Valentine (24 page)

For in that ecstasy of rapture he speedily forgot everything. He deemed himself as fortunate and as sure of the future as in the happy days at the farm; he imagined that the night would never end, that Valentine would never wake, and that he would live out his eternity of happiness in that room.

For a long time that blissful contemplation was without danger ; the very angels are less pure than the heart of a man of twenty when he loves passionately; but he trembled when Valentine, excited by one of those happy dreams to which opium gives birth, leaned gently toward him and feebly pressed his hand, murmuring indistinct words. Bénédict trembled and moved away from the bed, afraid of himself.

“Oh! Bénédict!” said Valentine slowly, in a faint voice, “Bénédict, was it you who married me to-day ? I thought that it was somebody else. Tell me that it was really you!”

“Yes, it was
I,
it was
I
!” said Bénédict, beside himself with excitement, as he pressed to his wildly beating heart that soft hand which sought his.

Valentine, half awake, sat up in bed, with eyelids parted, and gazed at him with expressionless eyes, wandering uncertainly in the vague land of dreams. There was an expression of something like terror in her features; then she closed her eyes, and smiled as her head fell back on the pillow.

“It was you whom I loved,” she said ; “ but how did they ever allow it ?”

She spoke so low and her articulation was so indistinct that her words fell upon Bénédict's ears like the angelic murmur one hears in dreams.

“O my beloved!” he cried, leaning over, “tell me that again, tell me again, and let me die of joy at your feet!”

But Valentine pushed him away.

“Leave me !” she said.

And her words became unintelligible.

Bénédict thought that he could understand that she took him for Monsieur de Lansac. He called himself by name again and again, and Valentine, hovering between reality and illusion, now waking, now falling asleep, innocently revealed all her secrets to him. At one time she fancied that Monsieur de Lansac was pursuing her, with drawn sword; she threw herself on Bénédict's breast, and exclaimed as she put her arms about his neck:

“Let us both die !”

“Oh! you are right,” he cried. “Be mine and let us die !”

He placed his pistols on the table and strained Valentine's inert and supple body to his heart. But again she said to him:

“Leave me, my friend ; I am dying of fatigue ; let me sleep.”

She rested her head on Bénédict's shoulder, and he dared not move for fear of disturbing her. It was such great joy to him to see her sleeping in his arms ! He had already forgotten that there could be any greater joy.

“Sleep, sleep, my life!” he whispered, touching her
forehead gently with his lips. “Sleep, my angel! Doubtless you can see the Virgin in heaven; and she smiles upon you, for she protects you. I promise you we shall be united there !”

He could not resist the temptation to unfasten gently her lace cap, and allow that magnificent fair hair, at which he had gazed lovingly so many times, to fall in waves about them both. How silky and fragrant it was ! How its cool touch kindled fever and delirious excitement in his veins ! A score of times he bit Valentine's sheets and his own hands, to cast himself loose from the frenzy of his joy by the sensation of physical pain. Seated on the edge of that bed, whose fine, perfumed linen made him quiver from head to foot, he suddenly fell on his knees, seeking to recover his self-control, and confined himself to gazing at her. Chastely he drew about her the embroidered lawn which protected her pure and untroubled bosom ; he even threw the curtain partly over her face, so that he could no longer see her, and could thereby muster courage to go away. But Valentine, with the longing for air which one feels in sleep, pushed the curtain away, and, moving nearer to him, seemed to invite his caresses with an artless and trustful air. He raised her thick tresses and filled his mouth with them to prevent himself from crying out; he wept with love and frenzy. At last, in a moment of indescribable anguish, he bit the round, white shoulder which she uncovered before him. He bit it cruelly, and she woke, but with no indication of suffering. When he saw her sit up in bed again, gaze at him more closely, and pass her hand over him to make sure that he was not a ghost, Bénédict, who was kneeling beside her in a sort of stupor, thought that he was lost. His blood, which was boiling madly in his veins, stood still; he turned
as pale as death, and said to her, not knowing what he said:

“Forgive me, Valentine ; I shall die if you do not take pity on me.”

“Pity on you !” she said, in the loud, sharp tone of the somnambulist; “what is the matter with you ? Are you ill ? Come to my arms as you did just now; come. Weren't you happy ?”

“O Valentine !” cried Bénédict, fairly beside himself, “do you mean it ? do you recognize me ? do you know who I am ?”

“Yes,” she said, letting her head fall drowsily on his shoulder; “ my dear nurse !”

“No ! no I Bénédict! Bénédict! Do you understand ? the man who loves you more than life! Bénédict !”

And he shook her to wake her, but that was impossible. He could arouse in her only the ardor born of dreams. But this time her dream was so vivid that he was deceived.

“Yes, it is you,” she said, raising her head again, “ my husband. I know you, my Bénédict; I love you too. Kiss me, but do not look at me. Put out the light; let me hide my face on your breast.”

As she spoke, she threw her arms about him and drew him toward her with an astounding feverish strength. Her cheeks wore a deep flush, her lips glowed with color. A sudden, fleeting flame shone in her dull eyes. But how could Bénédict distinguish that unhealthy excitement from the passionate frenzy by which he was himself consumed ? He threw himself upon her in desperation and, on the point of yielding to the violence of his agonizing desires, he uttered nervous, heart-rending cries. Instantly he heard footsteps, and the key turned in the
lock. He had barely time to jump behind the bed; Catherine entered.

She scrutinized Valentine closely; was evidently surprised by the disordered condition of her bed, and that her sleep should be so agitated. She drew a chair to the bed and sat beside her for about a quarter of an hour. Bénédict supposed that she intended to pass the rest of the night there, and he cursed her a thousand times. But Valentine, no longer excited by her lover's burning breath, relapsed into a state of motionless and peaceful torpor. Catherine, reassured as to her condition, concluded that she herself was dreaming when she thought that she heard shrieks. She rearranged the bed, drew the clothes over Valentine, replaced her hair under her cap, and adjusted the folds of her night-dress over her breast to keep off the night air; then she left the room on tiptoe and turned the key twice in the lock. Thus it was impossible to make his escape in that way.

When he found himself once more master of Valentine, fully realizing now the danger of his position, he walked away from the bed in dismay and threw himself on a chair at the other end of the room. There he hid his face in his hands, and tried to anticipate the consequences of his night's work.

He no longer had the ferocious courage which would have made it possible for him, a few hours earlier, to kill Valentine. After gazing upon her modest and soul-stirring charms, he felt that he had not the strength to destroy that lovely work of God : Lansac was the one whom he must kill. But Lansac could not die alone ; he himself must follow him to the tomb; and what would become of Valentine without lover or husband ? How would the death of one benefit her, if the other were not left ? And then, who could say that she would not curse the
murderer of the husband whom she did not love ? She was so pure and saintly, by nature so straightforward and honorable, would she appreciate the sublimity of a devotion which manifested itself by such a barbarous deed ? Would not Bénédict's memory be hateful and painful to her, stained with her husband's blood and branded with the terrible name of
assassin?

“Ah ! since I can never possess her,” he said to himself; “ I must see to it that she does not hate my memory ! I will die alone, and perhaps she will venture to weep for me in the privacy of her prayers.”

He drew a chair to Valentine's desk ; it contained everything necessary for writing. He lighted a candle and drew the bed-curtains so that the sight of her might not deprive him of the courage to bid her adieu forever. He bolted the door to avoid being taken by surprise, and wrote to Valentine as follows:

“It is two o'clock in the morning, and I am alone with you, Valentine, alone in your chamber, and you are more entirely in my power than you will ever be in your husband's, for you have told me that you love me; you have called me to your heart in the privacy of your dreams; you have almost returned my caresses; you have unconsciously made me the happiest and the most miserable of men; and yet, Valentine, I have respected you, amid the tortures of the most terrible frenzy that ever swallowed up the faculties of man. You are still lying there, pure and unprofaned at my hands, and you can wake without blushing. Oh ! Valentine, I must love you very dearly.

“But, agonizing and incomplete as my happiness has been, I must pay for it with my life. After hours like those which I have just passed at your knees, with my
lips glued to your hand, to your hair, to the unsubstantial garment which hardly covers you, I cannot live another day. After such transports I cannot return to commonplace life—to the hateful life which I should lead apart from you. Have no fear, Valentine ; the man who possessed you in his thoughts to-night will never again see the sunrise.

“Except for this irrevocable resolution, how could I have found courage to make my way to this room and to dream dreams of happiness ? How could I have dared to look at you and speak to you as I have done, even while you slept ? All my blood will be too small a price to pay for the fate which has sold me such moments as these.

“You must know all, Valentine. I came here to kill your husband. When I found that he had escaped me, I determined to kill you and myself. Have no fear; when you read this, my heart will have ceased to beat; but to-night, Valentine, at the very moment that you called me to your arms, a loaded pistol was pointed at your head.

“But I had not the courage—I should never have it. If I could kill you and myself with the same shot, it would have been done before this; but I should be compelled to see you suffer, to see your blood flow, your heart fight against death; and, though that sight should last but a second, that second alone would contain more agony than my whole life has known.

“Live, therefore, and let your husband live also. The letting him live is even more painful than the respect for you which tied my hands just now as I stood, dying with desire, at the foot of your bed. It costs me more to renounce the satisfaction of my hatred than it costs me to overcome my love; but it may be that his
death would bring dishonor upon you. Thus to exhibit my jealousy to the world would, perhaps, reveal your love as well as my own; for you love me, Valentine, you told me so just now, involuntarily. And last evening, in the field, when you were weeping on my breast, was not that love too ? Oh ! do not wake ; let me carry that belief with me to the tomb.

“My suicide will not compromise you ; you alone will know for whom I die. The surgeon's scalpel will not disclose your name written on my heart, but you will know that its last pulsations were for you.

“Adieu, Valentine ; adieu, thou first and only love of my life ! Many others will love you, as who would not ? But you will have been loved once and once only as you deserve to be loved. The heart which you have loved must needs return to God's bosom, in order not to degenerate on earth.

“After I am gone, Valentine, what will your life be ? Alas ! I do not know. Doubtless you will submit to your lot. My memory will grow dim ; you will put up with all that seems hateful to you to-day—indeed you will have to do it. O Valentine, I spare your husband so that you may not curse me, and that God may not shut me out of heaven, where a place is reserved for you, O God, protect me ! O Valentine, pray for me !

“Adieu ! I have just been to your bedside; you are sleeping quietly. Oh ! if you knew how lovely you are ! Never, oh! never, can a man's heart contain without bursting all the love which I have for you.

“If the soul is not an empty breath which the wind blows away, mine will live always near you.

“At eve, when you go to the end of the field, think of me if the breeze plays with your hair, and if, amid its cool caresses, you suddenly feel a burning breath; at
night, in your dreams, if a mysterious kiss grazes your cheek, remember Bénédict.”

He folded the letter and placed it on the table where his pistols lay, which Catherine had almost touched without seeing them. He uncocked them, put them in his pocket, leaned over Valentine, gazed at her with rapture for the first and last time; then he rushed to the window, and, with the courage of a man who has nothing to risk, dropped to the ground at the peril of his life. He might fall thirty feet, or be shot for a thief; but what did it matter to him ? Only the fear of compromising Valentine led him to take precautions against waking anyone. Despair gave him superhuman strength; for, to anyone who observes in cold blood the distance between the second floor and ground-floor windows of the château of Raimbault, and the bare face of the wall with no projection or foothold, such an undertaking would seem utterly incredible.

Nevertheless, he reached the ground without arousing anyone, and climbed the wall into the open country.

The first rays of dawn were whitening the horizon.

Valentine, more exhausted by such sleep than she would have been by a sleepless night, woke very late. The sun was high and hot in the heavens; myriads of insects buzzed in its rays. Buried for a long time in the indolent torpor which follows one's waking, Valentine
did not try at first to collect her thoughts ; she listened indifferently to the innumerable noises of the air and the fields. She did not suffer, because she had forgotten many things, and was in ignorance of many more.