rose, inventing every kind of tenderness. “Stay here, I’ll bring you some cakes and wine.”
But he refused and they went back together.
Cheered by a little sherry and some brioches, M. Hervart asked for music. Rose, inexpert though she was, soothed her lover with all the melodies he desired. She even sang to him. The songs were all romances.
“Joys of the young couple,” he said to himself, half dozing. “A picture by Greuze. Nothing is lacking except the little spaniel dog and the paternal old man looking in at the window and shedding a few quiet tears ‘inspired by memory’ at the sight of this ravishing scene. There, I’m laughing at myself, so that I can’t be quite so badly done for as might have been thought. Not so close a prisoner, either.”
“Go and see my father,” said Rose, leaving a verse half sung. “I’ll come and find you there later.”
And she went on with her music.
“More and more conjugal, for I shall obey her after having, of course, gone over: I kissed her in the neck. Dear child, she’s waiting for the surprise, shivering at it already....”
Everything went off as M. Hervart had predicted, but there was something more. Rose turned round and said, after offering her lips:
“Go along, my darling, and mind you admire his painting a lot, more than yesterday.”
“Yes, my love.”
“How charming it all is!” he said to himself as he knocked at the studio door. “Delightful family conspiracies. Shall I be able to play this part for long? Suppose I announce my intentions to my venerable friend. Obviously there can be no more hesitation. Come on!”
They talked of Ste. Clotilde. M. Hervart was loud in his praise both of the historical knowledge as well as the pictorial skill of the master of Robinvast, and at every word he uttered he felt a longing to make the conversation touch on the conjugal virtues of that honourable queen. Then the desire passed.
Dinner time came. Afterwards, as usual, they played a game of whist. M. Hervart retired to bed with pleasure and, wearied by his kisses and his thoughts, went to sleep full of the contentment that comes from a pleasant fatigue.
“I shall have to warn Rose,” he said to himself as soon as he woke, rather late, next morning, “of her mother’s schemes. They might make her fall into some trap.”
He soon found an opportunity. In the morning their kisses were more reserved, still somnolent. They frittered away the time pleasantly. M. Hervart would sometimes make a serious examination of some rare insect: Rose worked at her embroidery with conviction. They did not venture into the wood, because of the dew, but remained in the neighbourhood of the house. At this hour of the day M. Hervart was always particularly lucid. He discoursed on a hundred different topics and Rose listened, without daring to interrupt, even when she did not understand. She enjoyed the sound of his voice much more than the sense of his words.
Rose was not surprised to learn of her mothers schemes. She confessed, furthermore, that she had divined in M. Varin’s attitude the existence of quite definite intentions. It was therefore decided that M. Hervart should make his request that very day in order to forestall circumstances. Rose spoke so resolutely and her words were so lyrical that M. Hervart felt all his absurd hesitations melt away within him. She knew her parents’ income and gave the figure, very straightforwardly, like the practical woman she was. M. Des Boys had an income of sixty thousand francs o
f which, she imagined, he hardly spent half. There was no doubt that he would willingly give the greater part of the other half to his only daughter. As she had also calculated, though with less certainty, the value of M. Hervart’s fortune, she included decisively:
“We shall have from thirty to forty thousand francs a year.”
M. Hervart calculated the figures again with the details that were known to him personally and found the estimate correct. His admiration for Rose was increased.
“She has all the virtues: an aptitude for love and the sense of domestic economy, intelligence and very little education, health without a striking beauty. Finally, she adores me and I love her.”
At the first insinuations of his friend M. Des Boys smiled and said:
“I thought as much. My daughter has received but the vaguest education. Her mother is incapable. As for me, I am interested only in art. She needs a serious husband, a husband, that is to say, who is not in his first youth. If she wants you, take her. I’ll go and ask her.”
M. Hervart was on the point of saying there was no need. But luckily he checked himself and M. Des Boys questioned his daughter.
“I should like to,” she said.
M. Des Boys returned.
“She said, ‘I should like to,’ She said it without enthusiasm, but she said it. Now go and arrange things yourselves. I shall go on with my painting.”
M. Hervart admired Rose still more for her astute answer.
The girl was waiting for him as he came towards her, serious, scarcely smiling, but beautified by the profound emotion that she could scarcely contain. She gave him her hand, then her forehead; and when M. Hervart drew her into his arms, she burst into tears.
CHAPTER XI
MEANWHILE LEONOR HAD received a wound which he could not support with patience. A hundred times a day he thought of Rose. He was not in love with the woman, he was in love with her love. He saw her as she had appeared to him in the wood at Robinvast, with her whole desire, her whole will, her whole body, turned innocently toward M. Hervart and he felt no jealousy; on the contrary, he admired the ingenuous force of so confiding, so powerful a love. By having been able to inspire such a love M. Hervart evoked in him an almost superstitious respect; he would willingly have helped him in his amour.