I have not written to you,dear,since our marriage,nearly eight months ago.And not a line from you!Madame,you are inexcusable.
To begin with,we set off in a post-chaise for the Castle of Chantepleurs,the property which Macumer has bought in Nivernais.It stands on the banks of the Loire,sixty leagues from Paris.Our servants,with the exception of my maid,were there before us,and we arrived,after a very rapid journey,the next evening.I slept all the way from Paris to beyond Montargis.My lord and master put his arm round me and pillowed my head on his shoulder,upon an arrangement of handkerchiefs.This was the one liberty he took;and the almost motherly tenderness which got the better of his drowsiness,touched me strangely.I fell asleep then under the fire of his eyes,and awoke to find them still blazing;the passionate gaze remained unchanged,but what thoughts had come and gone meanwhile!Twice he had kissed me on the forehead.
At Briare we had breakfast in the carriage.Then followed a talk like our old talks at Blois,while the same Loire we used to admire called forth our praises,and at half-past seven we entered the noble long avenue of lime-trees,acacias,sycamores,and larches which leads to Chantepleurs.At eight we dined;at ten we were in our bedroom,a charming Gothic room,made comfortable with every modern luxury.
Felipe,who is thought so ugly,seemed to me quite beautiful in his graceful kindness and the exquisite delicacy of his affection.Of passion,not a trace.All through the journey he might have been an old friend of fifteen years'standing.Later,he has described to me,with all the vivid touches of his first letter,the furious storms that raged within and were not allowed to ruffle the outer surface.
"So far,I have found nothing very terrible in marriage,"I said,as Iwalked to the window and looked out on the glorious moon which lit up a charming park,breathing of heavy scents.
He drew near,put his arm again round me,and said:
"Why fear it?Have I ever yet proved false to my promise in gesture or look?Why should I be false in the future?"Yet never were words or glances more full of mastery;his voice thrilled every fibre of my heart and roused a sleeping force;his eyes were like the sun in power.
"Oh!"I exclaimed,"what a world of Moorish perfidy in this attitude of perpetual prostration!"He understood,my dear.
So,my fair sweetheart,if I have let months slip by without writing,you can now divine the cause.I have to recall the girl's strange past in order to explain the woman to myself.Renee,I understand you now.
Not to her dearest friend,not to her mother,not,perhaps,even to herself,can a happy bride speak of her happiness.This memory ought to remain absolutely her own,an added rapture--a thing beyond words,too sacred for disclosure!
Is it possible that the name of duty has been given to the delicious frenzy of the heart,to the overwhelming rush of passion?And for what purpose?What malevolent power conceived the idea of crushing a woman's sensitive delicacy and all the thousand wiles of her modesty under the fetters of constraint?What sense of duty can force from her these flowers of the heart,the roses of life,the passionate poetry of her nature,apart from love?To claim feeling as a right!Why,it blooms of itself under the sun of love,and shrivels to death under the cold blast of distaste and aversion!Let love guard his own rights!
Oh!my noble Renee!I understand you now.I bow to your greatness,amazed at the depth and clearness of your insight.Yes,the woman who has not used the marriage ceremony,as I have done,merely to legalize and publish the secret election of her heart,has nothing left but to fly to motherhood.When earth fails,the soul makes for heaven!
One hard truth emerges from all that you have said.Only men who are really great know how to love,and now I understand the reason of this.Man obeys two forces--one sensual,one spiritual.Weak or inferior men mistake the first for the last,whilst great souls know how to clothe the merely natural instinct in all the graces of the spirit.The very strength of this spiritual passion imposes severe self-restraint and inspires them with reverence for women.Clearly,feeling is sensitive in proportion to the calibre of the mental powers generally,and this is why the man of genius alone has something of a woman's delicacy.He understands and divines woman,and the wings of passion on which he raises her are restrained by the timidity of the sensitive spirit.But when the mind,the heart,and the senses all have their share in the rapture which transports us--ah!then there is no falling to earth,rather it is to heaven we soar,alas!for only too brief a visit.
Such,dear soul,is the philosophy of the first three months of my married life.Felipe is angelic.Without figure of speech,he is another self,and I can think aloud with him.His greatness of soul passes my comprehension.Possession only attaches him more closely to me,and he discovers in his happiness new motives for loving me.For him,I am the nobler part of himself.I can foresee that years of wedded life,far from impairing his affection,will only make it more assured,develop fresh possibilities of enjoyment,and bind us in more perfect sympathy.What a delirium of joy!
