Georges Ohnet

“ Micheline, wiping her beautiful eyes, still wet with tears, regained her apartment.
“Well,” said Cayrol timidly, seeing the mistress standing silent and absorbed before him; “I see with pleasure that you are less agitated. Did Mademoiselle Micheline give you good reasons?”
“Good reasons!” cried Madame Desvarennes with a violent gesture, last flash of the late storm. “She cried, that’s all. And you know when she cries I no longer know what I do or say! She breaks my heart with her tears. And she knows it. Ah! it is a great misfortune to love children too much!” ”

“ Your husband is a good, loyal man. If you cannot love him, he will command your respect. In marrying him, you have entered into engagements toward him. Fulfil them; it is your duty.”
Jeanne felt overpowered and vanquished. “But what will my life be?” she groaned.
“That of an honest woman,” replied Madame Desvarennes, with true grandeur. “Be a wife; God will make you a mother, and you will be saved.”
Jeanne bowed herself at these words. She no longer felt in them the selfishness of the mother. What the mistress now said was sincere and true. ”

“ My will alone protects me, and in a moment of weakness it may betray me.”
“You still love him?” asked Madame Desvarennes, in a deep voice which made Serge quiver.
“Do I know? There are times when I think I hate him. What I have endured since I have been here is incredible! Everything galls me, irritates me. My husband is blind, Micheline unsuspicious, and Serge smiles quietly, as if he were preparing some treachery. Jealousy, anger, contempt, are all conflicting within me. I feel that I ought to go away, and still I feel a horrible delight in remaining.” ”

“ She felt how useless was further argument, and falling on a sofa, crushed with grief, cried:
“Ah! this time it is finished; I am lost!”
Panine, then, approaching her, insinuating and supple, like the serpent with the first woman, murmured in her ear, as if afraid lest his words, in being spoken aloud, would lose their subtle venom:
“No, you are not lost. On the contrary, you are saved, if you will only listen to and understand me. What are we, you and I? You, a child adopted by a generous woman; I, a ruined nobleman. You live in luxury, thanks to Madame Desvarennes’s liberality. ”

“ Jeanne and Serge met every day at the little house in the Avenue Maillot. Cayrol was too much engaged with the new anxieties which Herzog caused him, to look after his wife, and left her quite free to amuse herself. Besides, he had not the least suspicion. Jeanne, like all guilty women, overwhelmed him with kind attentions, which the good man mistook for proofs of love. The fatal passion was growing daily stronger in the young woman’s heart, and she would have found it impossible to have given up her dishonorable happiness with Panine. ”

“ Madame Desvarennes remained silent for a moment, then, with sudden tenderness, and as if to make up for her daughter’s treachery, said:
“Come, let me kiss you again, my poor boy. You suffer, eh? and I too! I am quite overcome. For ten years I have cherished the idea of your marrying Micheline. You are a man of merit, and you have no relatives. You would not take my daughter away from me; on the contrary I think you like me, and would willingly live with me. In arranging this marriage I realized the dream of my life. ”

“ He no longer argued; he pleaded. Micheline felt victorious. She was moved with pity.
“Alas! my poor Pierre, my affection was only friendship, and my heart has not changed toward you. The love which I now feel is quite different. If it had not come to me, I might have been your wife. And I esteemed you so much, that I should have been happy. But now I understand the difference. You, whom I had accepted, would never have been more to me than a tender companion; he whom I have chosen will be my master.”
Pierre uttered a cry at this cruel and frank avowal. ”

“ He suffered much when he was poor, he is making up for it now. We are guilty of some extravagances, ‘tis true; but what does it matter? For whom have you made a fortune? For me! For what object? My happiness! Well, I am happy to surround my Prince with the glory and pomp which suits him so well. He is grateful to me; he loves me, and I hold his love dearer than all else in the world; for if ever he ceases to love me I shall die!”
“Micheline!” cried Madame Desvarennes, beside herself, and seizing her daughter with nervous strength. ”

“ He had counted without considering Jeanne’s sanguine temperament, which would lead her to make any sacrifices to keep the man she adored.
“If you were rich, Serge,” she said, “I would not have made an effort to bring you back to me. But you are poor and I have a right to tell you that I love you. Life with you would be all devotedness and self-denial. Each pain endured would be a proof of love, and that is why I wish to suffer. Your life with mine would be neither sad nor humiliated; I would make it sweet by my tenderness, and bright by my happiness. ”

“ This manoeuvre succeeded each time, although Madame Desvarennes had seen through it from the first. It appeared as if the mother felt a secret joy in proving under all circumstances the unbounded adoration which she felt for her daughter. She often said:
“Pretty as she is, and rich as I shall make her, what husband will be worthy of Micheline? But if she believes me when it is time to choose one, she will prefer a man remarkable for his intelligence, and will give him her fortune as a stepping-stone to raise him as high as she chooses him to go.” ”

“ Is that what you desire?”
“And what can I do?” cried Serge, in despair. “Everything around me is giving way! Fortune, which has been my one aim in life, is escaping from me. The family which I have scorned is forsaking me. The friendship which I have betrayed overwhelms me. There is nothing left to me.”
“And my love, my devotion?” exclaimed Jeanne, passionately. “Do you think that I will leave you? We must go away. I asked you long ago. You resisted; the moment has now come. Be easy! Madame Desvarennes will pay and save your name. In exchange you will give her back her daughter. ”

“ When he spoke of his fears to Madame Desvarennes, the latter said:
“These young girls are so senseless. The notion of marriage puts them in such an incomprehensible state! Look at my daughter. She chatters like a magpie and skips about like a kid. She has two glow-worms under her eyelids! As to Jeanne, that’s another affair; she has the matrimonial melancholy, and has the air of a young victim. Leave them alone; it will all come right. But you must admit that the gayety of the one is at least as irritating as the languor of the other!” ”

“ Have you no grief?”
“Yes,” replied Pierre, solemnly, “it is almost killing me.”
“Nonsense! You are boasting!” cried Madame Desvarennes, vehemently. “Ah, scholar! figures have dried up your heart!”
“No,” replied the young man, with melancholy, “but work has destroyed in me the seductions of youth. It has made me thoughtful, and a little sad. I frightened Micheline, instead of attracting her. The worst is that we live in such a state of high pressure, it is quite impossible to grasp all that is offered to us in this life-work and pleasure. ”

“ A season during the springtime of our youth. Then autumn would come, sad and harsh. Our illusions would vanish like the swallows in romances, and we should find, with alarm, that we had taken the dream of a day for eternal happiness! Forgive my speaking plain words of disenchantment,” added Serge, seeing Jeanne rising abruptly, “but our life is being settled at this moment. Reason alone should guide us.”
“And I beseech you to be guided only by your heart,” cried Mademoiselle de Cernay, seizing the hands of the Prince, and pressing them with her trembling fingers. ”

“ The old Micheline, naturally indolent and cold, just living with the indolence of an odalisque stretched on silk cushions, had changed into a lively, loving sweetheart, with sparkling eyes and cheerful lips. Like those lowers which the sun causes to bloom and be fragrant, so Micheline under a look from Serge became animated and grown handsomer.
The mother looked on with bitterness; she spoke of this transformation in her child with ironical disdain, She was sure Micheline was not in earnest; only a doll was capable of falling in love so foolishly with a man for his personal beauty. ”

“ Before that blind love Madame Desvarennes shuddered. She thought of Micheline who loved Serge as Cayrol loved Jeanne.
“Suppose she chooses to go away with Serge,” said the mistress to herself. In a moment she saw the house abandoned, Micheline and Serge in foreign lands, and she alone in the midst of her overthrown happiness, dying of sadness and regrets. She made a last effort to move Cayrol.
“Come, must I appeal in vain? Can you forget that I was a sure and devoted friend to you, and that you owe your fortune to me? You are a good man and will not forget the past. ”

“ She, the woman of business? Could she hope to regenerate these poor wretches by her example? No! She could not teach them to be good, and they excelled in teaching others harm. She must leave this gilded vice, taking with her those she loved, and leave the idle and incompetent to consume and destroy themselves.
She felt disgusted, and resolved to do all to tear Micheline away from the contagion. In the meantime she must question Jeanne. A shadow appeared on the threshold: it was hers. In the darkness of the gallery Serge crept behind her without being seen. ”

“ Must you always be jealous? You know all wives leave their mothers to follow their husbands. It is the law of nature. You, in your day, remember, followed your husband, and your mother must have wept.”
“Did my mother love me as I love you?” asked Madame Desvarennes, impetuously. “I was brought up differently. We had not time to love each other so much. We had to work. The happiness of spoiling one’s child is a privilege of the rich. For you there was no down warm enough or silk soft enough to line your cradle. You have been petted and worshipped for twenty years. ”

“ Jeanne endured the tortures of Hades. Too proud to say anything after the explanation she had had with Serge, too much smitten to bear calmly the sight of her rival’s happiness, she saw draw near with deep horror the moment when she would belong to the man whom she had determined to marry although she did not love him. She once thought of breaking off the engagement; as she could not belong to the man whom she adored, at least she could belong to herself. ”

“ And that is what you advise, because you hope to share that miserable existence with him. You are urging him on to dishonor. His fate is in the hands of a man who adores you, who would sacrifice everything for you, as I would for Serge, and yet you have not thrown yourself at his feet! You have not offered your life as the price of your lover’s! And you say that you love him!”
“Ah!” stammered Jeanne, distracted. “You wish me to save him for you!”
“Is that the cry of your heart?” said Micheline, with crushing disdain. “Well, see what I am ready to do. ”