PAGE 11
Alamontade
by
She spoke little, but well; she appeared cold, but the vivacity and brightness of her eye betrayed a sensitive heart and active mind. She was the benefactress of the poor, and honoured by the whole city. Neglected by her husband, and adored by young and attractive men of the first families, she allowed not calumny itself to throw a shade over the purity of her character. She lived as retired as in a convent. I saw her but seldom, and only during my last year at the university, when the illness of her husband afforded me an opportunity of meeting in his apartment.
The tenderest anxiety for the health of M. Bertollon was visible in all her features. She was incessantly with him, administering his medicine, or reading to him; and, when the illness reached its crisis, she never quitted his bedside, but even destroyed her own health by her continual nightly watching.
When M. Bertollon recovered, he continued his cold and polite behaviour towards her, and never returned her affection. This indifference she seemed to feel deeply, and by degrees became estranged from him as his health returned. I could only pity her, and reproach my friend.
“But what do you demand of me, Colas?” he said one day. “Are you master of your own heart, that you can ask obedience from mine? I grant you my wife is beautiful; but mere beauty is only a pleasing gloss, under which the heart remains cold. Why do we not fall in love with the chefs-d’oeuvre of the sculptor? I grant you she has understanding; this, however, we do not love, but at most admire. She is charitable; but she has money enough, and takes no pleasure in expensive amusements. She showed me much attention during my illness; for that I am grateful to her. She shall not want any thing that she wishes, and I can give; but the heart cannot be given, that must be taken. As to the rest, my friend, you do not know her. She also has her failings; nay, if you will allow so much, her faults. If it should unfortunately happen, now, that some of these faults are of such a nature as necessarily to extinguish every rising feeling of affection in me, am I to blame, that I cannot change stone into gold, and transform a marriage of convenience into one of the heart?”
“But, dear Bertollon, I never even discovered the slightest trace of such a repulsive fault.”
“That is because you do not know my wife. To you, as my friend, I may reveal what has estranged me from her for ever, even during the very first days of our marriage. It is her untameable and unreasonable temper, which is as an all-consuming fire. Trust not the ice and snow of the external veil; a volcano is burning within it which, from time to time, must emit its flames, or it would burst its outward covering. She is quiet, but the more dangerous; every feeling is fermenting long within her before it manifests itself; but when it has done so, it is the more lasting and destructive. She seems to be virtue and gentleness personified; without her unhappy temper she might be a saint, but that destroys all better feelings. I have often surprised her in designs so atrocious and terrible, that it is difficult to conceive how one of them could find its way into the soul of a woman, or how she could harbour it. Such a character, my friend, is not likely to conquer one’s heart.”
These confidential communications startled me the more, as I had proofs of Bertollon’s knowledge of men, and his correct judgments. In the meanwhile, I did not discontinue my visits to Madame Bertollon, and thought I perceived that she found pleasure in my society. She was always tranquil, gentle, and seemed suffering. So much beauty and gentleness changed my respect into sincere friendship. I formed the resolution of reconciling her to her husband, let it cost what it would; or, rather, of bringing him back to her arms.