George Sand

“ Well, let us give thanks to the beautiful d’Aillane who resembles the Naiad and who has cured our madman. We must marry him at any cost, and we must ask for her at once, before it is known whether she will have a dowry, for should such be the case she will consider herself too grand a lady to marry a lawyer. Why the deuce didn’t Madame d’Ionis confide the case of the liquidation to me? We would know how to act better than this old Parisian lawyer, who won’t get through with it in six months. Do they ever really work in Paris? They mix themselves up in politics and neglect their business. ”

“ To act otherwise is to conceive a false idea of duty. Duty is not a military password, it is a religion, and a religion which would prescribe evil, ceases to be one. Hush! speak to me no more of your charge. Do not place M. d’Ionis’ ambition above my honor, do not make a sacred thing of this ambition. It is a disgraceful thing, no more, and no less. Unite your efforts with mine to save these unfortunate people. Act so that I may find in you a friend after my own heart, rather than an infallible legislator and an implacable lawyer! ”

“ Her breathless little voice, and her peculiar lisp had the effect of causing her to appear so extraordinary that I did not dare to look her in the face for fear of losing my countenance.
“Let me see,” said I, endeavoring to encourage her in her revelations, “madame the dowager countess is something of a tease; she likes to amuse herself at the expense of others!”
“No, sir, no indeed. She does it in perfect good faith; she believes, she imagines”—I sought in vain for what the countess might imagine, when Zéphyrine added with an effort—“In fact, sir, my poor mistress believes in spirits!” ”

“ I felt that all comparisons are puerile between inanimate objects and beings that bear no resemblance to each other. This inspiration of Jean Goujon’s had a beauty peculiar to itself—the face wore an expression of sublime sweetness—and seemed to communicate a feeling of repose and happiness to the mind, like the 48sensation of freshness imparted by the continuous murmur of the limpid waters of the fountain. At last Madame d’Ionis made her appearance. ”

“ Engaged in numberless affairs, he had confided to me the care of subduing the generous impulses of this admirable woman, by taking refuge behind pretended scruples which he only considered as accessories. It was a very good idea, but he had not foreseen any more than myself that I would share Madame d’Ionis’ opinion to such an extent. I was at an age when material wealth is of no value in the imagination; it is a period of a wealth of heart. ”

“ When they saw how brave you were, more courageous than the abbé Lamyre, upon whom Caroline had played a similar trick, to amuse herself, they thought they could treat you to an apparition, in which there would be nothing very terrifying. I happened to be here, secretly, as the dowager d’Ionis would not willingly have suffered my presence. Caroline, struck with my resemblance to the nymph of the fountain, conceived the idea of arranging my hair and dressing me in a similar style so that I should deliver my oracle in due form. ”

“ Can any one recount a dream?”
“Perhaps if your memory were assisted,” said Madame d’Ionis with great coolness, determined to encourage her mother-in-law’s hobby; “did they say nothing to you about the future prosperity of this house?”
“It seems to me they did, in fact.”
“Ah! you see, Zéphyrine,” cried the dowager; “you who believe in nothing and I wager that they spoke of the law suit: come, Monsieur Nivières, tell us all about it.”
A glance from Madame d’Ionis warned me not to answer. I declared that not a word of the law suit had I heard in my dreams. ”

“ You have no ambition for money, and for my part I have no prejudices in favor of nobility. So we both agree. I have your word and you have mine. Only I insist upon my daughter deciding the matter. And my dear M. Nivières, you must allow your son to pay his own addresses, for his love is so recent, that it depends upon him to prove its sincerity. As to his character and his talents, with those we are familiar, and there can be no objections on that score.”
I was thus allowed to become a constant visitor at the château d’Ionis, and this was, as regards the past, the happiest time of my life. ”

“ I thought I was the dupe of some mystery, and was about to leap resolutely into the middle of the room in order to frighten those who wished to terrify me when, remembering that in this house there could be none but respectable women, perhaps great ladies, who were doing me the honor of amusing themselves at my expense, I suddenly drew my curtain and hurriedly dressed myself. ”

“ Her peculiar attire was precisely that of the naiad; a robe or floating tunic, made of some indescribable and 63marvellous tissue whose soft folds seemed wet and clinging; an exquisitely wrought diadem, and showers of pearls were entwined in her magnificent hair, with that mixture of peculiar luxury and happy caprice which characterizes the taste of the renaissance; in singular and charming contrast to the altogether simple garment, and which evinced its richness only in the easy grace of its arrangement and the minute finish of the jewels, and delicate details of the coiffure. ”

“ I confess that I took fright at this hypothesis and that I then understood my father’s scruples. To hold in one’s hands the destiny of a client and to sacrifice her rights to a question of sentiment, is a fine role when one can fill it openly and by her order; but such was not my position. On account of M. d’Ionis, it was necessary to preserve appearances, to execute errors adroitly, and to employ deceit in order that virtue might triumph. ”

“ I obtained my husband’s consent that this suit should not be confided to another; I hoped that your father, the best and most honest man of my acquaintance would succeed in saving this unhappy family from the rigorous pursuit of my own. A lawyer can always show himself reticent and generous, above all when he knows that he will not be blamed by his principal client. And I am this client, monsieur. It concerns my fortune, and not M. d’Ionis, which nothing menaces. ”

“ For a moment I shared your exaltation, I hoped at least that it would bring you back to the ideas of delicacy and justice that at heart you cherish. But I know not what exaggerated scruples or what habits of passive obedience to your father, have caused you to hear such chimerical words. Shake off these illusions, there have been no ghosts, nor has there been any mysterious voice, your head was affected by the indigestible perusal of that old manuscript, and by the abbé Lamyre’s doleful stories. ”

“ The presence of this full moon blunted my ideas, and impeded the flight of my imagination.
And then Zéphyrine was thinking of the thing, that I, most naturally, would gladly have forgotten.
“You see now, Madame Caroline,” said she to Madame d’Ionis, while crossing the gallery on the ground floor, “there is nothing at all in the green ladies’ room; M. Nivières has slept there undisturbed.” ”

“ I was an only son, my father possessed some fortune and I could also acquire one. I was only a bourgeois, who owed a position to a magistracy in the past, and in the present to the consideration attached to talent and probity; but we were in the midst of a philosophical 40period, and without thinking ourselves on the verge of a radical revolution, one could readily admit the idea of an impoverished woman of quality, marrying a man of lower condition in easy circumstances.
In short, my youthful imagination was fired, and my young heart instinctively desired the loss of Madame d’Ionis’ fortune. ”

“ Ah! that, monsieur, is a case in which you must have the kindness to invent something, a dream without sense or connection, whatever you please, provided it includes the three young ladies, otherwise madame the dowager will be like a soul in torment, and will accuse me of not putting the loaves, and carafes and salt-cellar in their places, or rather that I have warned you, and that your incredulity has prevented the ghosts from making their appearance. ”

“ Write to your father that I am resisting and that you are endeavoring to overcome my scruples. To my mother-in-law, we will have the appearance of studying the chances of success together. She is persuaded that I am a born lawyer, and Heaven is my witness, that before this deplorable affair, I knew no more about such things than she herself, which isn’t saying much! Come,” she added, resuming her charming and sympathetic gayety, “do not let us torment ourselves and don’t be so sad! ”

“ You are mistaken,” cried Madame d’Ionis excitedly. “I assure you, you are mistaken. These are legal subtilities which may deceive a man grown old in the practice of law, but that a sensible young man ought not to accept as an absolute rule of conduct.... If your father has undertaken the suit, and you admit that he has done so at my request, it is because he foresaw my intentions. ”

“ My good creature, I don’t doubt it,” answered the young woman.
“M. Nivières doesn’t impress me as a fool but that doesn’t hinder me from believing that the abbé Lamyre did see something there.”
31“Indeed,” said I, with some emotion, “I have occasionally had the honor of seeing Monsieur de Lamyre, and I should have thought him no more of a fool than myself.”
“He is not a fool, sir,” replied Zéphyrine, “he is fond of a joke which gives a serious tone to his jests.”
“No,” said Madame d’Ionis with decision, “he is a clever man with a powerful imagination. ”

“ I asked myself, “and why has this vulgar accessory of my supper, the bread, tormented my aged hostess to such an extent?” “Why were three loaves so expressly ordered? Why not four! Why not ten? Since they take me for an ogre! Upon my word! This is really a bounteous feast, and here are some bottles of wine whose etiquettes promise well. But why three carafes of water? Here again it becomes mysterious and absurd. Does this good old countess imagine that I am triple, or that I carry two guests in my valise?” I was musing upon this enigma when some one knocked at the door of the ante-chamber. ”

“ She was silent for a moment, I sought for some subject of conversation while awaiting the time when I might retire, when she appeared a prey to a certain perplexity, placed her hand on a bell, and stopped to say as if speaking to herself—“Still three loaves!”
“It is a great deal in fact,” answered I, repressing a strong temptation to laugh. She looked at me in amazement, unconscious that she had spoken aloud.
“You speak of the law suit,” said she, as if to make me forget her distraction, “it is a great deal that they claim. Do you think we will gain it?” ”

“ I was in love with a ghost, I could not even say with a dead woman. All my historical researches resolved themselves into this. The three demoiselles d’Ionis had possibly never existed save in legend. Their history, fixed by the latest chroniclers at the period of Henri II, was already old and uncertain, even at that date. No evidence of them remained: no title, name or crest among the d’Ionis family papers that my father happened to have in his possession on account of the suit, not even a tombstone in any part of the country. ”

“ We are weak creatures, who think ourselves strong; who knows if we do not thus render ourselves more material than God desired, and if what we take for lucidity of vision is not really blindness. Like myself, you believe in the immortality of the soul. Is an absolute separation between our own and those freed from matter so clear a thing to conceive that we can prove it?”
She talked in this fashion for several minutes with a great deal of intelligence and imagination ”

“ The ghost was seated in an easy chair placed at the foot of my bed. I could not see its face. The head and bust were not invisible, but partially obscured by the curtain of the alcove. The light from the fire-place, grown brighter, revealed only the lower portion of a figure and the folds of a garment whose form and color though indeterminate, could no longer be called into question.
It was fearfully immovable, as if nothing breathed under this species of shroud. I waited several moments 25that appeared an age to me. I felt that I was losing the coolness with which I had armed myself. ”

“ I remained for some time absorbed, not from the effects of this perusal, but rather on account of Madame d’Ionis’ pretty handwriting and her elegant revision of the other reflections that accompanied the legend. I did not then make, as I permit myself to-day, any criticism on the easy scepticism of this beautiful lady. I fully sympathized with her on this point. It was the fashion to regard fantastical things not from an artistic but from an ironical point of view. People prided themselves upon not crediting nurses’ tales or the superstitions of former ages. ”

“ I thought I could make up for my laziness by seriously thinking over the d’Ionis law suit, that I had at the end of my fingers, and I prepared the arguments with which I was to convince the countess of the steps she ought to take. Only, each of these wonderful arguments terminated, I know not how, with some amorous madrigal which had no direct connection with the procedure.
In the midst of this important work I was seized with hunger. The muse is not so hard upon children of a family accustomed to live well as to forbid them to sup with a good appetite. ”