Valentine (4 page)

Bénédict, allowing the placid steed's reins to hang loosely, fell into a profound reverie. He was a young man of a strange temperament ; those who were closest to him, in default of another of the same sort to whom to liken him, considered him as being altogether outside of the common run of mankind. The majority despised him as a man incapable of doing anything useful and substantial ; and if they did not show in what slight esteem they held him, it was because they were forced to accord him the possession of true physical courage and enduring resentment. On the other hand, the Lhéry family, simple-hearted and kindly as they were, did not hesitate to accord him a place in the very highest rank in the matter of intellect and learning. Blind to his defects, those excellent people saw in their nephew simply a young man whose imagination was too fertile and his learning too extensive to allow him to enjoy repose of mind. But Bénédict, at the age of twenty-two, had not received what is called a practical education. At Paris, being possessed by love of art and of science in turn, he had become proficient in no specialty. He had worked hard, but he had stopped when practical application of what he had learned became necessary.
He had become disgusted just at the moment when others reap the fruit of their labors. To him love of study ended where the necessity of adopting a profession began. Having once acquired the treasures of art and science, he was no longer spurred on by the selfish impulse to apply them to his own interests ; and as he did not know how to be useful to himself, people said when they saw him without occupation: “What is he good for ?

His cousin had been destined for him from the beginning of time; that was the best retort which could be made to those envious persons who accused the Lhérys of allowing their hearts as well as their minds to be corrupted by wealth. It cannot be denied that their common sense, the common sense of the peasant, usually so straightforward and sure, had received a rude blow in the bosom of prosperity. They had ceased to esteem the simple and modest virtues, and, after vain efforts to destroy them in themselves, they had done their utmost to stifle the germs of those virtues in their children ; but they had not ceased to love them with almost equal affection, and, while working at their ruin, they had believed that they were working for their happiness.

Such a bringing-up had proved disastrous to both. Athénaïs, like soft and flexible wax, had acquired in a boarding-school at Orleans all the faults of provincial young ladies—vanity, ambition, envy and pettiness of spirit. However, goodness of heart was in her a sort of sacred heritage transmitted by her mother, and outside influences had been unable to destroy it. Thus there was much to hope for her from the lessons of experience and the future.

The harm done was greater in the case of Bénédict. Instead of benumbing his generous impulses, education
had developed them immeasurably, and had changed them into a deplorable feverish sort of irritation. That ardent temperament, that impressionable soul needed a course of tranquillizing ideas, of repressive treatment. Perhaps, too, labor in the fields and bodily fatigue would have employed to advantage the excess of force which fermented to no purpose in that vigorous organization. The enlightenment of civilization, which has developed so many precious qualities, has, perhaps, vitiated quite as many. It is a misfortune of the generations placed between those which knew nothing and those which will know just enough : they know too much.

Lhéry and his wife could not understand the misfortunes of this situation. They refused even to imagine them, and having no conception of any other felicities than those which they could confer, they boasted artlessly of having the power to put Bénédict's ennui to flight : according to them it could be done by a good farm, a pretty farmer-maid, and a dowry of two hundred thousand francs in cash with which to begin housekeeping. But Bénédict was insensible to these flattering marks of their affection. Money aroused in him profound contempt, the enthusiastic, exaggerated contempt of a generation of young men often too quick to change their principles and to bend a converted knee before the god of the universe. Bénédict felt that he was consumed by a secret ambition ; but it was not that ; it was the ambition of his age, of the things which flatter the self-esteem in a nobler way.

He did not as yet know the special object of his vague and painful expectation. He had thought several times that he recognized it in the vivid caprices of his imagination. Those caprices had vanished without bringing him any lasting enjoyment. Now, he was constantly
conscious of it as of a pitiless pain confined in his breast, and it had never tortured him so cruelly as when he least knew what use to make of it. Ennui, that horrible disease which is more prevalent at the present time than at any other period in the history of society, had attacked Bénédict's destiny in its bloom ; it stretched out like a black cloud over his whole future. It had already blighted the most priceless faculty of his age—hope.

At Paris, solitude had disgusted him. Although he considered it far preferable to society, it was too dismal in his little student's chamber, too dangerous for faculties so active as his. His health had suffered, and his kind-hearted relations, in dismay, had sent for him to return. He had been at home a month, and his complexion had already recovered the ruddy coloring of health; but his heart was more perturbed than ever. The poetic atmosphere of the fields, to which he was so susceptible, excited to delirium the intensity of the un-fathomed cravings which were consuming him. His home life, always so beneficent and soothing at first, whenever he made a trial of it, had already become more tedious than ever. He felt no inclination for Athénaïs. She was too far below the chimeras of his imagination, and the idea of settling down among the extravagant or puerile habits which were conjoined and contrasted in his family was hateful to him. His heart opened, it is true, to affection and gratitude ; but those sentiments were to him a source of constant combats and remorse. He could not refrain from reflections pitiless and cruel in their irony, at sight of all the mean and trivial struggles amid which he lived, of that mixture of parsimony and extravagance which makes the ways of the parvenu so ridiculous. Monsieur and Madame Lhéry, paternal and tyrannical at the same time, gave excellent wine to their farm
hands on Sunday; during the week they reproved them for putting a dash of vinegar in their water. They readily supplied their daughter with a fine piano, a lemonwood toilet set and richly-bound books; they scolded her for throwing an extra stick on the fire. At home they were poor and niggardly, in order to make their servants industrious and economical ; abroad they were puffed up with pride, and would have considered the slightest doubt of their opulence an insult. Kind-hearted, charitable, easily moved to pity as they were, they had succeeded, by their folly, in making themselves detested by their neighbors, who were even more vain and foolish than they.

These were failings which Bénédict could not endure. Youth is much more bitter and intolerant to old age than old age is to youth. But in the midst of his discouragement certain vague and confused impulses had shed a ray or two of hope upon his life. Louise, Madame or Mademoiselle Louise—she was called by both names indifferently—had taken up her abode at Grangeneuve about three weeks before. At first the difference in their ages had kept their acquaintance upon a tranquil, careless footing; certain preconceived ideas unfavorable to Louise, whom Bénédict had not seen for twelve years, speedily vanished in the pure and appealing fascination of intimate intercourse with her. Their tastes, their education, their sympathetic ideas had rapidly brought them together, and Louise, by virtue of her age, her misfortunes and her qualities, had acquired complete ascendancy over her young friend's mind. But the joys of this intimacy were of short duration. Bénédict, always quick to pass the goal, always eager to deify his admirations, and to poison his pleasures by carrying them to excess, imagined that he was in love with Louise, that she was
the one woman after his own heart, and that he could not live where she was not. It was the error of a day. The coldness with which Louise received his timid declarations angered more than it grieved him. In his resentment he inwardly accused her of pride and lack of heart. Then he recalled her misfortunes and admitted to himself that she was no less deserving of respect than of compassion. On two or three occasions he was conscious of a rekindling of the impetuous aspirations of a heart too passionate for friendship ; but Louise was able to soothe him. She did not employ to that end the reason which goes astray while splitting hairs; her experience taught her to distrust compassion ; she manifested none for him, and although her heart was by no means disposed to harshness, she resorted to it to effect the young man's cure. The emotion which Bénédict had displayed during their interview that morning had been, as it were, his last attempt at rebellion. Now he repented of his folly, and, buried in his reflections, he felt, in his ever increasing disquietude, that the time had not come for him to love anybody or anything exclusively.

Madame Lhéry broke the silence with a trivial remark.

“You'll stain your gloves with those flowers,” she said to her daughter. “Pray remember that
madame
said the other day before you : ‘ You can always recognize a woman of the common people in the provinces by her feet and hands.' She didn't think, the dear soul, that we might take that to ourselves.”

“On the contrary, I think she said it expressly for us. Poor mamma, you know Madame de Raimbault very little if you think that she would regret having insulted us.”

“Insulted us!” rejoined Madame Lhéry. “She
meant to
insult
us ? I'd like to see her do it ! Yes, indeed I would ! Do you suppose I'd stand an insult from anybody, I don't care who ?”

“Still, we shall have to put up with more than one impertinence so long as we are her farmers. Farmers, always farmers ! when we have an estate at least as good as madame la comtesse's ! Papa, I won't let you alone till you've got rid of this wretched farm. I don't like it, I can't endure it.”

Père Lhéry shook his head.

“Three thousand francs profit every year is always a good thing to have,” he replied.

“It would be better to earn three thousand francs less and recover our liberty, enjoy our wealth, free ourselves from the kind of tyranny that that harsh, arrogant woman exercises over us.”

“Psha !” said Madame Lhéry, “ we almost never have dealings with her. Since that unfortunate event she comes to the province every five or six years only. This time she came only on account of her
demoiselle's
wedding. Who knows that this won't be the last time ? It's my belief that Mademoiselle Valentine will have the château and the farm for her dowry. Then what a kind mistress we should have !”

“To be sure, Valentine is a dear girl,” said Athénaïs, proud to be able to speak in that familiar tone of a person whose rank she envied. “Oh! she's not proud; she hasn't forgotten that we played together when we were little. And then she has the good sense to understand that money is the only distinguishing mark, and that our money's as honorable as hers.”

“I should say so !” rejoined Madame Lhéry; “for she has only had the trouble of being born, while we have earned our money by hard work and at our peril.
But still there's nothing to say against her ; she's a good young lady and a pretty girl,
da!
Did you ever see her, Bénédict ?”

“Never, aunt”

“And then I'm attached to that family,” continued Madame Lhéry. “The father was such a good man! There was a real man for you ! and handsome ! A general, on my word, all covered with gold and crosses, and he asked me to dance on fête-days just as if I was a duchess. Madame didn't like that much—”

“Nor I, either,” observed Père Lhéry, ingenuously.

“That Père Lhéry,” retorted his wife, “ must always have his joke. But all the same, what I mean to say is that, except for madame, who's a little high and mighty, it's a fine family. Can anyone find a better woman than the grandmother ?”

“Ah !” said Athénaïs, “ she's the best of all. She always has something pleasant to say to you ; she never calls you anything but
my heart,
or
my beauty,
or
my pretty puss.”

“And that always pleases you !” said Bénédict, mockingly. “Well, well, add that to the three thousand francs profit, which will buy a good many gewgaws——”

“Eh ! that isn't to be despised, is it, my boy ?” said Pfere Lhéry. “Just tell her so ; she'll listen to you.”

“No, no, I won't listen to anything,” cried the girl. “I won't let you alone tell you've left the farm. Your lease expires in six months; you mustn't renew it, do you hear, papa ?”

“But what shall I do ?” said the old man, shaken by the wheedling yet imperious tone adopted by his daughter. “Must I fold my arms, I'd like to know ? I can't amuse myself reading and singing, like you; ennui will kill me.”

“But, papa, haven't you your property to look out for ?”

“It all takes care of itself so nicely ! there won't be anything left for me to do. And another thing, where shall we live ? You don't want to live with the tenant farmers, do you ?”

“No, certainly not! you must build; we'll have a house of our own ; we'll decorate it very differently from that nasty farm-house ; you shall see how well I understand such things !”

“Yes, no doubt, you understand all about eating up money,” retorted her father.

Athénaïs began to sulk.

“All right,” she said spitefully, “do as you please; perhaps you'll be sorry you didn't listen to me ; but then it will be too late.”

“What do you mean ?” queried Bénédict.

“I mean,” she replied, “that, when Madame de Raimbault finds out who the person is whom we have been boarding for three weeks, she will be furious with us, and will turn us out at the end of the lease with all sorts of lawyer's tricks and spiteful treatment. Wouldn't it be better to have the honors of war on our side and retire before we are driven back ?”