Camille

“ IV. Camille was petite, with a white skin, and long black hair, and graceful movements. She was swift to understand her mother's wishes, prompt to obey them. So much grace and beauty, joined to so much misfortune, were most disturbing to the Chevalier. He would frequently embrace the girl in an excited manner, exclaiming aloud: "I am not yet a wicked man!" ”

“ I have studied Camille closely; she is, to my eyes, one of the greatest women of our age. She has mind and she has goodness,—two qualities almost irreconcilable in woman; she is generous and simple,—two other grandeurs seldom found together in our sex. I have seen in the depths of her soul such treasures that the beautiful line of Dante on eternal happiness, which I heard her interpreting to you the other day, "Senza brama sicura ricchezza," seems as if made for her. ”

“ Although smarting with resentment at the false and cruel charge Camille had brought against him, Norman de Vere was touched to the heart by the fact that Finette had betrayed. The story of her grief at finding in her rich, abundant tresses the first gray hair had a deep pathos for the man who loved Camille still, in spite of her caprices and cruelties.
As he thought of her weeping over her misfortune before the hard, unsympathetic eyes of the secretly amused French maid, he forgot for a moment his own grievances; his manly heart grew warm with pitying love. ”

“ She wished to take Camille to a juvenile ball which was to be held that evening at a neighbouring mansion. She longed to observe the effect which her daughter's beauty would produce upon the outside world and upon her husband. She had passed a sleepless night in devising Camille's toilette, and she cherished the sweetest hopes. "It must be," she told herself, "that he will be proud, and the rest jealous of the poor little one! She will say nothing, but she will be the most beautiful!" ”

“ Also one may see from whom Camille inherited his wandering propensities. But for his fall—it was always unaccountable?"
"Monsieur, as one trips on the edge of a crevasse and disappears. His soul dropped into the frozen cleft that one cannot fathom."
"Madame will forgive my curiosity."
"But surely. There was no dark secret in my Camille's life. If the little head held pictures beyond the ken of us simple women, the angels painted them of a certainty. Moreover, it is that I willingly recount this grief to the wise friend that may know a solution."
"At least the little-wise can seek for one." ”

“ When she saw Camille’s tears—when she heard her passionate protestations of innocence, her wild prayers for her husband’s pardon—Mrs. de Vere could not help but pity the passionate, undisciplined creature. She spoke only the kindest words to her; she promised her that in time she would win her husband’s heart back to her, if it had not turned to ice.
“Only be prudent and good, Camille. Shun all other men and live only for your husband, and all will come right,” she advised, in her ignorance of Norman’s true reasons. ”

“ Attalie pushes it softly, looks into the darkened chamber and draws back, whispering, "He has dropped asleep."
Camille changes places with her and looks in. Then he moves a step across the threshold, leans forward peeringly, and then turns about, lifts his ill-kept forefinger, and murmurs while he fixes his little eyes on hers:
"If you make a noise, or in any way let any one know what has happened, it will cost you all he is worth. I will leave you alone with him just ten minutes." He makes as if to pass by her towards the stair, but she seizes him by the wrist. ”

“ The girl was the daughter of a small grape-grower, a friend of Canine's; they thought Camille was in London as a dressmaker, making a lot of money, because she sent money home to her father. Camille offered to take her, saying she would be sure to get on, if not in one way, then in another; that good-looking girls always did well in London. The girl was mad to come, and persuaded her parents to let her do so; believing that Camille got her living honestly; she was to be her servant until she could be put in the way of doing well. ”

“ If to herself actually, then in case of his early death, for Camille had got a notion of that, and had got it from Attalie, who had got it from the Englishman,—what then? Would she get his money, or any of it? No, not if Camille knew men—especially white men. For a quadroon woman to be true to herself and to her God was not the kind of thing that white men—if he knew them—rewarded. ”

“ Camille’s smile began to fade.
“I do not understand. Has the mere sight of an old friend so overcome you?” she asked, with a little of her old coquetry; and, going nearer, she laid her white hand on his arm, but he shrunk in horror from her light touch. ”

“ She looked him in the face. “I can read your eyes, and I know you love me. I think you mean to kill me. I have heard men kill the thing they love.”
“Of course they do; sooner than another should have it, they kill it—they kill it.”
“God has not made them patient like us women. Poor Camille!”
“Patience dies when hope dies. Come, Madame Raynal, say a prayer, for you are going to die.”
“God bless you, Camille!” said the poor girl, putting her hands together in her last prayer. At this sweet touch of affection, Camille hung his head, and sobbed. ”

“ Even if I loved you, if I were blind to all else, if I forgot all else, I should still see Camille! Her love for you is a barrier too high to be o'erleaped by any power, even by the wings of an angel; none but a devil would fail to recoil before such treachery. In this, my dear Calyste, are many motives which delicate and noble women keep to themselves, of which you men know nothing; nor could you understand them, even though you were all as like our sex as you yourself appear to be at this moment.
My child, you have a mother who has shown you what you ought to be in life. ”

“ He was never so well pleased as when he saw his mistress surrounded by people—a taste which is rarely found, but which is very convenient, and the sign of a temperament not afflicted by jealousy. Camille had no other lovers—an astonishing thing in an actress of the kind, but being full of tact and wit she drove none of her admirers to despair. ”

“ Attalie hid her shapely forehead again on the dead hand. "I cannot leave him. Do what you please, only let me stay here. Oh! let me stay here."
"I see," said Camille, with cold severity, "like all women, you count the foolish sentiments of the living of more value than the reasonable wish of the dead." He waited a moment for these words to take effect upon her motionless form, and then, seeing that—again like a woman—she was waiting and wishing for compulsion, he lifted her by one arm. "Come. Go. And make haste to get back again; we are losing priceless time." ”

“ There, with my hand shading my eyes from the level glory of sunset that flamed into the room, I listened to the strange tale of Camille's seizure.
"Once, Monsieur, I lived in myself and was exultant with a loneliness of fancied knowledge. My youth was my excuse; but God could not pardon me all. I read where I could find books, and chance put an evil choice in my way, for I learned to sneer at His name, His heaven, His hell. Each man has his god in self-will, I thought in my pride, and through it alone he accepts the responsibility of life and death. ”

“ Camille breathed fiercely, her fingers working with convulsive eagerness, her throat swelling.
“Hush, miladi! Life will be more cruel to her than death. And how young she is! Think how long she will have to live to bear her deep disgrace!”
She unstoppered the silver vinaigrette that swung from her belt, and held it to Thea’s nostrils. ”

“ Camille had been in her youth the least beautiful of the sisters, but her features had been more solid, and had resisted admirably the wear of time. She was a dream in her soft white embroidered muslin, with her slightly silvered hair piled high on her head, and surmounted by a wonderful shell comb; and Major Bryant was there to see. ”

“ Camille had given him a young girl, for whose keep she paid, who lived with Tour d’Auvergne in furnished apartments in the Rue de Taranne, and whom he said he loved as one loves a portrait, because she came from Camille. The count often took her with him to Camille’s to supper. She was fifteen, simple in her manners, and quite devoid of ambition. She told her lover that she would never forgive him an act of infidelity except with Camille, to whom she felt bound to yield all since to her she owed all. ”

“ Camille Desmoulins has appointed himself Procureur-Général de la Lanterne, Attorney-General of the Lamp-iron; and pleads, not with atrocity, under an atrocious title; editing weekly his brilliant Revolutions of Paris and Brabant. Brilliant, we say: for if, in that thick murk of Journalism, with its dull blustering, with its fixed or loose fury, any ray of genius greet thee, be sure it is Camille’s. The thing that Camille teaches he, with his light finger, adorns: brightness plays, gentle, unexpected, amid horrible confusions; often is the word of Camille worth reading, when no other’s is. ”

“ She was an English woman. Camille suggested I should have her; the old woman demurred, but Camille settled (and I really used to do almost what she advised) , that I should have her and look at the grey cu*t at the same time. So it came about; but when half up to spunking time, Camille said, "Take it out of me and put it into her." When a p*ick stands and novelty is in the way it rushes at it. ”

“ To impute moral sublimity to a white man and a quadroon woman at one and the same time and in one and the same affair was something beyond the powers of Camille's small soul. But he gave Attalie, on the instant, full credit, over credit it may be, and felt a momentary thrill of spiritual contagion that he had scarcely known before in all his days. ”

“ Uncle Giraud had as yet failed utterly to rouse Camille. She steadily refused to be interested in anything. At last, one day he determined to take her, nolens volens, to the opera. A new and beautiful dress was purchased for the occasion. When, attired in this, Camille saw herself in the glass, so pleased was she with the pretty picture that, to her good uncle's intense satisfaction, she actually smiled!
VII.
Camille soon wearied of the opera. All—actors, musicians, audience—seemed to say to her "We speak, and you cannot; we hear, laugh, sing, rejoice. You rejoice in nothing, hear nothing. ”

“ Alas! what could I do for your happiness? Nothing. Do not betray that infinite love which contents itself with the duties of motherhood. Ah! I think her very fortunate, my Camille! She can well afford to forgive your feeling for poor Beatrix; women of her age are indulgent to such fancies. When they are sure of being loved, they will pardon a passing infidelity; in fact, it is often one of their keenest pleasures to triumph over a younger rival. Camille is above such women, and that remark does not refer to her; but I make it to ease your mind. ”

“ Camille and her maid were in a flurry of nervous excitement after the arrival of Norman and his mother. They scarcely knew what to think—whether the arrival was a portent of good or ill to themselves.
Camille was rather inclined to believe that Norman, weary of the conflict in which she always came off triumphant, had at last capitulated to the force of circumstances.
“He gives up the contest. Fate and a woman’s cunning have been too strong for him,” she declared, maliciously; and she sent Finette to her mother-in-law’s room to inquire if she might come in and congratulate her on her recovery. ”

“ Pétion, Mercier, and Robespierre. Then, the wedding party ascended the Rue de Condé to go and breakfast at Camille's home, No. 1 Rue du Théâtre François (to-day, No. 38 Rue de l'Odéon) , on the third floor. There, on the 20th of March 1794, the day of his mother's death, he was arrested, bound like a malefactor, and thence was taken to the Luxembourg hard by. On the 5th of April, Camille was executed amid the shouts of the people who had so flattered him. Lucile followed him to the scaffold a week later! They had sworn to love each other in life and death.... The idyll finished in blood. ”

“ At this point Camille broke off for a little space, and lay back on his pillow. When he spoke again it was out of the darkness, with his face turned to the wall.
"Monsieur, I cannot dwell upon it—I must hasten. We have no right to peer beyond the boundary God has drawn for us. I saw His hell—I saw His hell, I tell you. It is peopled with the damned—silent, horrible, distorted in the midst of ashes and desolation. ”

“ Come, now, if you are a man of honor, if you have a spark of gratitude towards the poor woman who has given you all except her fair name—that she will take to the grave in spite of you all—promise that you will leave Raynal’s house this minute if he is alive, and let me die in honor as I have lived.”
“No, no!” cried Camille, terror-stricken; “it cannot be. Heaven is merciful, and Heaven sees how happy we are. ”

“ Camille, who was too intelligent not to realise her brother’s nothingness, was fond of teasing him; and looking at him as he stood there, tightly buttoned in his long frock coat with pleated skirt—a resurrection of the romantic period, which he carried to exaggeration, she resumed: “Mamma has been asking for you, Hyacinthe. Come and show her your gown. You are the one who would look nice dressed as a young girl.” ”

“ One evening I was in the foyer of the Italian Comedy, where between the acts the highest noblemen were in the habit of coming, in order to converse and joke with the actresses who used to sit there waiting for their turn to appear on the stage, and I was seated near Camille, Coraline's sister, whom I amused by making love to her. A young councillor, who objected to my occupying Camille's attention, being a very conceited fellow, attacked me upon some remark I made respecting an Italian play, and took the liberty of shewing his bad temper by criticizing my native country. ”