If you but knew, Armand, the joy
of being able, without shame, to spend myself upon a pure love
which God protects!
of being able, without shame, to spend myself upon a pure love
which God protects!
Warner - World's Best Literature - v03 - Bag to Ber
The longer a poet listens to its gigantic har-
monies, the more fully will he comprehend that between kneeling
humanity and the God hidden by the dazzling rays of the Holy
of Holies, the hundred voices of terrestrial choirs can alone bridge
the vast distance and interpret to Heaven the prayers of men
in all the omnipotence of their desires, in the diversities of their
woe, with the tints of their meditations and their ecstasies, with
the impetuous spring of their repentance, and the thousand
imaginations of their manifold beliefs. Yes! beneath these soar-
ing vaults the harmonies born of the genius of sacred things
find a yet unheard-of grandeur, which adorns and strengthens
them. Here the dim light, the deep silence, the voices alternat-
ing with the solemn tones of the organ, seem like a veil through
which the luminous attributes of God himself pierce and radiate.
Yet all these sacred riches now seem flung like a grain of
incense on the frail altar of an earthly love, in presence of the
eternal throne of a jealous and avenging Deity. The joy of the
nun had not the gravity which properly belongs to the solemnity
of the Magnificat. She gave to the music rich and graceful
modulations, whose rhythms breathed of human gayety; her
measures ran into the brilliant cadences of a great singer striv-
ing to express her love, and the notes rose buoyantly like the
carol of a bird by the side of its mate. At moments she darted
back into the past, as if to sport there or to weep there for an
instant. Her changing moods had something discomposed about
them, like the agitations of a happy woman rejoicing at the
return of her lover. Then, as these supple strains of passionate
emotion ceased, the soul that spoke returned upon itself; the
musician passed from the major to the minor key, and told her
hearer the story of her present. She revealed to him her long
melancholy, the slow malady of her moral being, - every day a
feeling crushed, every night a thought subdued, hour by hour a
heart burning down to ashes. After soft modulations the music
took on slowly, tint by tint, the hue of deepest sadness. Soon
## p. 1375 (#169) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1375
it poured forth in echoing torrents the well-springs of grief, till
suddenly the higher notes struck clear like the voice of angels,
as if to tell to her lost love — lost, but not forgotten — that the
reunion of their souls must be in heaven, and only there: hope
most precious! Then came the Amen. In that no joy, no tears,
nor sadness, nor regrets, but a return to God. The last chord
that sounded was grave, solemn, terrible. The musician revealed
the nun in the garb of her vocation; and as the thunder of the
basses rolled away, causing the hearer to shudder through his
whole being, she seemed to sink into the tomb from which for a
brief moment she had risen. As the echoes slowly ceased to
vibrate along the vaulted roofs, the church, made luminous by
the music, fell suddenly into profound obscurity.
The general, carried away by the course of this powerful
genius, had followed her, step by step, along her way. He
comprehended in their full meaning the pictures that gleamed
through that burning symphony; for him those chords told all.
For him, as for the Sister, this poem of sound was the future,
the past, the present. Music, even the music of an opera, is it
not to tender and poetic souls, to wounded and suffering hearts,
a text which they interpret as their memories need? If the
heart of a poet must be given to a musician, must not poetry
and love be listeners ere the great musical works of art are
understood ? Religion, love, and music: are they not the triple
expression of one fact, - the need of expansion, the need of
touching with their own infinite the infinite beyond them, which
is in the fibre of all noble souls ? These three forms of poesy
end in God, who alone can unwind the knot of earthly emotion.
Thus this holy human trinity joins itself to the holiness of God,
of whom we make to ourselves no conception unless we surround
him by the fires of love and the golden cymbals of music and
light and harmony.
The French general divined that on this desert rock, sur-
rounded by the surging seas, the nun had cherished music to
free her soul of the excess of passion that consumed it. Did she
offer her love as a homage to God? Did the love triumph over
the vows she had made to Him ? Questions difficult to answer.
But, beyond all doubt, the lover had found in a heart dead to the
world a love as passionate as that which burned within his own.
When vespers ended he returned to the house of the alcalde,
where he was quartered. Giving himself over, a willing prey,
## p. 1376 (#170) ###########################################
1376
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
to the delights of a success long expected, laboriously sought, his
mind at first could dwell on nothing else,- he was still loved.
Solitude had nourished the love of that heart, just as his own
had thriven on the barriers, successively surmounted, which this
woman had placed between herself and him. This ecstasy of
the spirit had its natural duration; then came the desire to see
this woman, to withdraw her from God, to win her back to him-
self, - a bold project, welcome to a bold man. After the evening
repast, he retired to his room to escape questions and think in
peace, and remained plunged in deep meditation throughout the
night. He rose early and went to Mass. He placed himself
close to the latticed screen, his brow touching the brown curtain.
He longed to rend it away; but he was not alone, his host had
accompanied him, and the least imprudence might compromise
the future of his love and ruin his new-found hopes. The organ
was played, but not by the same hand; the musician of the last
two days was absent from its key-board. All was chill and pale
to the general. Was his mistress worn out by the emotions
which had wellnigh broken down his own vigorous heart? Had
she so truly shared and comprehended his faithful and eager love
that she now lay exhausted and dying in her cell ? At the
moment when such thoughts as these rose in the general's mind,
he heard beside him the voice beloved; he knew the clear ring
of its tones. The voice, slightly changed by a tremor which
gave it the timid grace and modesty of a young girl, detached
itself from the volume of song, like the voice of a prima donna
in the harmonies of her final notes. It gave to the ear an
impression like the effect to the eye of a fillet of silver or gold
threading a dark frieze. It was indeed she! Still Parisian, she
had not lost her gracious charm, though she had forsaken the
coronet and adornments of the world for the frontlet and serge
of a Carmelite. Having revealed her love the night before in
the praises addressed to the Lord of all, she seemed now to say
to her lover:- “Yes, it is I: I am here. I love forever; yet I
am aloof from love. Thou shalt hear me; my soul shall enfold
thee; but I must stay beneath the brown shroud of this choir,
from which no power can tear me.
Thou canst not see me. ”
“It is she ! ” whispered the general to himself, as he raised
his head and withdrew his hands from his face; for he had not
been able to bear erect the storm of feeling that shook his heart
as the voice vibrated through the arches and blended with the
## p. 1377 (#171) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1377
murmur of the waves. A storm raged without, yet peace was
within the sanctuary. The rich voice still caressed the ear, and
fell like balm upon the parched heart of the lover; it flowered
in the air about him, from which he breathed the emanations
of her spirit exhaling her love through the aspirations of its
prayer.
The alcalde came to rejoin his guest, and found him bathed
in tears at the elevation of the Host which was chanted by the
nun. Surprised to find such devotion in a French officer, he
invited the confessor of the convent to join them at supper, and
informed the general, to whom no news had ever given such
pleasure, of what he had done. During the supper the general
made the confessor the object of much attention, and thus con-
firmed the Spaniards in the high opinion they had formed of his
piety. He inquired with grave interest the number of the nuns,
and asked details about the revenues of the convent and its
wealth, with the air of a man who politely wished to choose
topics which occupied the mind of the good old priest. Then he
inquired about the life led by the sisters. Could they go out?
Could they see friends ?
Senhor,” said the venorable priest, “the rule is severe. If
the permission of our Holy Father must be obtained before a
woman can enter a house of Saint Bruno [the Chartreux] the
like rule exists here. It is impossible for any man to enter a
convent of the Bare-footed Carmelites, unless he is a priest
delegated by the archbishop for duty in the House. No nun can
It is true, however, that the Great Saint, Mother
Theresa, did frequently leave her cell. A Mother-superior can
alone, under authority of the archbishop, permit a nun to see
her friends, especially in case of illness. As this convent is one
of the chief Houses of the Order, it has a Mother-superior
residing in it. We have several foreigners, — among them a
Frenchwoman, Sister Theresa, the one who directs the music in
the chapel. ”
"Ah! ” said the general, feigning surprise : "she must have
been gratified by the triumph of the House of Bourbon ? "
«I told them the object of the Mass; they are always rather
curious. »
"Perhaps Sister Theresa has some interests in France; she
might be glad to receive some news, or ask some questions ? »
"I think not; or she would have spoken to me. ”
111—87
go out.
## p. 1378 (#172) ###########################################
1378
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
“As a compatriot,” said the general, “I should be curious to
see — that is, if it were possible, if the superior would consent,
if - »
1
!
"At the grating, even in the presence of the reverend Mother,
an interview would be absolutely impossible for any ordinary
man, no matter who he was; but in favor of a liberator of a
Catholic throne and our holy religion, possibly, in spite of the
rigid rule of our Mother Theresa, the rule might be relaxed,”
said the confessor. "I will speak about it. ”
“How old is Sister Theresa ? ” asked the lover, who dared not
question the priest about the beauty of the nun.
"She is no longer of any age," said the good old man, with
a simplicity which made the general shudder.
1
III
pers.
The next day, before the siesta, the confessor came to tell the
general that Sister Theresa and the Mother-superior consented to
receive him at the grating that evening before the hour of ves-
After the siesta, during which the Frenchman had whiled
away the time by walking round the port in the fierce heat of
the sun, the priest came to show him the way into the con-
vent.
He was guided through a gallery which ran the length of the
cemetery, where fountains and trees and numerous arcades gave
a cool freshness in keeping with that still and silent spot. When
they reached the end of this long gallery, the priest led his com-
panion into a parlor, divided in the middle by a grating covered
with a brown curtain. On the side which we must call public,
and where the confessor left the general, there was a wooden
bench along one side of the wall; some chairs, also of wood, were
near the grating. The ceiling was of wood, crossed by heavy
beams of the evergreen oak, without ornament. Daylight came
from two windows in the division set apart for the nuns, and
was absorbed by the brown tones of the room; so that it barely
showed the picture of the great black Christ, and those of Saint
Theresa and the Blessed Virgin, which hung on the dark panels
of the walls.
The feelings of the general turned, in spite of their violence,
to a tone of melancholy. He grew calm in these calm precincts.
Something mighty as the grave seized him beneath these chilling
## p. 1379 (#173) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1379
rafters. Was it not the eternal silence, the deep peace, the near
presence of the infinite? Through the stillness came the fixed
thought of the cloister, - that thought which glides through the
air in the half-lights, and is in all things, the thougnt unchange-
able; nowhere seen, which yet grows vast to the imagination; the
all-comprising phrase, the peace of God. It enters there, with
living power, into the least religious heart. Convents of men
are not easily conceivable; man seems feeble and unmanly in
them. He is born to act, to fulfil a life of toil; and he escapes
it in his cell. But in a monastery of women what strength to
endure, and yet what touching weakness! A man may be pushed
by a thousand sentiments into the depths of an abbey; he flings
himself into them as from a precipice. But the woman is drawn
only by one feeling; she does not unsex herself, - she espouses
holiness. You may say to the man, Why did you not struggle?
but to the cloistered woman life is a struggle still.
The general found in this mute parlor of the seagirt convent
memories of himself, Love seldom reaches upward to solemnity;
but love in the bosom of God,- is there nothing solemn there?
Yes, more than a man has the right to hope for in this nine-
teenth century, with our manners and our customs what they
are.
The general's soul was one on which such impressions act.
His nature was noble enough to forget self-interest, honors, Spain,
the world, or Paris, and rise to the heights of feeling roused by
this unspeakable termination of his long pursuit. What could be
more tragic? How many emotions held these lovers, reunited at
last on this granite ledge far out at sea, yet separated by an
idea, an impassable barrier. Look at this man, saying to him-
self, “Can I triumph over God in that heart ? »
A slight noise made him quiver. The brown curtain was
drawn back; he saw in the half-light a woman standing, but her
face was hidden from him by the projection of a veil, which lay
in many folds upon her head. According to the rule of the
Order she was clothed in the brown garb whose color has be-
come proverbial. The general could not see the naked feet,
which would have told him the frightful emaciation of her body;
yet through the thick folds of the coarse robe that swathed her,
his heart divined that tears and prayers and passion and solitude
had wasted her away.
The chill hand of a woman, doubtless the Mother-superior,
held back the curtain, and the general, examining this unwelcome
## p. 1380 (#174) ###########################################
1380
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
witness of the interview, encountered the deep grave eyes of an
old nun, very aged, whose clear, even youthful, glance belied
the wrinkles that furrowed her pale face.
“Madame la duchesse,” he said, in a voice shaken by emotion,
to the Sister, who bowed her head, does your companion under-
stand French >>
« There is no duchess here,” replied the nun. << You are in
presence of Sister Theresa. The woman whom you call my
companion is my Mother in God, my superior here below. ”
These words, humbly uttered by a voice that once harmonized
with the luxury and elegance in which this woman had lived
queen of the world of Paris, that fell from lips whose language
had been of old so gay, so mocking, struck the general as if
with an electric shock.
“My holy Mother speaks only Latin and Spanish,” she added.
«I understand neither. Dear Antoinette, make her my ex-
cuses. »
As she heard her name softly uttered by a man once so hard
to her, the nun was shaken by emotion, betrayed only by the
light quivering of her veil, on which the light now fully fell.
“My brother,” she said, passing her sleeve beneath her veil,
perhaps to wipe her eyes, my name is Sister Theresa. ”
Then she turned to the Mother, and said to her in Spanish a
few words which the general plainly heard. He knew enough of
the language to understand it, perhaps to speak it. My dear
Mother, this gentleman presents to you his respects, and begs
you to excuse him for not laying them himself at your feet; but
he knows neither of the languages which you speak. ”
The old woman slowly bowed her head; her countenance took
an expression of angelic sweetness, tempered, nevertheless, by
the consciousness of her power and dignity.
“You know this gentleman ? ” she asked, with a piercing
glance at the Sister.
“Yes, my Mother. ”
“Retire to your cell, my daughter," said the Superior in a
tone of authority.
The general hastily withdrew to the shelter of the curtain,
lest his face should betray the anguish these words cost him; but
he fancied that the penetrating eyes of the Superior followed
him even into the shadow. This woman, arbiter of the frail and
fleeting joy he had won at such cost, made him afraid; he trem-
bled, he whom a triple range of cannon could not shake.
## p. 1381 (#175) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1381
The duchess walked to the door, but there she turned.
“My
Mother,” she said, in a voice horribly calm, “this Frenchman is
one of my brothers. ”
* Remain, therefore, my daughter,” said the old woman, after
a pause.
The jesuitism of this answer revealed such love and such
regret, that a man of less firmness than the general would have
betrayed his joy in the midst of a peril so novel to him. But
what value could there be in the words, looks, gestures of a love
that must be hidden from the eyes of a lynx, the claws of a
tiger? The Sister came back.
“You see, my brother,” she said, “what I have dared to do
that I might for one moment speak to you of your salvation, and
tell you of the prayers which day by day my soul offers to
heaven on your behalf. I have committed a mortal sin,- I have
lied. How many days of penitence to wash out that lie! But I
shall suffer for you. You know not, my brother, the joy of lov-
ing in heaven, of daring to avow affections that religion has
purified, that have risen to the highest regions, that at last we
know and feel with the soul alone. If the doctrines if the
spirit of the saint to whom we owe this refuge had not lifted me
above the anguish of earth to a world, not indeed where she is,
but far above my lower life, I could not have seen you now.
But I can see you, I can hear you, and remain calm. ”
“Antoinette,” said the general, interrupting these words, "suf-
fer me to see you, you, whom I love passionately, to madness,
as you once would have had me love you. "
"Do not call me Antoinette, I implore you: memories of the
past do me harm. See in me only the Sister Theresa, a creature
trusting all to the divine pity. And,” she added, after a pause,
«subdue yourself, my brother. Our Mother would separate us
instantly if your face betrayed earthly passions, or your eyes shed
tears. »
The general bowed his head, as if to collect himself; when
he again lifted his eyes to the grating he saw between two bars
the pale, emaciated, but still ardent face of the nun. Her com-
plexion, where once had bloomed the loveliness of youth,— where
once there shone the happy contrast of a pure, clear whiteness
with the colors of a Bengal rose,-
now had the tints of a porce-
lain cup through which a feeble light showed faintly. The beau-
tiful hair of which this woman was once so proud was shaven; a
## p. 1382 (#176) ###########################################
1382
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1
white band bound her brows and was wrapped around her face.
Her eyes, circled with dark shadows due to the austerities of her
life, glanced at moments with a feverish light, of which their
habitual calm was but the mask. In a word, of this woman
nothing remained but her soul.
"Ah! you will leave this tomb you, who are my life! You
belonged to me; you were not free to give yourself — not even
to God. Did you not promise to sacrifice all to the least of my
commands? Will you now think me worthy to claim that promise,
if I tell you what I have done for your sake ? I have sought
you through the whole world. For five years you have been the
thought of every instant, the occupation of every hour, of my life.
My friends — friends all-powerful as you know — have helped me
to search the convents of France, Spain, Italy, Sicily, America.
My love has deepened with every fruitless search. Many a long
journey I have taken on a false hope. I have spent my life and
the strong beatings of my heart about the walls of cloisters. I
will not speak to you of a fidelity unlimited. What is it? — noth-
ing compared to the infinitude of my love! If in other days your
remorse was real, you cannot hesitate to follow me now. ”
“You forget that I am not free. ”
“The duke is dead,” he said hastily.
Sister Theresa colored. "May Heaven receive him! ” she said,
with quick emotion: "he was generous to me.
But I did not
speak of those ties: one of my faults was my willingness to
break them without scruple for you. ”
You speak of your vows, cried the general, frowning. "I
little thought that anything would weigh in your heart against
our love.
But do not fear, Antoinette; I will obtain a brief from
the Holy Father which will absolve your vows. I will go to
Rome; I will petition every earthly power; if God himself came
down from heaven I »
"Do not blaspheme!
“Do not fear how God would see it! Ah! I wish I were as
sure that you will leave these walls with me; that to-night-to-
night, you would embark at the feet of these rocks.
to find happiness! I know not where - at the ends of the earth!
With me you will come back to life, to health — in the shelter of
1
Let us go
my love! »
“Do not say these things,” replied the Sister; “you do not
know what you now are to me. I love you better than I once
## p. 1383 (#177) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1383
loved you.
But you —
I pray to God for you daily. I see you no longer
with the eyes of my body.
If you but knew, Armand, the joy
of being able, without shame, to spend myself upon a pure love
which God protects! You do not know the joy I have in calling
down the blessings of heaven upon your head. I never pray for
myself: God will do with me according to his will.
at the price of my eternity I would win the assurance that you
are happy in this world, that you will be happy in another
throughout the ages. My life eternal is all that misfortunes have
left me to give you. I have grown old in grief; I am no longer
young or beautiful. Ah! you would despise a nun who returned
to be a woman; no sentiment, not even maternal love, could
absolve her. What could you say to me that would shake the
unnumbered reflections my heart has made in five long years, –
and which have changed it, hollowed it, withered it ? Ah! I
should have given something less sad to God! ”
«What can I say to you, dear Antoinette ? I will say that I
love you; that affection, love, true love, the joy of living in a
heart all ours,— wholly ours, without one reservation,- is so rare,
so difficult to find, that I once doubted you; I put you to cruel
tests. But to-day I love and trust you with all the powers of my
soul. If you will follow me I will listen throughout life to no
voice but thine. I will look on no face »
“Silence, Armand! you shorten the sole moments which are
given to us to see each other here below. ”
“Antoinette! will you follow me ? »
“I never leave you. I live in your heart — but with another
power than that of earthly pleasure, or vanity, or selfish joy. I
live here for you, pale and faded, in the bosom of God. If God
is just, you will be happy. ”
"Phrases! you give me phrases! But if I will to have you
pale and faded, — if I cannot be happy unless you are with me?
What! will you forever place duties before my love? Shall I
never be above all things else in your heart ? In the past you
put the world, or self — I know not what - above me; to-day it
is God, it is my salvation. In this Sister Theresa I recognize the
duchess; ignorant of the joys of love, unfeeling beneath a pretense
of tenderness! You do not love me! you never loved me! — »
“Oh, my brother! — »
“You will not leave this tomb. You love my soul, you say:
well! you shall destroy it forever and ever. I will kill myself - »
## p. 1384 (#178) ###########################################
1384
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
"My Mother! ” cried the nun, “I have lied to you; this man
is my lover. ”
The curtain fell. The general, stunned, heard the doors close
with violence.
“She loves me still! ” he cried, comprehending all that was
revealed in the cry of the nun. “I will find means to carry her
away!
He left the island immediately, and returned to France.
Translation copyrighted by Roberts Brothers.
(AN EPISODE UNDER THE TERROR)
1
1
1
THE 22d of January, 1793, towards eight o'clock in the
evening, an old gentlewoman came down the sharp decliv-
ity of the Faubourg Saint-Martin, which ends near the
church of Saint-Laurent in Paris. Snow had fallen throughout
the day, so that footfalls could be scarcely heard. The streets
were deserted. The natural fear inspired by such stillness was
deepened by the terror to which all France was then a prey.
The old lady had met no one. Her failing sight hindered
her from perceiving in the distance a few pedestrians, sparsely
scattered like shadows, along the broad road of the faubourg.
She was walking bravely through the solitude as if her age were
a talisman to guard her from danger; but after passing the Rue
des Morts she fancied that she heard the firm, heavy tread of a
man coming behind her. The thought seized her mind that she
had been listening to it unconsciously for some time. Terrified
at the idea of being followed, she tried to walk faster to reach a
lighted shop-window, and settle the doubt which thus assailed
her. When well beyond the horizontal rays of light thrown
across the pavement, she turned abruptly and saw a human form
looming through the fog. The indistinct glimpse was enough.
She staggered for an instant under the weight of terror, for she
no longer doubted that this unknown man had tracked her, step
by step, from her home. The hope of escaping such a spy lent
strength to her feeble limbs. Incapable of reasoning, she quick-
ened her steps to a run, as if it were possible to escape a man
necessarily more agile than she. After running for a few min-
utes, she reached the shop of a pastry-cook, entered it, and fell,
rather than sat, down on a chair which stood before the counter.
## p. 1385 (#179) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1385
As she lifted the creaking latch of the door, a young woman,
who was at work on a piece of embroidery, looked up and recog-
nized through the glass panes the antiquated mantle of purple
silk which wrapped the old lady, and hastened to pull open a
drawer, as if to take from thence something that she had to give
her. The action and the expression of the young woman not
only implied a wish to get rid of the stranger, as of some one
most unwelcome, but she let fall an exclamation of impatience
at finding the drawer empty. Then, without looking at the
lady, she came rapidly from behind the counter, and went to-
wards the back-shop to call her husband, who appeared at once.
« Where have you put
? ” she asked him, mysteri-
ously, calling his attention to the old lady by a glance, and not
concluding her sentence.
Although the pastry-cook could see nothing but the enormous
black-silk hood circled with purple ribbons which the stranger
wore, he disappeared, with a glance at his wife which seemed to
say,
« Do
you suppose
I should leave that on your counter ? ”
Surprised at the silence and immobility of her customer, the
wife came forward, and was seized with a sudden movement
of compassion as well as of curiosity when she looked at her.
Though the complexion of the old gentlewoman was naturally
livid, like that of a person vowed to secret austerities, it was
easy to see that some recent alarm had spread an unusual pale-
ness over her features. Her head-covering was so arranged as
to hide the hair, whitened no doubt by age, for the cleanly collar
of her dress proved that she wore no powder. The concealment
of this natural adornment gave to her countenance a sort of
conventual severity; but its features were grave and noble. In
former days the habits and manners of people of quality were
so different from those of all other classes that it was easy to dis-
tinguish persons of noble birth. The young shop-woman felt
certain, therefore, that the stranger was a ci-devant, and one who
had probably belonged to the court.
“Madame ? ” she said, with involuntary respect, forgetting that
the title was proscribed.
The old lady made no answer. Her eyes were fixed on the
glass of the shop-window, as if some alarming object were
painted upon it.
“What is the matter, citoyenne ? ” asked the master of the
establishment, re-entering, and drawing the attention of his
## p. 1386 (#180) ###########################################
1386
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
customer to a little cardboard box covered with blue paper,
which he held out to her.
"It is nothing, nothing, my friends," she answered in a gentle
voice, as she raised her eyes to give the man a thankful look.
Seeing a phrygian cap upon his head, a cry escaped her:-“Ah!
it is you who have betrayed me! ”
The young woman and her husband replied by a deprecat-
ing gesture of horror which caused the unknown lady to blush,
either for her harsh suspicion or from the relief of feeling it
unjust.
"Excuse me,” she said, with childlike sweetness. Then tak-
ing a gold louis from her pocket, she offered it to the pastry-
cook. Here is the sum we agreed upon,” she added.
There is a poverty which poor people quickly divine. The
shopkeeper and his wife looked at each other with a glance at
the old lady that conveyed a mutual thought. The louis was
doubtless her last. The hands of the poor woman trembled as
she offered it, and her eyes rested upon it sadly, yet not with
avarice. She seemed to feel the full extent of her sacrifice.
Hunger and want were traced upon her features in lines as legi-
ble as those of timidity and ascetic habits. Her clothing showed
vestiges of luxury. It was of silk, well-worn; the mantle was
clean, though faded; the laces carefully darned; in short, here
were the rags of opulence. The two shopkeepers, divided be-
tween pity and self-interest, began to soothe their conscience with
words:
"Citoyenne, you seem very feeble –»
“Would Madame like to take something? » asked the wife,
cutting short her husband's speech.
“We have some very good broth,” he added.
"It is so cold, perhaps Madame is chilled by her walk; but
you can rest here and warm yourself. ”
«The devil is not so black as he is painted,” cried the hus-
band.
Won by the kind tone of these words, the old lady admitted
that she had been followed by a man and was afraid of going
home alone.
“Is that all ? ) said the man with the phrygian cap. «Wait
for me, citoyenne. ”
He gave the louis to his wife. Then moved by a species of
gratitude which slips into the shopkeeping soul when its owner
## p. 1387 (#181) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1387
Don't go.
receives an exorbitant price for an article of little value, he went
to put on his uniform as a National guard; took his hat, slung
on his sabre, and reappeared under arms.
But the wife mean-
time had reflected. Reflection, as often happens in many hearts,
had closed the open hand of her benevolence. Uneasy, and
alarmed lest her husband should be mixed up in some dangerous
affair, she pulled him by the flap of his coat, intending to stop
him; but the worthy man, obeying the impulse of charity,
promptly offered to escort the poor lady to her home.
“It seems that the man who has given her this fright is
prowling outside,” said his wife nervously.
"I am afraid he is,” said the old lady, with much simplicity.
“Suppose he should be a spy. Perhaps it is a conspiracy.
Take back the box. These words, whispered in the
pastry-cook's ear by the wife of his bosom, chilled the sudden
compassion that had warmed him.
Well, well, I will just say two words to the man and get rid
of him,” he said, opening the door and hurrying out.
The old gentlewoman, passive as a child and half paralyzed
with fear, sat down again. The shopkeeper almost instantly re-
appeared; but his face, red by nature and still further scorched
by the fires of his bakery, had suddenly turned pale, and he was
in the grasp of such terror that his legs shook and his eyes were
like those of a drunken man.
"Miserable aristocrat! ” he cried, furiously, do you want to
cut off our heads ? Go out from here; let me see your heels,
and don't dare to come back; don't expect me to supply you
with the means of conspiracy! ”
So saying, the pastry-cook endeavored to get back the little
box which the old lady had already slipped into one of her
pockets. Hardly had the bold hands of the shopkeeper touched
her clothing, than, preferring to encounter danger with no pro-
tection but that of God rather than lose the thing she had come
to buy, she recovered the agility of youth, and sprang to the
door, through which she disappeared abruptly, leaving the hus-
band and wife amazed and trembling.
As soon as the poor lady found herself alone in the street she
began to walk rapidly; but her strength soon gave way, for she
once more heard the snow creaking under the footsteps of the
spy as he trod heavily upon it. She was obliged to stop short:
the man stopped also. She dared not speak to him, nor even
## p. 1388 (#182) ###########################################
1388
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
look at him; either because of her terror, or from some lack of
natural intelligence. Presently she continued her walk slowly;
the man measured his step by hers, and kept at the same dis-
tance behind her; he seemed to move like her shadow. Nine
o'clock struck as the silent couple repassed the church of Saint-
Laurent. It is the nature of all souls, even the weakest, to fall
back into quietude after moments of violent agitation; for mani-
fold as
our feelings may be, our bodily powers are limited.
Thus the old lady, receiving no injury from her apparent perse-
cutor, began to think that he might be a secret friend watching
to protect her. She gathered up in her mind the circumstances
attending other apparitions of the mysterious stranger as if to
find plausible grounds for this consoling opinion, and took pleas-
ure in crediting him with good rather than sinister intentions.
Forgetting the terror he had inspired in the pastry-cook, she
walked on with a firmer step towards the upper part of the Fau-
bourg Saint-Martin.
At the end of half an hour she reached a house standing close
to the junction of the chief street of the faubourg with the street
leading out to the Barrière de Pantin. The place is to this day
one of the loneliest in Paris. The north wind blowing from Belle-
ville and the Buttes Chaumont whistled among the houses, or
rather cottages, scattered through the sparsely inhabited little
valley, where the inclosures are fenced with walls built of mud
and refuse bones. This dismal region seems the natural home of
poverty and despair. The man who was intent on following the
poor creature who had had the courage to thread these dark and
silent streets seemed struck with the spectacle they offered. He
stopped as if reflecting, and stood in a hesitating attitude, dimly
visible by a street lantern whose flickering light scarcely pierced
the fog Fear gave eyes to the old gentlewoman, who now
fancied that she saw something sinister in the features of this
unknown man. A11 her terrors revived, and profiting by the
curious hesitation that had seized him, she glided like a shadow
to the doorway of the solitary dwelling, touched a spring, and
disappeared with phantasmagoric rapidity.
The man, standing motionless, gazed at the house, which was,
as it were, a type of the wretched buildings of the neighborhood.
The tottering hovel, built of porous stone in rough blocks, was
coated with yellow plaster much cracked, and looked ready to
fall before a gust of wind. The roof, of brown tiles covered
## p. 1389 (#183) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1389
with moss, had sunk in several places, and gave the impression
that the weight of snow might break it down at any moment.
Each story had three windows whose frames, rotted by dampness
and shrunken by the heat of the sun, told that the outer cold
penetrated to the chambers. The lonely house seemed like an
ancient tower that time had forgotten to destroy. A faint light
gleamed from the garret windows, which were irregularly cut in
the roof; but the rest of the house was in complete obscurity.
The old woman went up the rough and clumsy stairs with diffi-
culty, holding fast to a rope which took the place of baluster.
She knocked furtively at the door of a lodging under the roof,
and sat hastily down on a chair which an old man offered her.
“Hide! hide yourself! ” she cried. “Though we go out so
seldom, our errands are known, our steps are watched
“What has happened ? ” asked another old woman sitting near
the fire.
“The man who has hung about the house since yesterday fol-
lowed me to-night. ”
At these words the occupants of the hovel looked at each
other with terror in their faces. The old man
was the least
moved of the three, possibly because he was the one in greatest
danger. Under the pressure of misfortune or the yoke of perse-
cution a man of courage begins, as it were, by preparing for the
sacrifice of himself: he looks upon his days as so many victories
won from fate.
The eyes of the two women, fixed upon
the
old man, showed plainly that he alone was the object of their
extreme anxiety.
“Why distrust God, my sisters? ” he said, in a hollow but
impressive voice. “We chanted praises to his name amid the
cries of victims and assassins at the convent. If it pleased him
to save me from that butchery, it was doubtless for some destiny
which I shall accept without a murmur. God protects his own,
and disposes of them according to his will. It is of you, not of
me, that we should think. ”
“No,” said one of the women: «what is our life in compari-
son with that of a priest ? ”
“Ever since the day when I found myself outside of the
Abbaye des Chelles,” said the nun beside the fire, “I have given
myself up for dead. ”
“Here,” said the one who had just come in, holding out the
little box to the priest, “here the sacramental wafers -
are
## p. 1390 (#184) ###########################################
1390
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
one
Listen! ” she cried, interrupting herself. “I hear some one on
the stairs. ”
At these words all three listened intently. The noise ceased.
“Do not be frightened,” said the priest, “even if some
asks to enter. A person on whose fidelity we can safely rely has
taken measures to cross the frontier, and he will soon call here
for letters which I have written to the Duc de Langeais and the
Marquis de Beauséant, advising them as to the measures they
must take to get you out of this dreadful country, and save you
from the misery or the death you would otherwise undergo here. ”
"Shall you not follow us ? " said the two nuns softly, but in a
tone of despair.
"My place is near the victims,” said the priest, simply.
The nuns were silent, looking at him with devout admiration.
“Sister Martha,” he said, addressing the nun who had fetched
the wafers, “this messenger must answer Fiat voluntas' to the
word Hosanna. ) »
« There is some one on the stairway,” exclaimed the other
nun, hastily opening a hiding-place burrowed at the edge of the
roof.
This time it was easy to hear the steps of a man sounding
through the deep silence on the rough stairs, which were caked
with patches of hardened mud. The priest slid with difficulty
into a narrow hiding-place, and the nuns hastily threw articles of
apparel over him.
"You can shut me in, Sister Agatha,” he said, in a smothered
voice.
He was scarcely hidden when three knocks upon the door
made the sisters tremble and consult each other with their eyes,
for they dared not speak. Forty years' separation from the world
had made them like plants of a hot-house which wilt when
brought into the outer air. Accustomed to the life of a convent,
they could not conceive of any other; and when one morning
their bars and gratings were flung down, they had shuddered at
finding themselves free. It is easy to imagine the species of
imbecility which the events of the Revolution, enacted before
their eyes, had produced in these innocent souls. Quite incapable
of harmonizing their conventual ideas with the exigencies of
ordinary life, not even comprehending their own situation, they
were like children who had always been cared for, and who now,
torn from their maternal providence, had taken to prayers as
## p. 1391 (#185) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1391
man.
other children take to tears. So it happened that in presence of
immediate danger they were dumb and passive, and could think
of no other defence than Christian resignation.
The man who sought to enter interpreted their silence as he
pleased; he suddenly opened the door and showed himself. The
two nuns trembled when they recognized the individual who for
some days had watched the house and seemed to make inquiries
about its inmates. They stood quite still and looked at him with
uneasy curiosity, like the children of savages examining a being
of another sphere. The stranger was very tall and stout, but
nothing in his manner or appearance denoted that he was a bad
He copied the immobility of the sisters and stood motion-
less, letting his eye rove slowly round the room.
Two bundles of straw placed on two planks served as beds
for the nuns.
monies, the more fully will he comprehend that between kneeling
humanity and the God hidden by the dazzling rays of the Holy
of Holies, the hundred voices of terrestrial choirs can alone bridge
the vast distance and interpret to Heaven the prayers of men
in all the omnipotence of their desires, in the diversities of their
woe, with the tints of their meditations and their ecstasies, with
the impetuous spring of their repentance, and the thousand
imaginations of their manifold beliefs. Yes! beneath these soar-
ing vaults the harmonies born of the genius of sacred things
find a yet unheard-of grandeur, which adorns and strengthens
them. Here the dim light, the deep silence, the voices alternat-
ing with the solemn tones of the organ, seem like a veil through
which the luminous attributes of God himself pierce and radiate.
Yet all these sacred riches now seem flung like a grain of
incense on the frail altar of an earthly love, in presence of the
eternal throne of a jealous and avenging Deity. The joy of the
nun had not the gravity which properly belongs to the solemnity
of the Magnificat. She gave to the music rich and graceful
modulations, whose rhythms breathed of human gayety; her
measures ran into the brilliant cadences of a great singer striv-
ing to express her love, and the notes rose buoyantly like the
carol of a bird by the side of its mate. At moments she darted
back into the past, as if to sport there or to weep there for an
instant. Her changing moods had something discomposed about
them, like the agitations of a happy woman rejoicing at the
return of her lover. Then, as these supple strains of passionate
emotion ceased, the soul that spoke returned upon itself; the
musician passed from the major to the minor key, and told her
hearer the story of her present. She revealed to him her long
melancholy, the slow malady of her moral being, - every day a
feeling crushed, every night a thought subdued, hour by hour a
heart burning down to ashes. After soft modulations the music
took on slowly, tint by tint, the hue of deepest sadness. Soon
## p. 1375 (#169) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1375
it poured forth in echoing torrents the well-springs of grief, till
suddenly the higher notes struck clear like the voice of angels,
as if to tell to her lost love — lost, but not forgotten — that the
reunion of their souls must be in heaven, and only there: hope
most precious! Then came the Amen. In that no joy, no tears,
nor sadness, nor regrets, but a return to God. The last chord
that sounded was grave, solemn, terrible. The musician revealed
the nun in the garb of her vocation; and as the thunder of the
basses rolled away, causing the hearer to shudder through his
whole being, she seemed to sink into the tomb from which for a
brief moment she had risen. As the echoes slowly ceased to
vibrate along the vaulted roofs, the church, made luminous by
the music, fell suddenly into profound obscurity.
The general, carried away by the course of this powerful
genius, had followed her, step by step, along her way. He
comprehended in their full meaning the pictures that gleamed
through that burning symphony; for him those chords told all.
For him, as for the Sister, this poem of sound was the future,
the past, the present. Music, even the music of an opera, is it
not to tender and poetic souls, to wounded and suffering hearts,
a text which they interpret as their memories need? If the
heart of a poet must be given to a musician, must not poetry
and love be listeners ere the great musical works of art are
understood ? Religion, love, and music: are they not the triple
expression of one fact, - the need of expansion, the need of
touching with their own infinite the infinite beyond them, which
is in the fibre of all noble souls ? These three forms of poesy
end in God, who alone can unwind the knot of earthly emotion.
Thus this holy human trinity joins itself to the holiness of God,
of whom we make to ourselves no conception unless we surround
him by the fires of love and the golden cymbals of music and
light and harmony.
The French general divined that on this desert rock, sur-
rounded by the surging seas, the nun had cherished music to
free her soul of the excess of passion that consumed it. Did she
offer her love as a homage to God? Did the love triumph over
the vows she had made to Him ? Questions difficult to answer.
But, beyond all doubt, the lover had found in a heart dead to the
world a love as passionate as that which burned within his own.
When vespers ended he returned to the house of the alcalde,
where he was quartered. Giving himself over, a willing prey,
## p. 1376 (#170) ###########################################
1376
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
to the delights of a success long expected, laboriously sought, his
mind at first could dwell on nothing else,- he was still loved.
Solitude had nourished the love of that heart, just as his own
had thriven on the barriers, successively surmounted, which this
woman had placed between herself and him. This ecstasy of
the spirit had its natural duration; then came the desire to see
this woman, to withdraw her from God, to win her back to him-
self, - a bold project, welcome to a bold man. After the evening
repast, he retired to his room to escape questions and think in
peace, and remained plunged in deep meditation throughout the
night. He rose early and went to Mass. He placed himself
close to the latticed screen, his brow touching the brown curtain.
He longed to rend it away; but he was not alone, his host had
accompanied him, and the least imprudence might compromise
the future of his love and ruin his new-found hopes. The organ
was played, but not by the same hand; the musician of the last
two days was absent from its key-board. All was chill and pale
to the general. Was his mistress worn out by the emotions
which had wellnigh broken down his own vigorous heart? Had
she so truly shared and comprehended his faithful and eager love
that she now lay exhausted and dying in her cell ? At the
moment when such thoughts as these rose in the general's mind,
he heard beside him the voice beloved; he knew the clear ring
of its tones. The voice, slightly changed by a tremor which
gave it the timid grace and modesty of a young girl, detached
itself from the volume of song, like the voice of a prima donna
in the harmonies of her final notes. It gave to the ear an
impression like the effect to the eye of a fillet of silver or gold
threading a dark frieze. It was indeed she! Still Parisian, she
had not lost her gracious charm, though she had forsaken the
coronet and adornments of the world for the frontlet and serge
of a Carmelite. Having revealed her love the night before in
the praises addressed to the Lord of all, she seemed now to say
to her lover:- “Yes, it is I: I am here. I love forever; yet I
am aloof from love. Thou shalt hear me; my soul shall enfold
thee; but I must stay beneath the brown shroud of this choir,
from which no power can tear me.
Thou canst not see me. ”
“It is she ! ” whispered the general to himself, as he raised
his head and withdrew his hands from his face; for he had not
been able to bear erect the storm of feeling that shook his heart
as the voice vibrated through the arches and blended with the
## p. 1377 (#171) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1377
murmur of the waves. A storm raged without, yet peace was
within the sanctuary. The rich voice still caressed the ear, and
fell like balm upon the parched heart of the lover; it flowered
in the air about him, from which he breathed the emanations
of her spirit exhaling her love through the aspirations of its
prayer.
The alcalde came to rejoin his guest, and found him bathed
in tears at the elevation of the Host which was chanted by the
nun. Surprised to find such devotion in a French officer, he
invited the confessor of the convent to join them at supper, and
informed the general, to whom no news had ever given such
pleasure, of what he had done. During the supper the general
made the confessor the object of much attention, and thus con-
firmed the Spaniards in the high opinion they had formed of his
piety. He inquired with grave interest the number of the nuns,
and asked details about the revenues of the convent and its
wealth, with the air of a man who politely wished to choose
topics which occupied the mind of the good old priest. Then he
inquired about the life led by the sisters. Could they go out?
Could they see friends ?
Senhor,” said the venorable priest, “the rule is severe. If
the permission of our Holy Father must be obtained before a
woman can enter a house of Saint Bruno [the Chartreux] the
like rule exists here. It is impossible for any man to enter a
convent of the Bare-footed Carmelites, unless he is a priest
delegated by the archbishop for duty in the House. No nun can
It is true, however, that the Great Saint, Mother
Theresa, did frequently leave her cell. A Mother-superior can
alone, under authority of the archbishop, permit a nun to see
her friends, especially in case of illness. As this convent is one
of the chief Houses of the Order, it has a Mother-superior
residing in it. We have several foreigners, — among them a
Frenchwoman, Sister Theresa, the one who directs the music in
the chapel. ”
"Ah! ” said the general, feigning surprise : "she must have
been gratified by the triumph of the House of Bourbon ? "
«I told them the object of the Mass; they are always rather
curious. »
"Perhaps Sister Theresa has some interests in France; she
might be glad to receive some news, or ask some questions ? »
"I think not; or she would have spoken to me. ”
111—87
go out.
## p. 1378 (#172) ###########################################
1378
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
“As a compatriot,” said the general, “I should be curious to
see — that is, if it were possible, if the superior would consent,
if - »
1
!
"At the grating, even in the presence of the reverend Mother,
an interview would be absolutely impossible for any ordinary
man, no matter who he was; but in favor of a liberator of a
Catholic throne and our holy religion, possibly, in spite of the
rigid rule of our Mother Theresa, the rule might be relaxed,”
said the confessor. "I will speak about it. ”
“How old is Sister Theresa ? ” asked the lover, who dared not
question the priest about the beauty of the nun.
"She is no longer of any age," said the good old man, with
a simplicity which made the general shudder.
1
III
pers.
The next day, before the siesta, the confessor came to tell the
general that Sister Theresa and the Mother-superior consented to
receive him at the grating that evening before the hour of ves-
After the siesta, during which the Frenchman had whiled
away the time by walking round the port in the fierce heat of
the sun, the priest came to show him the way into the con-
vent.
He was guided through a gallery which ran the length of the
cemetery, where fountains and trees and numerous arcades gave
a cool freshness in keeping with that still and silent spot. When
they reached the end of this long gallery, the priest led his com-
panion into a parlor, divided in the middle by a grating covered
with a brown curtain. On the side which we must call public,
and where the confessor left the general, there was a wooden
bench along one side of the wall; some chairs, also of wood, were
near the grating. The ceiling was of wood, crossed by heavy
beams of the evergreen oak, without ornament. Daylight came
from two windows in the division set apart for the nuns, and
was absorbed by the brown tones of the room; so that it barely
showed the picture of the great black Christ, and those of Saint
Theresa and the Blessed Virgin, which hung on the dark panels
of the walls.
The feelings of the general turned, in spite of their violence,
to a tone of melancholy. He grew calm in these calm precincts.
Something mighty as the grave seized him beneath these chilling
## p. 1379 (#173) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1379
rafters. Was it not the eternal silence, the deep peace, the near
presence of the infinite? Through the stillness came the fixed
thought of the cloister, - that thought which glides through the
air in the half-lights, and is in all things, the thougnt unchange-
able; nowhere seen, which yet grows vast to the imagination; the
all-comprising phrase, the peace of God. It enters there, with
living power, into the least religious heart. Convents of men
are not easily conceivable; man seems feeble and unmanly in
them. He is born to act, to fulfil a life of toil; and he escapes
it in his cell. But in a monastery of women what strength to
endure, and yet what touching weakness! A man may be pushed
by a thousand sentiments into the depths of an abbey; he flings
himself into them as from a precipice. But the woman is drawn
only by one feeling; she does not unsex herself, - she espouses
holiness. You may say to the man, Why did you not struggle?
but to the cloistered woman life is a struggle still.
The general found in this mute parlor of the seagirt convent
memories of himself, Love seldom reaches upward to solemnity;
but love in the bosom of God,- is there nothing solemn there?
Yes, more than a man has the right to hope for in this nine-
teenth century, with our manners and our customs what they
are.
The general's soul was one on which such impressions act.
His nature was noble enough to forget self-interest, honors, Spain,
the world, or Paris, and rise to the heights of feeling roused by
this unspeakable termination of his long pursuit. What could be
more tragic? How many emotions held these lovers, reunited at
last on this granite ledge far out at sea, yet separated by an
idea, an impassable barrier. Look at this man, saying to him-
self, “Can I triumph over God in that heart ? »
A slight noise made him quiver. The brown curtain was
drawn back; he saw in the half-light a woman standing, but her
face was hidden from him by the projection of a veil, which lay
in many folds upon her head. According to the rule of the
Order she was clothed in the brown garb whose color has be-
come proverbial. The general could not see the naked feet,
which would have told him the frightful emaciation of her body;
yet through the thick folds of the coarse robe that swathed her,
his heart divined that tears and prayers and passion and solitude
had wasted her away.
The chill hand of a woman, doubtless the Mother-superior,
held back the curtain, and the general, examining this unwelcome
## p. 1380 (#174) ###########################################
1380
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
witness of the interview, encountered the deep grave eyes of an
old nun, very aged, whose clear, even youthful, glance belied
the wrinkles that furrowed her pale face.
“Madame la duchesse,” he said, in a voice shaken by emotion,
to the Sister, who bowed her head, does your companion under-
stand French >>
« There is no duchess here,” replied the nun. << You are in
presence of Sister Theresa. The woman whom you call my
companion is my Mother in God, my superior here below. ”
These words, humbly uttered by a voice that once harmonized
with the luxury and elegance in which this woman had lived
queen of the world of Paris, that fell from lips whose language
had been of old so gay, so mocking, struck the general as if
with an electric shock.
“My holy Mother speaks only Latin and Spanish,” she added.
«I understand neither. Dear Antoinette, make her my ex-
cuses. »
As she heard her name softly uttered by a man once so hard
to her, the nun was shaken by emotion, betrayed only by the
light quivering of her veil, on which the light now fully fell.
“My brother,” she said, passing her sleeve beneath her veil,
perhaps to wipe her eyes, my name is Sister Theresa. ”
Then she turned to the Mother, and said to her in Spanish a
few words which the general plainly heard. He knew enough of
the language to understand it, perhaps to speak it. My dear
Mother, this gentleman presents to you his respects, and begs
you to excuse him for not laying them himself at your feet; but
he knows neither of the languages which you speak. ”
The old woman slowly bowed her head; her countenance took
an expression of angelic sweetness, tempered, nevertheless, by
the consciousness of her power and dignity.
“You know this gentleman ? ” she asked, with a piercing
glance at the Sister.
“Yes, my Mother. ”
“Retire to your cell, my daughter," said the Superior in a
tone of authority.
The general hastily withdrew to the shelter of the curtain,
lest his face should betray the anguish these words cost him; but
he fancied that the penetrating eyes of the Superior followed
him even into the shadow. This woman, arbiter of the frail and
fleeting joy he had won at such cost, made him afraid; he trem-
bled, he whom a triple range of cannon could not shake.
## p. 1381 (#175) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1381
The duchess walked to the door, but there she turned.
“My
Mother,” she said, in a voice horribly calm, “this Frenchman is
one of my brothers. ”
* Remain, therefore, my daughter,” said the old woman, after
a pause.
The jesuitism of this answer revealed such love and such
regret, that a man of less firmness than the general would have
betrayed his joy in the midst of a peril so novel to him. But
what value could there be in the words, looks, gestures of a love
that must be hidden from the eyes of a lynx, the claws of a
tiger? The Sister came back.
“You see, my brother,” she said, “what I have dared to do
that I might for one moment speak to you of your salvation, and
tell you of the prayers which day by day my soul offers to
heaven on your behalf. I have committed a mortal sin,- I have
lied. How many days of penitence to wash out that lie! But I
shall suffer for you. You know not, my brother, the joy of lov-
ing in heaven, of daring to avow affections that religion has
purified, that have risen to the highest regions, that at last we
know and feel with the soul alone. If the doctrines if the
spirit of the saint to whom we owe this refuge had not lifted me
above the anguish of earth to a world, not indeed where she is,
but far above my lower life, I could not have seen you now.
But I can see you, I can hear you, and remain calm. ”
“Antoinette,” said the general, interrupting these words, "suf-
fer me to see you, you, whom I love passionately, to madness,
as you once would have had me love you. "
"Do not call me Antoinette, I implore you: memories of the
past do me harm. See in me only the Sister Theresa, a creature
trusting all to the divine pity. And,” she added, after a pause,
«subdue yourself, my brother. Our Mother would separate us
instantly if your face betrayed earthly passions, or your eyes shed
tears. »
The general bowed his head, as if to collect himself; when
he again lifted his eyes to the grating he saw between two bars
the pale, emaciated, but still ardent face of the nun. Her com-
plexion, where once had bloomed the loveliness of youth,— where
once there shone the happy contrast of a pure, clear whiteness
with the colors of a Bengal rose,-
now had the tints of a porce-
lain cup through which a feeble light showed faintly. The beau-
tiful hair of which this woman was once so proud was shaven; a
## p. 1382 (#176) ###########################################
1382
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1
white band bound her brows and was wrapped around her face.
Her eyes, circled with dark shadows due to the austerities of her
life, glanced at moments with a feverish light, of which their
habitual calm was but the mask. In a word, of this woman
nothing remained but her soul.
"Ah! you will leave this tomb you, who are my life! You
belonged to me; you were not free to give yourself — not even
to God. Did you not promise to sacrifice all to the least of my
commands? Will you now think me worthy to claim that promise,
if I tell you what I have done for your sake ? I have sought
you through the whole world. For five years you have been the
thought of every instant, the occupation of every hour, of my life.
My friends — friends all-powerful as you know — have helped me
to search the convents of France, Spain, Italy, Sicily, America.
My love has deepened with every fruitless search. Many a long
journey I have taken on a false hope. I have spent my life and
the strong beatings of my heart about the walls of cloisters. I
will not speak to you of a fidelity unlimited. What is it? — noth-
ing compared to the infinitude of my love! If in other days your
remorse was real, you cannot hesitate to follow me now. ”
“You forget that I am not free. ”
“The duke is dead,” he said hastily.
Sister Theresa colored. "May Heaven receive him! ” she said,
with quick emotion: "he was generous to me.
But I did not
speak of those ties: one of my faults was my willingness to
break them without scruple for you. ”
You speak of your vows, cried the general, frowning. "I
little thought that anything would weigh in your heart against
our love.
But do not fear, Antoinette; I will obtain a brief from
the Holy Father which will absolve your vows. I will go to
Rome; I will petition every earthly power; if God himself came
down from heaven I »
"Do not blaspheme!
“Do not fear how God would see it! Ah! I wish I were as
sure that you will leave these walls with me; that to-night-to-
night, you would embark at the feet of these rocks.
to find happiness! I know not where - at the ends of the earth!
With me you will come back to life, to health — in the shelter of
1
Let us go
my love! »
“Do not say these things,” replied the Sister; “you do not
know what you now are to me. I love you better than I once
## p. 1383 (#177) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1383
loved you.
But you —
I pray to God for you daily. I see you no longer
with the eyes of my body.
If you but knew, Armand, the joy
of being able, without shame, to spend myself upon a pure love
which God protects! You do not know the joy I have in calling
down the blessings of heaven upon your head. I never pray for
myself: God will do with me according to his will.
at the price of my eternity I would win the assurance that you
are happy in this world, that you will be happy in another
throughout the ages. My life eternal is all that misfortunes have
left me to give you. I have grown old in grief; I am no longer
young or beautiful. Ah! you would despise a nun who returned
to be a woman; no sentiment, not even maternal love, could
absolve her. What could you say to me that would shake the
unnumbered reflections my heart has made in five long years, –
and which have changed it, hollowed it, withered it ? Ah! I
should have given something less sad to God! ”
«What can I say to you, dear Antoinette ? I will say that I
love you; that affection, love, true love, the joy of living in a
heart all ours,— wholly ours, without one reservation,- is so rare,
so difficult to find, that I once doubted you; I put you to cruel
tests. But to-day I love and trust you with all the powers of my
soul. If you will follow me I will listen throughout life to no
voice but thine. I will look on no face »
“Silence, Armand! you shorten the sole moments which are
given to us to see each other here below. ”
“Antoinette! will you follow me ? »
“I never leave you. I live in your heart — but with another
power than that of earthly pleasure, or vanity, or selfish joy. I
live here for you, pale and faded, in the bosom of God. If God
is just, you will be happy. ”
"Phrases! you give me phrases! But if I will to have you
pale and faded, — if I cannot be happy unless you are with me?
What! will you forever place duties before my love? Shall I
never be above all things else in your heart ? In the past you
put the world, or self — I know not what - above me; to-day it
is God, it is my salvation. In this Sister Theresa I recognize the
duchess; ignorant of the joys of love, unfeeling beneath a pretense
of tenderness! You do not love me! you never loved me! — »
“Oh, my brother! — »
“You will not leave this tomb. You love my soul, you say:
well! you shall destroy it forever and ever. I will kill myself - »
## p. 1384 (#178) ###########################################
1384
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
"My Mother! ” cried the nun, “I have lied to you; this man
is my lover. ”
The curtain fell. The general, stunned, heard the doors close
with violence.
“She loves me still! ” he cried, comprehending all that was
revealed in the cry of the nun. “I will find means to carry her
away!
He left the island immediately, and returned to France.
Translation copyrighted by Roberts Brothers.
(AN EPISODE UNDER THE TERROR)
1
1
1
THE 22d of January, 1793, towards eight o'clock in the
evening, an old gentlewoman came down the sharp decliv-
ity of the Faubourg Saint-Martin, which ends near the
church of Saint-Laurent in Paris. Snow had fallen throughout
the day, so that footfalls could be scarcely heard. The streets
were deserted. The natural fear inspired by such stillness was
deepened by the terror to which all France was then a prey.
The old lady had met no one. Her failing sight hindered
her from perceiving in the distance a few pedestrians, sparsely
scattered like shadows, along the broad road of the faubourg.
She was walking bravely through the solitude as if her age were
a talisman to guard her from danger; but after passing the Rue
des Morts she fancied that she heard the firm, heavy tread of a
man coming behind her. The thought seized her mind that she
had been listening to it unconsciously for some time. Terrified
at the idea of being followed, she tried to walk faster to reach a
lighted shop-window, and settle the doubt which thus assailed
her. When well beyond the horizontal rays of light thrown
across the pavement, she turned abruptly and saw a human form
looming through the fog. The indistinct glimpse was enough.
She staggered for an instant under the weight of terror, for she
no longer doubted that this unknown man had tracked her, step
by step, from her home. The hope of escaping such a spy lent
strength to her feeble limbs. Incapable of reasoning, she quick-
ened her steps to a run, as if it were possible to escape a man
necessarily more agile than she. After running for a few min-
utes, she reached the shop of a pastry-cook, entered it, and fell,
rather than sat, down on a chair which stood before the counter.
## p. 1385 (#179) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1385
As she lifted the creaking latch of the door, a young woman,
who was at work on a piece of embroidery, looked up and recog-
nized through the glass panes the antiquated mantle of purple
silk which wrapped the old lady, and hastened to pull open a
drawer, as if to take from thence something that she had to give
her. The action and the expression of the young woman not
only implied a wish to get rid of the stranger, as of some one
most unwelcome, but she let fall an exclamation of impatience
at finding the drawer empty. Then, without looking at the
lady, she came rapidly from behind the counter, and went to-
wards the back-shop to call her husband, who appeared at once.
« Where have you put
? ” she asked him, mysteri-
ously, calling his attention to the old lady by a glance, and not
concluding her sentence.
Although the pastry-cook could see nothing but the enormous
black-silk hood circled with purple ribbons which the stranger
wore, he disappeared, with a glance at his wife which seemed to
say,
« Do
you suppose
I should leave that on your counter ? ”
Surprised at the silence and immobility of her customer, the
wife came forward, and was seized with a sudden movement
of compassion as well as of curiosity when she looked at her.
Though the complexion of the old gentlewoman was naturally
livid, like that of a person vowed to secret austerities, it was
easy to see that some recent alarm had spread an unusual pale-
ness over her features. Her head-covering was so arranged as
to hide the hair, whitened no doubt by age, for the cleanly collar
of her dress proved that she wore no powder. The concealment
of this natural adornment gave to her countenance a sort of
conventual severity; but its features were grave and noble. In
former days the habits and manners of people of quality were
so different from those of all other classes that it was easy to dis-
tinguish persons of noble birth. The young shop-woman felt
certain, therefore, that the stranger was a ci-devant, and one who
had probably belonged to the court.
“Madame ? ” she said, with involuntary respect, forgetting that
the title was proscribed.
The old lady made no answer. Her eyes were fixed on the
glass of the shop-window, as if some alarming object were
painted upon it.
“What is the matter, citoyenne ? ” asked the master of the
establishment, re-entering, and drawing the attention of his
## p. 1386 (#180) ###########################################
1386
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
customer to a little cardboard box covered with blue paper,
which he held out to her.
"It is nothing, nothing, my friends," she answered in a gentle
voice, as she raised her eyes to give the man a thankful look.
Seeing a phrygian cap upon his head, a cry escaped her:-“Ah!
it is you who have betrayed me! ”
The young woman and her husband replied by a deprecat-
ing gesture of horror which caused the unknown lady to blush,
either for her harsh suspicion or from the relief of feeling it
unjust.
"Excuse me,” she said, with childlike sweetness. Then tak-
ing a gold louis from her pocket, she offered it to the pastry-
cook. Here is the sum we agreed upon,” she added.
There is a poverty which poor people quickly divine. The
shopkeeper and his wife looked at each other with a glance at
the old lady that conveyed a mutual thought. The louis was
doubtless her last. The hands of the poor woman trembled as
she offered it, and her eyes rested upon it sadly, yet not with
avarice. She seemed to feel the full extent of her sacrifice.
Hunger and want were traced upon her features in lines as legi-
ble as those of timidity and ascetic habits. Her clothing showed
vestiges of luxury. It was of silk, well-worn; the mantle was
clean, though faded; the laces carefully darned; in short, here
were the rags of opulence. The two shopkeepers, divided be-
tween pity and self-interest, began to soothe their conscience with
words:
"Citoyenne, you seem very feeble –»
“Would Madame like to take something? » asked the wife,
cutting short her husband's speech.
“We have some very good broth,” he added.
"It is so cold, perhaps Madame is chilled by her walk; but
you can rest here and warm yourself. ”
«The devil is not so black as he is painted,” cried the hus-
band.
Won by the kind tone of these words, the old lady admitted
that she had been followed by a man and was afraid of going
home alone.
“Is that all ? ) said the man with the phrygian cap. «Wait
for me, citoyenne. ”
He gave the louis to his wife. Then moved by a species of
gratitude which slips into the shopkeeping soul when its owner
## p. 1387 (#181) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1387
Don't go.
receives an exorbitant price for an article of little value, he went
to put on his uniform as a National guard; took his hat, slung
on his sabre, and reappeared under arms.
But the wife mean-
time had reflected. Reflection, as often happens in many hearts,
had closed the open hand of her benevolence. Uneasy, and
alarmed lest her husband should be mixed up in some dangerous
affair, she pulled him by the flap of his coat, intending to stop
him; but the worthy man, obeying the impulse of charity,
promptly offered to escort the poor lady to her home.
“It seems that the man who has given her this fright is
prowling outside,” said his wife nervously.
"I am afraid he is,” said the old lady, with much simplicity.
“Suppose he should be a spy. Perhaps it is a conspiracy.
Take back the box. These words, whispered in the
pastry-cook's ear by the wife of his bosom, chilled the sudden
compassion that had warmed him.
Well, well, I will just say two words to the man and get rid
of him,” he said, opening the door and hurrying out.
The old gentlewoman, passive as a child and half paralyzed
with fear, sat down again. The shopkeeper almost instantly re-
appeared; but his face, red by nature and still further scorched
by the fires of his bakery, had suddenly turned pale, and he was
in the grasp of such terror that his legs shook and his eyes were
like those of a drunken man.
"Miserable aristocrat! ” he cried, furiously, do you want to
cut off our heads ? Go out from here; let me see your heels,
and don't dare to come back; don't expect me to supply you
with the means of conspiracy! ”
So saying, the pastry-cook endeavored to get back the little
box which the old lady had already slipped into one of her
pockets. Hardly had the bold hands of the shopkeeper touched
her clothing, than, preferring to encounter danger with no pro-
tection but that of God rather than lose the thing she had come
to buy, she recovered the agility of youth, and sprang to the
door, through which she disappeared abruptly, leaving the hus-
band and wife amazed and trembling.
As soon as the poor lady found herself alone in the street she
began to walk rapidly; but her strength soon gave way, for she
once more heard the snow creaking under the footsteps of the
spy as he trod heavily upon it. She was obliged to stop short:
the man stopped also. She dared not speak to him, nor even
## p. 1388 (#182) ###########################################
1388
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
look at him; either because of her terror, or from some lack of
natural intelligence. Presently she continued her walk slowly;
the man measured his step by hers, and kept at the same dis-
tance behind her; he seemed to move like her shadow. Nine
o'clock struck as the silent couple repassed the church of Saint-
Laurent. It is the nature of all souls, even the weakest, to fall
back into quietude after moments of violent agitation; for mani-
fold as
our feelings may be, our bodily powers are limited.
Thus the old lady, receiving no injury from her apparent perse-
cutor, began to think that he might be a secret friend watching
to protect her. She gathered up in her mind the circumstances
attending other apparitions of the mysterious stranger as if to
find plausible grounds for this consoling opinion, and took pleas-
ure in crediting him with good rather than sinister intentions.
Forgetting the terror he had inspired in the pastry-cook, she
walked on with a firmer step towards the upper part of the Fau-
bourg Saint-Martin.
At the end of half an hour she reached a house standing close
to the junction of the chief street of the faubourg with the street
leading out to the Barrière de Pantin. The place is to this day
one of the loneliest in Paris. The north wind blowing from Belle-
ville and the Buttes Chaumont whistled among the houses, or
rather cottages, scattered through the sparsely inhabited little
valley, where the inclosures are fenced with walls built of mud
and refuse bones. This dismal region seems the natural home of
poverty and despair. The man who was intent on following the
poor creature who had had the courage to thread these dark and
silent streets seemed struck with the spectacle they offered. He
stopped as if reflecting, and stood in a hesitating attitude, dimly
visible by a street lantern whose flickering light scarcely pierced
the fog Fear gave eyes to the old gentlewoman, who now
fancied that she saw something sinister in the features of this
unknown man. A11 her terrors revived, and profiting by the
curious hesitation that had seized him, she glided like a shadow
to the doorway of the solitary dwelling, touched a spring, and
disappeared with phantasmagoric rapidity.
The man, standing motionless, gazed at the house, which was,
as it were, a type of the wretched buildings of the neighborhood.
The tottering hovel, built of porous stone in rough blocks, was
coated with yellow plaster much cracked, and looked ready to
fall before a gust of wind. The roof, of brown tiles covered
## p. 1389 (#183) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1389
with moss, had sunk in several places, and gave the impression
that the weight of snow might break it down at any moment.
Each story had three windows whose frames, rotted by dampness
and shrunken by the heat of the sun, told that the outer cold
penetrated to the chambers. The lonely house seemed like an
ancient tower that time had forgotten to destroy. A faint light
gleamed from the garret windows, which were irregularly cut in
the roof; but the rest of the house was in complete obscurity.
The old woman went up the rough and clumsy stairs with diffi-
culty, holding fast to a rope which took the place of baluster.
She knocked furtively at the door of a lodging under the roof,
and sat hastily down on a chair which an old man offered her.
“Hide! hide yourself! ” she cried. “Though we go out so
seldom, our errands are known, our steps are watched
“What has happened ? ” asked another old woman sitting near
the fire.
“The man who has hung about the house since yesterday fol-
lowed me to-night. ”
At these words the occupants of the hovel looked at each
other with terror in their faces. The old man
was the least
moved of the three, possibly because he was the one in greatest
danger. Under the pressure of misfortune or the yoke of perse-
cution a man of courage begins, as it were, by preparing for the
sacrifice of himself: he looks upon his days as so many victories
won from fate.
The eyes of the two women, fixed upon
the
old man, showed plainly that he alone was the object of their
extreme anxiety.
“Why distrust God, my sisters? ” he said, in a hollow but
impressive voice. “We chanted praises to his name amid the
cries of victims and assassins at the convent. If it pleased him
to save me from that butchery, it was doubtless for some destiny
which I shall accept without a murmur. God protects his own,
and disposes of them according to his will. It is of you, not of
me, that we should think. ”
“No,” said one of the women: «what is our life in compari-
son with that of a priest ? ”
“Ever since the day when I found myself outside of the
Abbaye des Chelles,” said the nun beside the fire, “I have given
myself up for dead. ”
“Here,” said the one who had just come in, holding out the
little box to the priest, “here the sacramental wafers -
are
## p. 1390 (#184) ###########################################
1390
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
one
Listen! ” she cried, interrupting herself. “I hear some one on
the stairs. ”
At these words all three listened intently. The noise ceased.
“Do not be frightened,” said the priest, “even if some
asks to enter. A person on whose fidelity we can safely rely has
taken measures to cross the frontier, and he will soon call here
for letters which I have written to the Duc de Langeais and the
Marquis de Beauséant, advising them as to the measures they
must take to get you out of this dreadful country, and save you
from the misery or the death you would otherwise undergo here. ”
"Shall you not follow us ? " said the two nuns softly, but in a
tone of despair.
"My place is near the victims,” said the priest, simply.
The nuns were silent, looking at him with devout admiration.
“Sister Martha,” he said, addressing the nun who had fetched
the wafers, “this messenger must answer Fiat voluntas' to the
word Hosanna. ) »
« There is some one on the stairway,” exclaimed the other
nun, hastily opening a hiding-place burrowed at the edge of the
roof.
This time it was easy to hear the steps of a man sounding
through the deep silence on the rough stairs, which were caked
with patches of hardened mud. The priest slid with difficulty
into a narrow hiding-place, and the nuns hastily threw articles of
apparel over him.
"You can shut me in, Sister Agatha,” he said, in a smothered
voice.
He was scarcely hidden when three knocks upon the door
made the sisters tremble and consult each other with their eyes,
for they dared not speak. Forty years' separation from the world
had made them like plants of a hot-house which wilt when
brought into the outer air. Accustomed to the life of a convent,
they could not conceive of any other; and when one morning
their bars and gratings were flung down, they had shuddered at
finding themselves free. It is easy to imagine the species of
imbecility which the events of the Revolution, enacted before
their eyes, had produced in these innocent souls. Quite incapable
of harmonizing their conventual ideas with the exigencies of
ordinary life, not even comprehending their own situation, they
were like children who had always been cared for, and who now,
torn from their maternal providence, had taken to prayers as
## p. 1391 (#185) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1391
man.
other children take to tears. So it happened that in presence of
immediate danger they were dumb and passive, and could think
of no other defence than Christian resignation.
The man who sought to enter interpreted their silence as he
pleased; he suddenly opened the door and showed himself. The
two nuns trembled when they recognized the individual who for
some days had watched the house and seemed to make inquiries
about its inmates. They stood quite still and looked at him with
uneasy curiosity, like the children of savages examining a being
of another sphere. The stranger was very tall and stout, but
nothing in his manner or appearance denoted that he was a bad
He copied the immobility of the sisters and stood motion-
less, letting his eye rove slowly round the room.
Two bundles of straw placed on two planks served as beds
for the nuns.
