XIX

"Ah, madame, before coming in here, only seeing you as I came in, I

already detected some arts of which I had no suspicion."

"Well, come and see me sometimes, and it will not be long before you

have mastered the knowledge of these trifles, important, too, in their

way. Outward things are, to fools, half of life; and in that matter

more than one clever man is a fool, in spite of all his talent. But I

dare wager you never could refuse your Theodore anything!"

"How refuse anything, madame, if one loves a man?"

"Poor innocent, I could adore you for your simplicity. You should know

that the more we love the less we should allow a man, above all, a

husband, to see the whole extent of our passion. The one who loves

most is tyrannized over, and, which is worse, is sooner or later

neglected. The one who wishes to rule should----"

"What, madame, must I then dissimulate, calculate, become false, form

an artificial character, and live in it? How is it possible to live in

such a way? Can you----" she hesitated; the Duchess smiled.

"My dear child," the great lady went on in a serious tone, "conjugal

happiness has in all times been a speculation, a business demanding

particular attention. If you persist in talking passion while I am

talking marriage, we shall soon cease to understand each other. Listen

to me," she went on, assuming a confidential tone. "I have been in the

way of seeing some of the superior men of our day. Those who have

married have for the most part chosen quite insignificant wives. Well,

those wives governed them, as the Emperor governs us; and if they were

not loved, they were at least respected. I like secrets--especially

those which concern women--well enough to have amused myself by

seeking the clue to the riddle. Well, my sweet child, those worthy

women had the gift of analyzing their husbands' nature; instead of

taking fright, like you, at their superiority, they very acutely noted

the qualities they lacked, and either by possessing those qualities,

or by feigning to possess them, they found means of making such a

handsome display of them in their husbands' eyes that in the end they

impressed them. Also, I must tell you, all these souls which appear so

lofty have just a speck of madness in them, which we ought to know how

to take advantage of. By firmly resolving to have the upper hand and

never deviating from that aim, by bringing all our actions to bear on

it, all our ideas, our cajolery, we subjugate these eminently

capricious natures, which, by the very mutability of their thoughts,

lend us the means of influencing them."

"Good heavens!" cried the young wife in dismay. "And this is life. It

is a warfare----"

"In which we must always threaten," said the Duchess, laughing. "Our

power is wholly factitious. And we must never allow a man to despise

us; it is impossible to recover from such a descent but by odious

manoeuvring. Come," she added, "I will give you a means of bringing

your husband to his senses."

She rose with a smile to guide the young and guileless apprentice to

conjugal arts through the labyrinth of her palace. They came to a

back-staircase, which led up to the reception rooms. As Madame de

Carigliano pressed the secret springlock of the door she stopped,

looking at Augustine with an inimitable gleam of shrewdness and grace.

"The Duc de Carigliano adores me," said she. "Well, he dare not enter

by this door without my leave. And he is a man in the habit of

commanding thousands of soldiers. He knows how to face a battery, but

before me,--he is afraid!"

Augustine sighed. They entered a sumptuous gallery, where the

painter's wife was led by the Duchess up to the portrait painted by

Theodore of Mademoiselle Guillaume. On seeing it, Augustine uttered a

cry.

"I knew it was no longer in my house," she said, "but--here!----"

"My dear child, I asked for it merely to see what pitch of idiocy a

man of genius may attain to. Sooner or later I should have returned it

to you, for I never expected the pleasure of seeing the original here

face to face with the copy. While we finish our conversation I will

have it carried down to your carriage. And if, armed with such a

talisman, you are not your husband's mistress for a hundred years, you

are not a woman, and you deserve your fate."

Augustine kissed the Duchess' hand, and the lady clasped her to her

heart, with all the more tenderness because she would forget her by

the morrow. This scene might perhaps have destroyed for ever the

candor and purity of a less virtuous woman than Augustine, for the

astute politics of the higher social spheres were no more consonant to

Augustine than the narrow reasoning of Joseph Lebas, or Madame

Guillaume's vapid morality. Strange are the results of the false

positions into which we may be brought by the slightest mistake in the

conduct of life! Augustine was like an Alpine cowherd surprised by an

avalanche; if he hesitates, if he listens to the shouts of his

comrades, he is almost certainly lost. In such a crisis the heart

steels itself or breaks.

Madame de Sommervieux returned home a prey to such agitation as it is

difficult to describe. Her conversation with the Duchesse de

Carigliano had roused in her mind a crowd of contradictory thoughts.

Like the sheep in the fable, full of courage in the wolf's absence,

she preached to herself, and laid down admirable plans of conduct; she

devised a thousand coquettish stratagems; she even talked to her

husband, finding, away from him, all the springs of true eloquence

which never desert a woman; then, as she pictured to herself

Theodore's clear and steadfast gaze, she began to quake. When she

asked whether monsieur were at home her voice shook. On learning that

he would not be in to dinner, she felt an unaccountable thrill of joy.

Like a criminal who has appealed against sentence of death, a respite,

however short, seemed to her a lifetime. She placed the portrait in

her room, and waited for her husband in all the agonies of hope. That

this venture must decide her future life, she felt too keenly not to

shiver at every sound, even the low ticking of the clock, which seemed

to aggravate her terrors by doling them out to her. She tried to cheat

time by various devices. The idea struck her of dressing in a way

which would make her exactly like the portrait. Then, knowing her

husband's restless temper, she had her room lighted up with unusual

brightness, feeling sure that when he came in curiosity would bring

him there at once. Midnight had struck when, at the call of the groom,

the street gate was opened, and the artist's carriage rumbled in over

the stones of the silent courtyard.