D'Arthez, for the first time, after sixty days of protocols, ventured to take that warm and perfumed hand, and press it to his lips with a long-drawn kiss, extending from the wrist to the tip of the fingers, which made the princess augur well of literature.She thought to herself that men of genius must know how to love with more perfection than conceited fops, men of the world, diplomatists, and even soldiers, although such beings have nothing else to do.She was a connoisseur, and knew very well that the capacity for love reveals itself chiefly in mere nothings.A woman well informed in such matters can read her future in a simple gesture; just as Cuvier could say from the fragment of a bone: This belonged to an animal of such or such dimensions, with or without horns, carnivorous, herbivorous, amphibious, etc., age, so many thousand years.Sure now of finding in d'Arthez as much imagination in love as there was in his written style, she thought it wise to bring him up at once to the highest pitch of passion and belief.
She withdrew her hand hastily, with a magnificent movement full of varied emotions.If she had said in words: "Stop, or I shall die," she could not have spoken more plainly.She remained for a moment with her eyes in d'Arthez's eyes, expressing in that one glance happiness, prudery, fear, confidence, languor, a vague longing, and virgin modesty.She was twenty years old! but remember, she had prepared for this hour of comic falsehood by the choicest art of dress; she was there in her armchair like a flower, ready to blossom at the first kiss of sunshine.True or false, she intoxicated Daniel.
It if is permissible to risk a personal opinion we must avow that it would be delightful to be thus deceived for a good long time.
Certainly Talma on the stage was often above and beyond nature, but the Princesse de Cadignan is the greatest true comedian of our day.
Nothing was wanting to this woman but an attentive audience.
Unfortunately, at epochs perturbed by political storms, women disappear like water-lilies which need a cloudless sky and balmy zephyrs to spread their bloom to our enraptured eyes.
The hour had come; Diane was now to entangle that great man in the inextricable meshes of a romance carefully prepared, to which he was fated to listen as the neophyte of early Christian times listened to the epistles of an apostle.
"My friend," began Diane, "my mother, who still lives at Uxelles, married me in 1814, when I was seventeen years old (you see how old Iam now!) to Monsieur de Maufrigneuse, not out of affection for me, but out of regard for him.She discharged her debt to the only man she had ever loved, for the happiness she had once received from him.Oh! you need not be astonished at so horrible a conspiracy; it frequently takes place.Many women are more lovers than mothers, though the majority are more mothers than wives.The two sentiments, love and motherhood, developed as they are by our manners and customs, often struggle together in the hearts of women; one or other must succumb when they are not of equal strength; when they are, they produce some exceptional women, the glory of our sex.A man of your genius must surely comprehend many things that bewilder fools but are none the less true; indeed I may go further and call them justifiable through difference of characters, temperaments, attachments, situations.I, for example, at this moment, after twenty years of misfortunes, of deceptions, of calumnies endured, and weary days and hollow pleasures, is it not natural that I should incline to fall at the feet of a man who would love me sincerely and forever? And yet, the world would condemn me.But twenty years of suffering might well excuse a few brief years which may still remain to me of youth given to a sacred and real love.This will not happen.I am not so rash as to sacrifice my hopes of heaven.I have borne the burden and heat of the day, Ishall finish my course and win my recompense.""Angel!" thought d'Arthez.
"After all, I have never blamed my mother; she knew little of me.
Mothers who lead a life like that of the Duchesse d'Uxelles keep their children at a distance.I saw and knew nothing of the world until my marriage.You can judge of my innocence! I knew nothing; I was incapable of understanding the causes of my marriage.I had a fine fortune; sixty thousand francs a year in forests, which the Revolution overlooked (or had not been able to sell) in the Nivernais, with the noble chateau of d'Anzy.Monsieur de Maufrigneuse was steeped in debt.
