René de Pont-Jest

“ At this merciless outrage Mme. Meyrin sunk into a chair, hiding in her hands the flush of shame that had surged to her face. She, the Countess of Barineff, the ex-Princess Olsdorf, had come to the pass of bandying taunts with a painter's model! To this point had her love brought her for a man of a lower social condition than her own. She recalled, too, the miserable part she had had to play in the Rue Auber when she had had to be a witness against her innocent husband of his alleged adultery, and the tears of humiliation that had streamed from her eyes. ”

“ I feel within me a medley of passions. You are not for the man who loves merely the woman desired; you are also for the painter, the model he has dreamed of—the marvel of grace and beauty that will inspire him. You are not simply the woman who says 'Love;' you are the ideal as well that says 'Glory.' If it were otherwise, should I have had the courage to follow you, should I dare to speak as I am speaking, to take your hand and tell you that with my soul, with my senses, with my imagination—I love you—I love you?"
Paul had seized her hands and was covering them with kisses. ”

“ Soublaieff, who had followed his master into the fencing-room, saw Vera coming out of the chapel.
Seeing her father, whom she did not expect, the young girl stopped suddenly, stifling a cry of fear, but when he came forward to her, smiling, and with opened arms, she sprung to his breast, crying:
"Father, dear, dear father."
"Vera, my darling Vera," said Alexei again and again, covering her forehead with kisses, "the prince has told me all. I have no reproaches for you. God will reward your devotion. We will part no more. You shall be as happy as you deserve to be." ”

“ At this moment Mme. Daubrel entered.
"God has sent you, Marthe. Look, read."
She gave her Mme. Podoi's letter and Vera's telegram.
"My poor friend," said Mme. Daubrel. "What will you do?"
"I shall go to Pampeln."
"To Pampeln—you?"
"Yes, I. The prince is away, and I wish to save my son. I feel that I shall save him."
"But your husband?"
"I have no husband; I have only my children. While I am away you will watch over my daughter, will you not? I beg it of you."
"I promise—I swear it. She shall be my daughter." ”

“ THE STUDIO IN THE RUE D'ASSAS.
While Prince Olsdorf had gone from the sight of all who loved him, and Vera Soublaieff, in despair, but obedient, was devoting herself at Pampeln to the two poor little forsaken ones intrusted to her care, Mme. Paul Meyrin found forgetfulness of the past in the love of the man she had chosen. The memory of her children, parted from her forever, sometimes wrung her heart; and when her mother chose, from time to time, to send her any news of them, her eyes would fill with tears. ”

“ Mme. Meyrin continued. "You are a noble and saintly girl. God could not give them a more worthy guardian. I will beg of Him, in my most earnest prayers, never to part them from you. Swear that you will fill my place always, not because I am going away, but because I shall not live long."
"Madame la Comtesse!" cried Vera, her eyes full of tears, and covering with kisses the young woman's hands, which pressed hers convulsively.
"Oh, I feel it. I am mortally wounded. Can a mother divide her heart into two parts? It is my punishment. You will see the prince again. ”

“ When she was enceinte with Tekla she had hidden the fact up to the last moment from coquetry; but whom should she now put herself to inconvenience for? Was not she sure of the love of her husband? Had not she the right to be proud of the motherhood which would fill the sorrowful blank made by fate around her? She would not forget her absent children, their place was always in her heart. But she would love this sweet child with the love she bore to all three.
She was unwilling, therefore, to commit any imprudence, and once again in her nature the mistress made way for the mother. ”

“ They shall not leave the house."
"I promise they shall not, Madame la Comtesse," said Soublaieff's daughter, taking the children by the hand.
"Is it you, Vera? Forgive me; I could see only them. Let Marthe take them, and you come here to me, while I can still speak."
The young prince and his sister went out with Mme. Daubrel.
"How beautiful you are! And you are as good as you are beautiful," said Lise to the young girl, who, before she could hinder it, had kissed her hand as in the olden time. "How worthy to be loved, too!" ”

“ I feared your husband might use violence to you, and I was so sure of a challenge from him that I have spoken to a couple of friends."
"As your seconds! In a duel!" cried Lise Olsdorf, throwing her arms around the young man's neck. "Oh, if I had dreamed the prince had such an idea he should not have left this room alive."
"Dear, foolish child!" said Paul Meyrin, returning the passionate embrace. "But, while awaiting the divorce, what will you do? How shall we live? Will not the prince make you leave Paris?" ”

“ For the first time the unhappy woman regretted the past, and felt remorse. For many days nothing could console her. She was insensible even to Paul's caresses, and he himself was much affected by the loss of their daughter; but little by little their love gained through this trial an elevation that hitherto it had been lacking in. They loved less coarsely, because they wept together.
There is nothing that transforms a deep passion as a deep sorrow does. Passion tried in the fire quits in part the senses to penetrate to the heart, till then scarcely touched. ”

“ Neither of us is timid or fearful of calling things by their real name; neither of us is a coward, ready to fly before danger. You love me, or think you do; and you fancy that in the sittings you ask of me the chance would surely offer to speak to me of your love. But what if I do not love you?—if I look upon your protestations and declarations as outrages, and have you expelled from the house by my servants, what will you do, what will you say, what will become of you? Do you still hold by this masterpiece, which I say is a mere pretext?"
Lise Olsdorf, speaking thus, was superb in her energy. ”

“ Then, through her tears, recognizing Soublaieff's daughter, who had drawn near and was bending to kiss her hand, as formerly, she took her to her heart, saying:
"You? Ah, may Heaven reward you!"
"Madame la Comtesse," replied Vera, giving, from an exquisite delicacy of feeling, her maiden rank to the ex-Princess Olsdorf, "I have only done my duty."
"Yes; may Heaven reward you!" Mme. Meyrin repeated. "I know well what your life has been since you left Elva. Calumny itself has not dared to breathe a word against you. Let us forget the past and speak of it no more. ”

“ She held them from her a little—oh! only the length of her arms—to see them better for a moment or two, then snatched them back to her heart, raining on them again tears and kisses and a thousand endearments, to which the children replied only by their kisses, their tears, their tenderness, and one word: "Mamma."
Great as was the happiness of the poor mother, and on account indeed of the fullness of her joy, Mme. Daubrel thought it prudent to put an end to so touching a scene.
"You promised me to be good and calm," she said to Lise, calling Alexander and Tekla from her with a look. ”

“ Never was woman more beautiful, more desirable, more intoxicating than Vera in her sorrow and her chaste abandon. The dusky flood of her hair sweeping about her, her scarlet lips parted as if they begged for a kiss, the subtle fragrance of youth and maidenhood that innocently offered itself—all this intoxicated Pierre Olsdorf. He had seized in his the cold hands of the young girl, and, his head swimming, he felt himself drawn irresistibly to her. ”

“ She could scarcely stand.
"Nothing, nothing," she said, making a great effort not to betray herself further. "It is the fatigue of the journey, no doubt. Let me go to bed now, father. I shall see you to-morrow, shall I not?"
"Yes, dear Vera, to-morrow. I have promised the prince to come and take his instructions to-morrow. I shall go back to Elva now. Do you have a good night's rest, and you will be as strong and brave when you wake as if you had not traveled four hundred leagues."
And Soublaieff, having kissed his daughter tenderly, retired. ”

“ Now, as I have no ambition to write one of these books, I will only say what is needful to make myself understood of the passion which had brought Lise Olsdorf and Paul Meyrin together. What I wish to sketch is the moral depths into which a woman quickly sinks when, yielding to her animal desires alone, she throws herself blindly and recklessly into the arms of a man who is of neither her world, race, nor education. ”

“ Daubrel had got from Vera Soublaieff as well as from the Russian Embassy about Prince Olsdorf were correct, or as nearly so as is possible in the case of a traveler from whom letters are received only at long intervals, and who goes hither and thither, aimless and without guide but his whim, or with no wish but to forget. As if in leaving a place one did not carry all with one—hate, love, memories, and remorse. ”

“ The young woman, who had followed her mother, put an end to the scene by drawing her future husband into the room.
The general's wife looked at them for a moment with angry eyes, muttering, "The idiots!" and disappeared.
"Forgive me," said Lise to Paul, winding her arms about his neck.
"Forgive you?" said Paul, laughing. "Why, I've been hearing worse than that at home. They are all densely stupid. I beg your pardon for saying so. If I do not love you as much as I do they would make me adore you."
He crushed her in his arms, covering her eyes and lips with kisses. ”

“ Lise is a great deal too much of a fine lady, with her loosely knotted hair, her elegant gowns, her low-cut bodices, her silken hose, and her profuse jewelry, which she wears at every opportunity. Who does not know whence and from whom these things come? They were all very well for the Princess Olsdorf. Why should she always be reminding people that there was a time when she was not Madame Paul Meyrin? A divorced woman is obliged to be more reserved than other women; men, with their usual vanity, being ever ready to believe that, as she has made one slip, she may make another. ”

“ Vera replied only with a look from her great limpid eyes raised to his. Pierre Olsdorf pressed both her hands in his, and sprung into the drosky, to which fresh horses had been harnessed.
The young girl followed him with her eyes until he disappeared from sight at the end of the great avenue; then she slowly mounted the stairs, and passing through the fencing-room, gained the chapel, where she knelt in devotion on the stone floor, murmuring:
"If my father rejects me, what shall I do? Oh, God! have pity on me!" ”

“ At the thought of the struggle she was about to engage in, at the idea of the dangers that threatened her, on the eve of the conjugal drama of which she was the heroine, the actress's nature that she inherited from her mother and from her true father awoke in her, counseling revolt and strategy. She might have feared violence; but as the prince wrote that she had nothing of the sort to face, she cared little for the rest, provided always that she was not to be separated from her lover; as she was prepared for everything but this sacrifice, her calmness had suddenly returned. ”

“ It seemed to her that everything in it betrayed at once the painter's love for her, and she begged him not to go on with the work. Paul consented, but on condition that his model, re-enacting for him the shamelessness of the Italian princess for Canova, would let him some day secretly, for themselves alone, reproduce on canvas the splendor of all her beauty. And Lise, having promised in a passionate embrace, Paul Meyrin, going from one extreme to the other, painted her in a riding-habit, severely chaste. ”

“ Podoi never failed to fill her letters to her daughter with reproaches and insulting comparisons. As if to humiliate and awaken feelings of jealousy in her, she never mentioned Vera except in the most flattering terms.
"This young girl is irreproachable," she wrote to her five or six months after her marriage; "at Pampeln everybody loves and respects and obeys her. No one dares raise the least doubt of her virtue, of the purity of her relations with the prince during her stay in Paris. She is absolute mistress at the château, where your name in a very short time will not be remembered. ”

“ Dumesnil, who had often been surprised at meeting Paul so seldom in his studio, backed up all that Marthe said, and, wanting to allay the young woman's fears at any cost, he said, laughing at and scolding her too a little:
"Come, come, my dear child, you must not be raising specters and falling into despair so quickly. How could you think for a moment that Paul is forgetting or deceiving you? Don't believe it. He is young; he must have fresh air and exercise. ”

“ To her most intimate friend, General Podoi, who in the old days had wished to marry her, and was still deeply in love with her, she replied one day when he was pressing her to come to a decision:
"My dear general, I don't know whether I shall ever marry again. I doubt it. At any rate, I shall never commit this folly a second time until Lise herself is married. First of all, then, a husband must be found worthy of my daughter. You see, there is plenty of time yet. When I am about to become a grandmother, I shall be almost an old woman whom nobody will care for." ”

“ Above all things, do not marry her where divorce can follow. Divorce, mother, is nothing but a legal prostitution—a sort of challenge to adultery. It is an outrage on the laws of the Church and on modesty. Has any woman the right to pass from the arms of a living husband into those of another husband? Must not the divorced woman's brow redden at the thought of a possible, perhaps of an inevitable meeting between the two men who have possessed her? ”