Part 70

I could never have extricated myself so well by any other means; and I once perceived that, if our play had become serious, it might have proved too much so. This was one evening when he played with us that simple and affecting duo of Leo’s _Vado a morir ben mio_. You sung indeed with indifference enough: but I did not; for just as we came to the most pathetic part of the song, he leaned forward, and as my hand lay upon the harpsichord, imprinted on it a kiss, whose impression I felt at my heart. I am not very well acquainted with the ardent kisses of love; but this I can say, that mere friendship, not even ours, ever gave or received any thing like that. After such moments, what is the consequence of reflecting on them in solitude, and of bearing him constantly in memory? for my part, I was so much affected at the time, that I sung out of tune and put the music out. We went to dancing, I made the philosopher dance; we eat little or nothing; sat up very late; and, though I went to bed weary, I only dosed till morning.

I have therefore very good reason for not laying any restraint on my humour, or changing my manners. The time that will make such an alteration necessary is so near, that it is not worth while to anticipate. The time to be prudish and reserved will come but too soon. While I am in my twenties, therefore, I shall make use of my privilege; for when once turned of thirty, people are no longer wild without being ridiculous; and your find-fault of a husband hath assurance enough to tell me already that I shall be allowed but six months longer to dress a salad with my fingers. Patience! to retort his sarcasm, however, I tell him I will dress it for him in that manner for these six years to come, and if I do, I protest to you he shall eat it;----but to return from my ramble. If we have not the absolute command over our sentiments, we have at least some over our conduct. I could, without doubt, have requested of heaven a heart more at ease; but may I be able to my last hour to plead at its dread tribunal, a life as innocent as that which I passed this winter! in fact, I have nothing in the least to reproach myself with, respecting the only man in whose power it might be to make me criminal. It is not quite the same, my dear, since his departure: being accustomed to think for him in his absence, I think of him every hour in the day, and, to confess the truth, find him more dangerous in idea than in person. When he is absent, I am over head and ears in love; when present, I am only whimsical. Let him return, and I shall be cured of all my fears. The chagrin his absence gives me, however, is not a little aggravated by my uneasiness at his dream. If you have placed all to the account of love, therefore you are mistaken; friendship has had part in my uneasiness. After the departure of our friends your looks were pale and changed; I expected you every moment to fall sick. Not that I am credulous: I am only fearful. I know very well that a bad dream does not necessarily produce a sinister event; but I am always afraid lest such an event should succeed it. Not one night’s rest could I get for that unlucky dream, till I saw you recover your former bloom. Could I have suspected the effects his anxiety would have had on me, without knowing any thing of it, I would certainly have given every thing I had in the world that he should have shewn himself when he came back so much like a fool from Villeneuve.

At length, however, my fears vanished with your suspicious looks. Your health and appetite having a greater effect on me than your pleasantries. The arguments these sustained at table, against my apprehensions, in time dissipated them. To increase our happiness our friend is on his return, and I am in every respect delighted. His return, so far from alarming me, gives me confidence; and as soon as we see him again, I shall fear nothing for your life, nor my repose. In the mean time be careful, dear cousin, of my friend; and be under no apprehensions for yours; she will take care of herself, I will engage for her. And yet I have still a pain at my heart----I feel an oppression which I cannot account for. Ah my dear! to think that we may one day part for ever! that one may survive the other! how unhappy will she be on whom that lot shall fall! She will either remain little worthy to live, or lifeless before her death.

You will ask me, to what purpose is all this vain lamentation? you will say, fie on these ridiculous terrors! instead of talking of death let us chuse a more entertaining topic, and talk about your marriage. Your husband has indeed long entertained such a notion, and perhaps if he had never spoken of it to me, it would never have come into my head. I have since thought of it now and then, but always with disdain. It would be absolutely making an old woman of me; for, if I should have any children by a second marriage, I should certainly conceit myself the grandmother of those of the first. You are certainly very good to take upon yourself so readily to spare the blushes of your friend, and to look upon your taking that trouble as an instance of your charitable benevolence. For my own part, nevertheless, I can see very well that all the reasons, founded on your obliging solicitude, are not equal to the least of mine against a second marriage.

To be serious, I am not mean-spirited enough to number among those reasons any reluctance I should have to break an engagement rashly made with myself, nor the fear of being censured for doing my duty, nor an inequality in point of fortune in a circumstance where that person reaps the greatest honour to whom the other would be obliged for his: but, without repeating what I have so often told you concerning my case of independency and natural aversion to the marriage yoke, I will abide by only one objection, and this I draw from those sacred dictates which nobody in the world pays a greater regard to than yourself. Remove this obstacle, cousin, and I give up the point. Amidst all those airs of mirth and drollery, which give you so much alarm, my conscience is perfectly easy. The remembrance of my husband excites not a blush; I even take pleasure to think him a witness of my innocence; for why should I be afraid to do that, now he is dead, which I used to do when he was living? but will this be the case, Eloisa, if I should violate those sacred engagements which united us; if I should swear to another that everlasting love, which I have so often swore to him; if my divided heart should rob his memory of what it bestowed on his successor, and be incapable without offending one to discharge the obligations it owes the other? will not that form, now so pleasing to my imagination, fill me with horror and affright? will it not be ever present to poison my delight? and will not his remembrance, which now constitutes the happiness of my life, be my future torment? with what face can you advise me to take a second husband, after having vowed never to do the like yourself, as if the same reasons which you give me were not as applicable to yourself in the same circumstances? they were friends, you say and loved each other. So much the worse. With what indignation will not his shade behold a man who was dear to him, usurp his rights, and seduce his wife from her fidelity? in short, though it were true that I owed no obligation to the deceased, should I owe none to the dear pledge of his love? and can I believe he would ever have chosen me, had he foreseen that I should ever have exposed his only child to see herself undistinguished among the children of another? another word, and I have done: who told you, pray, that all the obstacles between us arise from me? In answering for him, have you not rather consulted your will than your power? Or, were you certain of his consent, do you make no scruple to offer me a heart exhausted by a former passion? do you think that mine ought to be content with it, and that I might be happy with a man I could not make so? think better of it, my dear cousin. Not requiring a greater return of love than I feel, I should not be satisfied with less, and I am too virtuous a woman to think the pleasing my husband a matter of indifference. What security have you then for the completion of your hopes? Is the pleasure he may take in my company, which may be only the effect of friendship; is that transitory delight, which at his age may arise only from the difference of sex; Is this, I say, a sufficient foundation? If such pleasure had produced any lasting sentiment, is it to be thought he would have been so profoundly silent, not only to me, but to you, and even to your husband; by whom an eclairissement of that nature could not fail of being favourably received.

Has he ever opened his lips on this head to any one? in all the private conversations I have had with him, he talked of no body but you. In those which you have had, did he ever say anything of me? how can I imagine that, if he had concealed a secret of this kind in his breast, I should not have perceived him to be under some constraint, or that it would not, by some indiscretion or other, have escaped him? nay, since his departure, which of us does he most frequently mention in his letters? which of us is the subject of his dreams? I admire that you should think me so tender and susceptible, and should not at the same time suppose my heart would suggest all this. But I see through your device, my sweet friend; it is only to authorise your pretensions to reprisals, that you charge me with having formerly saved my heart at the expense of yours. But I am not so to be made the dupe of your subtlety. And so here is an end of my confession; which I have made, not to contradict, but to set you right; having nothing farther to say on this head, than to acquaint you with my resolution. You now know my heart as well, if not better, than myself. My honour, my happiness are equally dear to you as to myself; and, in the present tranquillity of your passions, you will be the best able to judge of the means to secure both the one and the other. Take my conduct therefore under your direction. I submit it entirely to you. Let us return to our natural state, and reciprocally change our employment; we shall both do the better for it: do you govern, and you shall find me tractable: let it be your place to direct what I should do, and it shall be mine to follow your directions.

Take my heart, and inclose it up in yours; what business have inseparables for two? but to return to our travellers; though, to say truth, I have already said so much about one, that I hardly dare speak a word about the other, for fear you should remark too great a difference in my stile, and that even my friendship for the generous Englishman should betray too much regard for the amiable Swiss. Besides, what can I say about letters I have not seen? you ought at least to send me that of Lord B----. But you durst not send it without the other. ’Tis very well. You might however have done better. Well, recommend me to your duennas of twenty: they are infinitely more tractable than those of thirty.

I must revenge myself, however, by informing you of the effect of your fine reserve. It has only made me imagine the letter in question, that letter which breathes such a----only a hundred times more tender than it really is. Out of spite, I take pleasure in conceiving it filled with soft expressions which cannot be in it; so that if I am not passionately admired, I shall make you suffer for it. After all, I cannot see with what face you can talk to me of the Italian post. You prove in your letter that I was not in the wrong to wait for it, but for not having waited long enough. Had I stayed but one poor quarter of an hour longer, I should have met the packet, have laid hold of it first, and read it at my ease. It had then been my turn to make a merit of giving it you. But, since the grapes are too sour, you may keep the letters. I have two others which I would not change for them were they better worth reading than I imagine they are. There is that of Harriot, I can assure you, even exceeds your own; nor have either you or I, in all our lives, ever wrote any thing so pretty. And yet you give yourself airs forsooth of treating this prodigy as a little impertinent. Upon my word I suspect that to arise from mere envy; and, since I have discovered in her this new talent, I purpose, before you spoil her writing as you have done her speech, to establish between her apartment and mine an Italian post, from whence I will have no pilfering of packets.

Farewell, my dear friend, you will find inclosed the answers to your letters, which will give you no mean idea of my interest here. I would write to you something about this country and its inhabitants; but it is high time to put an end to this volume of a letter. You have besides quite perplexed me with your strange fancies. As we have five or six days longer to stay here, and I shall have time to give another look at what I have already seen, you will be no loser by the delay; and you may depend on my transmitting you another volume as big as this, before my departure.

Letter CLIII. Lord B---- to Mr. Wolmar.

No! my dear Wolmar, you were not mistaken: St. Preux is to be depended on; but I am not; and I have paid dear for the experience that hath convinced me of it. Without his assistance I should have been a dupe to the very proof to which I put his fidelity. You know that, to satisfy his notions of gratitude; and divert his mind with new objects, I pretended that my journey to Italy was of greater importance than it really was. To bid a final adieu to the attachments of my youth, and bring back a friend perfectly cured of his, were, the fruits I promised myself from the voyage. I informed you that his dream, at Villeneuve, gave me some uneasiness for him. That dream made me even suspect the motives of his transport, on being told that you had chosen him preceptor for your children, and that he should pass the remainder of his life with you. ‘The better’ to observe the effusions of his heart, I had at first removed all difficulties, by declaring my intention of settling also in your part of the world; and thus I prevented any of those objections his friendship might have made on account of leaving me. A change in any resolutions, however, made me soon alter my tale.

He had not seen the marchioness thrice, before we were both agreed in our opinion of her. Unfortunate woman! possessed of noble qualities, but without virtue! her ardent, sincere passion, at first affected me, and nourished mine; but her passion was tinged with the blackness of her soul, and inspired me in the end with horror. When he had seen Laura, and knew her disposition; her beauty, her wit and unexampled attachment, I formed a resolution to make use of her to acquire a perfect knowledge of the situation of St. Preux. If I marry Laura, said I to him, it is not my intention to carry her to London, where she may be known; but to a place, where virtue is respected in whomsoever it is found: you will there discharge your duty of preceptor, and we shall still continue to live together. If I do not marry her, it is time for me, however, to think of settling. You know my house in Oxfordshire, and will make your choice, either to take upon you the education of Mr. Wolmar’s children, or to accompany me in my retirement. To this, he made me just such an answer as I expected; but I had a mind to observe his conduct. If, in order to spend his time at Clarens, he had promoted a marriage which he ought to have opposed, or on the contrary, preferred the honour of his friend to his own happiness; in either case, I say, the experiment answered my end, and I knew what to think of the situation of his heart.

On trial, I found him to be such as I wished; firmly resolved against the project I pretended to have formed, and ready with all his arguments to oppose it; but I was continually in her company, and was moved by her tenderness and affliction. My heart, totally disengaged from the marchioness, began to fix itself on her rival, by this constant intercourse. The sentiments of Laura increased the attachment she had before inspired; and I began to be ashamed of sacrificing to that prejudice I despised, the esteem which I was so well convinced was due to her merit; I began even to be in doubt, whether I had not laid myself under some obligation to do that merit justice, by the hopes I had given her, if not in words, at least by my actions. Though I never promised her any thing, yet to have kept her in suspense and expectation for nothing, would be to deceive her; and I could not help thinking such a deception extremely cruel. In short, annexing a kind of duty to my inclination, and consulting happiness more than reputation, I attempted to reconcile my passion to reason, and resolved to carry my pretended scheme as far as it would go, and even to execute it in reality, if I could not recede without injustice. After some time, however, I began to be more uneasy on account of St. Preux, as he did not appear to act the part he had undertaken with that zeal I expected. Indeed he opposed my professed design of marriage, but took little pains to check my growing inclination; speaking to me of Laura in such a strain of encomium as, at the same time that he appeared to dissuade me from marrying her, added fuel to the flame by increasing my affection. This inconsistency gave me some alarm; I did not think him so steady as before. He seemed shy of directly opposing my sentiments, gave way to my arguments, was fearful of giving offence, and indeed seemed to have lost all that intrepidity in doing his duty, which the true passion for it inspires. Some other observations which I made also, increased my distrust. I found out that he visited Laura unknown to me; and that, by their frequent signs, there was a secret understanding between them. On her part, the prospect of being united to the man she loved seemed to give her no pleasure; I observed in her the same degree of tenderness indeed, but that tenderness was no longer mixed with joy at my approach; a gloomy sadness perpetually clouding her features. Nay, sometimes in the tenderest part of our conversations, I have caught her casting a side glance on St. Preux; on which a tear would often steal silently down her check, which she endeavoured to conceal from me. In short, they carried the matter so far, that I was at last greatly perplexed. What could I think? it is impossible, said I to myself, that I can all this while have been cherishing a serpent in my bosom? how far have I not reason to extend my suspicions, and return those he formerly entertained of me? weak and unhappy as we are, our misfortunes are generally of our own seeking! Why do we complain that bad men torment us, while the good are so ingenious at tormenting each other! All this operated but to induce me to come to a determination. For, though I was ignorant of the bottom of their intrigue, I saw the heart of Laura was still the same; and that proof of her affection endeared her to me the more. I proposed to come to an explanation with her before I put an end to the affair; but I was desirous of putting it off till the last moment, in order to get all the light I could possibly beforehand. As for St. Preux, I was resolved to convince myself, to convince him, and in short to come at the truth of the matter before I took any step in regard to him; for it was easy to suppose that an infallible rupture must happen, and I was unwilling to place a good disposition and a reputation of twenty years standing, in the balance against mere suspicions.

The marchioness was not ignorant of what passed; having her spies in the convent where Laura resides, who informed her of the report of her marriage. Nothing more was necessary to excite her rage. She wrote me threatening letters; nay; she went farther; but, as it was not the first time she had done so, and we were on our guard, her attempts were fruitless. I had only the pleasure to see that our friend did not spare himself on this occasion nor make any scruple to expose his own life to save that of his friend.

Overcome by the transports of her passion, the marchioness fell sick, and was soon past recovery; putting at once an end to her misfortunes and her guilt. [94] I could not help being afflicted to hear of her illness, and sent doctor Eswin to give her all the assistance in his power, as a physician. St. Preux went also to visit her in my behalf; but she would neither see one nor the other. She would not even bear to hear me named during her illness, and inveighed against me with the most horrid imprecations every time I was mentioned. I was grieved at heart for her situation, and felt my wounds ready to bleed afresh; reason however supported my spirits and resolution, but I should have been one of the worst of men to think of marriage, while a woman, so dear to me, lay in that extremity. In the mean time our friend, fearing I should not be able to resist the strong inclination I had to see her, proposed a journey to Naples; to which I consented.