In times of danger,he had done his duty at the risk of his life;his fidelity had never been compromised,and he determined to take his wife into general society without fear of its becoming so.His former mistresses could scarcely recognize the bride they had thought so childish in the elegant,witty,and gentle countess,who now appeared in society with the exquisite manners of the highest female aristocracy.Mesdames d'Espard,de Manerville,and Lady Dudley,with others less known,felt the serpent waking up in the depths of their hearts;they heard the low hissings of angry pride;they were jealous of Felix's happiness,and would gladly have given their prettiest jewel to do him some harm;but instead of being hostile to the countess,these kind,ill-natured women surrounded her,showed her the utmost friendship,and praised her to me.Sufficiently aware of their intentions,Felix watched their relations with Marie,and warned her to distrust them.They all suspected the uneasiness of the count at their intimacy with his wife,and they redoubled their attentions and flatteries,so that they gave her an enormous vogue in society,to the great displeasure of her sister-in-law,the Marquise de Listomere,who could not understand it.The Comtesse Felix de Vandenesse was cited as the most charming and the cleverest woman in Paris.Marie's other sister-in-law,the Marquise Charles de Vandenesse,was consumed with vexation at the confusion of names and the comparisons it sometimes brought about.Though the marquise was a handsome and clever woman,her rivals took delight in comparing her with her sister-in-law,with all the more point because the countess was a dozen years younger.
These women knew very well what bitterness Marie's social vogue would bring into her intercourse with both of her sisters-in-law,who,in fact,became cold and disobliging in proportion to her triumph in society.She was thus surrounded by dangerous relations and intimate enemies.
Every one knows that French literature at that particular period was endeavoring to defend itself against an apathetic indifference (the result of the political drama)by producing works more or less Byronian,in which the only topics really discussed were conjugal delinquencies.Infringements of the marriage tie formed the staple of reviews,books,and dramas.This eternal subject grew more and more the fashion.The lover,that nightmare of husbands,was everywhere,except perhaps in homes,where,in point of fact,under the bourgeois regime,he was less seen than formerly.It is not when every one rushes to their window and cries "Thief!"and lights the streets,that robbers abound.It is true that during those years so fruitful of turmoil--urban,political,and moral--a few matrimonial catastrophes took place;but these were exceptional,and less observed than they would have been under the Restoration.Nevertheless,women talked a great deal together about books and the stage,then the two chief forms of poesy.The lover thus became one of their leading topics,--a being rare in point of act and much desired.The few affairs which were known gave rise to discussions,and these discussions were,as usually happens,carried on by immaculate women.
A fact worthy of remark is the aversion shown to such conversations by women who are enjoying some illicit happiness;they maintain before the eyes of the world a reserved,prudish,and even timid countenance;they seem to ask silence on the subject,or some condonation of their pleasure from society.When,on the contrary,a woman talks freely of such catastrophes,and seems to take pleasure in doing so,allowing herself to explain the emotions that justify the guilty parties,we may be sure that she herself is at the crossways of indecision,and does not know what road she might take.
During this winter,the Comtesse de Vandenesse heard the great voice of the social world roaring in her ears,and the wind of its stormy gusts blew round her.Her pretended friends,who maintained their reputations at the height of their rank and their positions,often produced in her presence the seductive idea of the lover;they cast into her soul certain ardent talk of love,the "mot d'enigme"which life propounds to woman,the grand passion,as Madame de Stael called it,--preaching by example.When the countess asked naively,in a small and select circle of these friends,what difference there was between a lover and a husband,all those who wished evil to Felix took care to reply in a way to pique her curiosity,or fire her imagination,or touch her heart,or interest her mind.
"Oh!my dear,we vegetate with a husband,but we live with a lover,"said her sister-in-law,the marquise.
"Marriage,my dear,is our purgatory;love is paradise,"said Lady Dudley.
"Don't believe her,"cried Mademoiselle des Touches;"it is hell.""But a hell we like,"remarked Madame de Rochefide."There is often more pleasure in suffering than in happiness;look at the martyrs!""With a husband,my dear innocent,we live,as it were,in our own life;but to love,is to live in the life of another,"said the Marquise d'Espard.
"A lover is forbidden fruit,and that to me,says all!"cried the pretty Moina de Saint-Heren,laughing.
When she was not at some diplomatic rout,or at a ball given by rich foreigners,like Lady Dudley or the Princesse Galathionne,the Comtesse de Vandenesse might be seen,after the Opera,at the houses of Madame d'Espard,the Marquise de Listomere,Mademoiselle des Touches,the Comtesse de Montcornet,or the Vicomtesse de Grandlieu,the only aristocratic houses then open;and never did she leave any one of them without some evil seed of the world being sown in her heart.She heard talk of completing her life,--a saying much in fashion in those days;of being comprehended,--another word to which women gave strange meanings.She often returned home uneasy,excited,curious,and thoughtful.She began to find something less,she hardly knew what,in her life;but she did not yet go so far as to think it lonely.
