George Sand - George Sand - The Collected Works (The Greatest Novelists of All Time – Book 11)

“Break yourself of this drinking, and pay attention to what the abbe has to say to you.”

This order and tone of authority, so far from filling me with hope, seemed to me so revolting that all my timidity vanished in a moment. I waited for the hour when she usually went up to her room and, going out a little before her, took up my position on the stairs.

“Do you think,” I said to her when she appeared, “that I am the dupe of your lies, and that I have not seen perfectly, during the month I have been here, without your speaking a word to me, that you are merely fooling me, as if I were a booby? You lied to me and now you despise me because I was honest enough to believe your word.”

“Bernard,” she said, in a cold tone, “this is neither the time nor the place for an explanation.”

“Oh, I know well enough,” I replied, “that, according to you, it will never be the time or the place. But I shall manage to find both, do not fear. You said that you loved me. You threw your arms about my neck and said, as you kissed me—yes, here, I can still feel your lips on my cheeks: ‘Save me, and I swear on the gospel, on my honour, by the memory of my mother and your own, that I will be yours.’ I can see through it; you said that because you were afraid that I should use my strength, and now you avoid me because you are afraid I shall claim my right. But you will gain nothing by it. I swear that you shall not trifle with me long.”

“I will never be yours,” she replied, with a coldness which was becoming more and more icy, “if you do not make some change in your language, and manners, and feelings. In your present state I certainly do not fear you. When you appeared to me good and generous, I might have yielded to you, half from fear and half from affection. But from the moment I cease to care for you, I also cease to be afraid of you. Improve your manners, improve your mind, and we will see.”

“Very good,” I said, “that is a promise I can understand. I will act on it, and if I cannot be happy, I will have my revenge.”

“Take your revenge as much as you please,” she said. “That will only make me despise you.”

So saying, she drew from her bosom a piece of paper, and burnt it in the flame of her candle.

“What are you doing?” I exclaimed.

“I am burning a letter I had written to you,” she answered. “I wanted to make you listen to reason, but it is quite useless; one cannot reason with brutes.”

“Give me that letter at once,” I cried, rushing at her to seize the burning paper.

But she withdrew it quickly and, fearlessly extinguishing it in her hand, threw the candle at my feet and fled in the darkness. I ran after her, but in vain. She was in her room before I could get there, and had slammed the door and drawn the bolts. I could hear the voice of Mademoiselle Leblanc asking her young mistress the cause of her fright.

“It is nothing,” replied Edmee’s trembling voice, “nothing but a joke.”

I went into the garden, and strode up and down the walks at a furious rate. My anger gave place to the most profound melancholy. Edmee, proud and daring, seemed to me more desirable than ever. It is the nature of all desire to be excited and nourished by opposition. I felt that I had offended her, and that she did not love me, that perhaps she would never love me; and, without abandoning my criminal resolution to make her mine by force, I gave way to grief at the thought of her hatred of me. I went and leaned upon a gloomy old wall which happened to be near, and, burying my face in my hands, I broke into heart-rending sobs. My sturdy breast heaved convulsively, but tears would not bring the relief I longed for. I could have roared in my anguish, and I had to bite my handkerchief to prevent myself from yielding to the temptation. The weird noise of my stifled sobs attracted the attention of some one who was praying in the little chapel on the other side of the wall which I had chanced to lean against. A Gothic window, with its stone mullions surmounted by a trefoil, was exactly on a level with my head.

“Who is there?” asked some one, and I could distinguish a pale face in the slanting rays of the moon which was just rising.

It was Edmee. On recognising her I was about to move away, but she passed her beautiful arm between the mullions, and held me back by the collar of my jacket, saying:

“Why are you crying, Bernard?”

I yielded to her gentle violence, half ashamed at having betrayed my weakness, and half enchanted at finding that Edmee was not unmoved by it.

“What are you grieved at?” she continued. “What can draw such bitter tears from you?”

“You despise me; you hate me; and you ask why I am in pain, why I am angry!”

“It is anger, then, that makes you weep?” she said, drawing back her arm.

“Yes; anger or something else,” I replied.

“But what else?” she asked.

“I can’t say; probably grief, as you suggest. The truth is my life here is unbearable; my heart is breaking. I must leave you, Edmee, and go and live in the middle of the woods. I cannot stay here any longer.”

“Why is life unbearable? Explain yourself, Bernard. Now is our opportunity for an explanation.”

“Yes, with a wall between us. I can understand that you are not afraid of me now.”

“And yet it seems to me that I am only showing an interest in you; and was I not as affectionate an hour ago when there was no wall between us?”

“I begin to see why you are fearless, Edmee; you always find some means of avoiding people, or of winning them over with pretty words. Ah, they were right when they told me that all women are false, and that I must love none of them.”

“And who told you that? Your Uncle John, I suppose, or your Uncle Walter; or was it your grandfather, Tristan?”

“You can jeer—jeer at me as much as you like. It is not my fault that I was brought up by them. There were times, however, when they spoke the truth.”

“Bernard, would you like me to tell you why they thought women false?”

“Yes, tell me.”

“Because they were brutes and tyrants to creatures weaker than themselves. Whenever one makes one’s self feared one runs the risk of being deceived. In your childhood, when John used to beat you, did you never try to escape his brutal punishment by disguising your little faults?”

“I did; that was my only resource.”

“You can understand, then, that deception is, if not the right, at least the resource of the oppressed.”

“I understand that I love you, and in that at any rate there can be no excuse for your deceiving me.”

“And who says that I have deceived you?”

“But you have; you said you loved me; you did not love me.”

“I loved you, because at a time when you were wavering between detestable principles and the impulses of a generous heart I saw that you were inclining towards justice and honesty. And I love you now, because I see that you are triumphing over these vile principles, and that your evil inspirations are followed by tears of honest regret. This I say before God, with my hand on my heart, at a time when I can see your real self. There are other times when you appear to me so below yourself that I no longer recognise you and I think I no longer love you. It rests with you, Bernard, to free me from all doubts, either about you or myself.”

“And what must I do?”

“You must amend your bad habits, open your ears to good counsel and your heart to the precepts of morality. You are a savage, Bernard; and, believe me, it is neither your awkwardness in making a bow, nor your inability to turn a compliment that shocks me. On the contrary, this roughness of manner would be a very great charm in my eyes, if only there were some great ideas and noble feelings beneath it. But your ideas and your feelings are like your manners, that is what I cannot endure. I know it is not your fault, and if I only saw you resolute to improve I should love you as much for your defects as for your qualities. Compassion brings affection in its train. But I do not love evil, I never loved it; and, if you cultivate it in yourself instead of uprooting it, I can never love you. Do you understand me?”