Array The griffin classics - The Collected Works of Honore de Balzac

We can readily guess the struggle of feeling to which this honest young fellow fell a prey when we read the letter that he now indited, in which every stroke of the flail which scourged his conscience will be found to have left its trace.

This is what Modeste read a few days later, as she sat by her window on a fine summer’s day: —

Mademoiselle, — Without hypocrisy or evasion, yes , if I had been

certain that you possessed an immense fortune I should have acted

differently. Why? I have searched for the reason; here it is. We

have within us an inborn feeling, inordinately developed by social

life, which drives us to the pursuit and to the possession of

happiness. Most men confound happiness with the means that lead to

it; money in their eyes is the chief element of happiness. I

should, therefore, have endeavored to win you, prompted by that

social sentiment which has in all ages made wealth a religion. At

least, I think I should. It is not to be expected of a man still

young that he can have the wisdom to substitute sound sense for

the pleasure of the senses; within sight of a prey the brutal

instincts hidden in the heart of man drive him on. Instead of that

lesson, I should have sent you compliments and flatteries. Should

I have kept my own esteem in so doing? I doubt it. Mademoiselle,

in such a case success brings absolution; but happiness? That is

another thing. Should I have distrusted my wife had I won her in

that way? Most assuredly I should. Your advance on me would sooner

or later have come between us. Your husband, however grand your

fancy may make him, would have ended by reproaching you for having

abased him. You, yourself, might have come, sooner or later, to

despise him. The strong man forgives, but the poet whines. Such,

mademoiselle, is the answer which my honesty compels me to make to

you.

And now, listen to me. You have the triumph of forcing me to

reflect deeply, — first on you, whom I do not sufficiently know;

next, on myself, of whom I knew too little. You have had the power

to stir up many of the evil thoughts which crouched in my heart,

as in all hearts; but from them something good and generous has

come forth, and I salute you with my most fervent benedictions,

just as at sea we salute the lighthouse which shows the rocks on

which we were about to perish. Here is my confession, for I would

not lose your esteem nor my own for all the treasures of earth.

I wished to know who you are. I have just returned from Havre,

where I saw Francoise Cochet, and followed her to Ingouville. You

are as beautiful as the woman of a poet’s dream; but I do not know

if you are Mademoiselle Vilquin concealed under Mademoiselle

d’Herouville, or Mademoiselle d’Herouville hidden under

Mademoiselle Vilquin. Though all is fair in war, I blushed at such

spying and stopped short in my inquiries. You have roused my

curiosity; forgive me for being somewhat of a woman; it is, I

believe, the privilege of a poet.

Now that I have laid bare my heart and allowed you to read it, you

will believe in the sincerity of what I am about to add. Though

the glimpse I had of you was all too rapid, it has sufficed to

modify my opinion of your conduct. You are a poet and a poem, even

more than you are a woman. Yes, there is in you something more

precious than beauty; you are the beautiful Ideal of art, of

fancy. The step you took, blamable as it would be in an ordinary

young girl, allotted to an every-day destiny, has another aspect

if endowed with the nature which I now attribute to you. Among the

crowd of beings flung by fate into the social life of this planet

to make up a generation there are exceptional souls. If your

letter is the outcome of long poetic reveries on the fate which

conventions bring to women, if, constrained by the impulse of a

lofty and intelligent mind, you have wished to understand the life

of a man to whom you attribute the gift of genius, to the end that

you may create a friendship withdrawn from the ordinary relations

of life, with a soul in communion with your own, disregarding thus

the ordinary trammels of your sex, — then, assuredly, you are an

exception. The law which rightly limits the actions of the crowd

is too limited for you. But in that case, the remark in my first

letter returns in greater force, — you have done too much or not

enough.

Accept once more my thanks for the service you have rendered me,

that of compelling me to sound my heart. You have corrected in me

the false idea, only too common in France, that marriage should be

a means of fortune. While I struggled with my conscience a sacred

voice spoke to me. I swore solemnly to make my fortune myself, and

not be led by motives of cupidity in choosing the companion of my

life. I have also reproached myself for the blamable curiosity you

have excited in me. You have not six millions. There is no

concealment possible in Havre for a young lady who possesses such

a fortune; you would be discovered at once by the pack of hounds

of great families whom I see in Paris on the hunt after heiresses,

and who have already sent one, the grand equerry, the young duke,

among the Vilquins. Therefore, believe me, the sentiments I have

now expressed are fixed in my mind as a rule of life, from which I

have abstracted all influences of romance or of actual fact. Prove

to me, therefore, that you have one of those souls which may be

forgiven for its disobedience to the common law, by perceiving and

comprehending the spirit of this letter as you did that of my

first letter. If you are destined to a middle-class life, obey the

iron law which holds society together. Lifted in mind above other

women, I admire you; but if you seek to obey an impulse which you

ought to repress, I pity you. The all-wise moral of that great

domestic epic “Clarissa Harlowe” is that legitimate and honorable

love led the poor victim to her ruin because it was conceived,

developed, and pursued beyond the boundaries of family restraint.

The family, however cruel and even foolish it may be, is in the

right against the Lovelaces. The family is Society. Believe me,

the glory of a young girl, of a woman, must always be that of

repressing her most ardent impulses within the narrow sphere of

conventions. If I had a daughter able to become a Madame de Stael

I should wish her dead at fifteen. Can you imagine a daughter of

yours flaunting on the stage of fame, exhibiting herself to win

the plaudits of a crowd, and not suffer anguish at the thought? No

matter to what heights a woman can rise by the inward poetry of

her soul, she must sacrifice the outer signs of superiority on the

altar of her home. Her impulse, her genius, her aspirations toward

Good, the whole poem of a young girl’s being, should belong to the

man she accepts and the children whom she brings into the world. I

think I perceive in you a secret desire to widen the narrow circle

of the life to which all women are condemned, and to put love and

passion into marriage. Ah! it is a lovely dream! it is not

impossible; it is difficult, but if realized, may it not be to the

despair of souls — forgive me the hackneyed word — ”incompris”?

If you seek a platonic friendship it will be to your sorrow in

after years. If your letter was a jest, discontinue it. Perhaps

this little romance is to end here — is it? It has not been without