A Virgin Heart
Copyright© 2024 by Remy de Gourmont
Chapter 17
Leonor was on the watch for the effect of his cure. He saw that evening that it had succeeded. Rose looked like a shadow, a dolorous shadow. She forgot to eat, and would sit looking into the void, her hand on her glass; she did not reply to questions unless they were repeated. Finally, it was obvious that she had been crying.
“The remedy has been a painful one,” said Leonor to himself. “Will she bear a grudge against the doctor? Perhaps, but the important thing was to scratch out the unblemished image stamped on her heart. That has been done. Across M. Hervart’s portrait, in all directions, from top to bottom, from side to side, there is written now: Gratienne, Gratienne, Gratienne.
“Ah, little swallow of the beach, how precious you have been for me! I will give you a golden necklet to thank, in your person, the supreme goddess of hearts. Hervart, I envied you once now I am sorry for you. I despise you too. You had found love, ingenuous and absolute, you had found in a single being, the child, the mistress and the wife, you possessed the smile of innocence and the woman’s desire—and you have left it all for Gratienne and her caresses. But no, no invectives; worthy civil servant, I thank you. Yes, but am I much better? My Gratienne is a marquise, to be sure, but I have one just the same. No, I have ceased to have a Gratienne. I shall be loyal. I will fling my old burden into the sea, and at your feet, sad maiden, I shall kneel, heart free.”
Nothing happened that evening. Rose preserved her silence, and her attitude towards Leonor was the same as at other times. But she had to make a painful effort to preserve her customary amiability. Leonor wondered, deliberated within himself whether he should speak. Might he not question her, with a distracted air about the post-card of Martinvast? “He had thought it was with the other papers, but he couldn’t find it. Perhaps the wind carried it away.”
“No, that would be too direct. She may have suspicions; I shall try to destroy them. I should be lost if she had certainties. But I have no doubts. She will come of her own accord, she will speak first. And I shall look as though I didn’t understand; she will have to drag out of me one by one a few ambiguous words.”
The days passed. Rose remained in the same melancholy state, ruminating on her grief. Still she did not speak, and Leonor foresaw the moment, when, his presence being no longer necessary, he would have to take his leave. The operations on the outside of the house were coming to an end, the weather had made digging impossible and Rose had decided that the interior repairs should be put off till the spring.
Meanwhile Leonor began to suffer in his turn. By living in the same house as Rose he had felt the love, that had to begin with been somewhat chimerical, grow and take root within him. From the moment of their first meeting Rose had aroused in him something like a love of love. He had first been moved by the generosity of an innocent heart giving itself with so noble a violence. Next, he had felt that vague jealousy which all men feel for one another. He had detested M. Hervart, without being able to keep himself from admiring the spectacle of his happiness. The desire to supplant him had naturally tormented Leonor; but it was one of those desires which one feels sure can never be realised and at which, in lucid moments, one shrugs one’s shoulders. Since chance and his own good management had so much modified the logical sequence of things to his own profit, Leonor had begun to tell himself that one should never doubt anything, that anything may happen and that the impossible is probably the most reasonable thing in the world.
In these few weeks he had become more serious than ever, and above all more calm. His egotism began to be capable of long deviations from its straight course. He knew very well that Rose, if he hazarded a confession, would reply with indifference, perhaps with anger. His plan was to risk a few discreet insinuations on some suitable opportunity.
“I might,” he reflected, “put on the melancholy, disenchanted look myself. She is ill, and it would be a case of one sick person seeking some comfort in the eyes of a companion in misfortune ... Comedy! But would it be so much of a comedy? Have I found in life all that I looked for? If I had found it, should I be here dreaming of the capture of a young girl? It’s my right, to do that, since I love; all means will be fair which put the resources of my imagination at the service of my heart.”
But the opportunity of striking a melancholy, disenchanted attitude never presented itself. Rose considered him more and more as an architect, praised his skill in managing the workmen, and paid no attention to his youth, his cleverness or even to the way he looked at her—and his glances were often penetrating. There were moments when he became discouraged. The memory of Hortense came back to him. They had exchanged a few anodyne letters. She called him to her, but in a weak voice, and it was in uncertain terms that he announced his next visit.
“Dying love is always melancholy,” he thought. “The poem would have been beautiful if we had said good-bye after Compiègne. We tried to add a verse, and it has been a failure. It’s a pity. But what will become of her? I still feel some curiosity about her.”
At other moments he pictured to himself Gratienne and the elegant manner of her posturing; that roused him for a time. But the image of M. Hervart would seem to come and mingle with that of this agreeable young woman, and the charm would be broken.
Rose’s arrival would dispel all these visions. He took a great delight in seeing her walk, enjoying, though with no idea of libertinage, the grace of her movements.
Leonor’s departure had already been spoken of. One rainy afternoon, Rose decided to speak. She did it very seriously, without attempting to dissimulate her unhappiness. Between the two there followed a conversation which took the tone of friendly confidences.
After long hesitation she put the question for which Leonor had been waiting with so much anxiety. He had forged several anecdotes with which Rose would doubtless have been satisfied; but when the moment came, rather than hesitate and risk inevitable contradictions, he suddenly decided on a certain degree of frankness.
He said: “The card fell into my hands because I myself have also been entertained by this person. M. Hervart, I must tell you, was not there; he did not know and she shall certainly never know. I had no idea myself that he was the intimate friend of the house. That was why his name struck me, appended as it was to ‘best love.’”
“It was ‘love and kisses.’”
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