I should shortly have
bent to her will, for I had fallen into the deepest melan-
choly, and passed whole days alone, without power to move,
-- a prey to an idea which I never confessed to myself,
?
bent to her will, for I had fallen into the deepest melan-
choly, and passed whole days alone, without power to move,
-- a prey to an idea which I never confessed to myself,
?
Madame de Stael - Corinna, or Italy
?
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org/access_use#pd-google
? 200CO R I N N E ; O R I TA L Y .
now this was too much. I was so hurt by her indifference,
that I resolved to tak e leave before the party, and not
remain alone with her one instant. S he heard me ask her
brother to let me see him in the morning, ere I started;
arid, coming to us, told me aloud that she must charge me
with a letter for a friend of hers in E ngland i then added,
hastily, and in a low voice, ' Y
to my brother: would you break
I n an instant she stepped back
ou regret -- you speak but
my heart, by flying thus? '
, and reseated herself among
her visitants. I was agitated by her words, and should
have stayed as she desired, but that R aimond, tak ing my
arm, led me to his own room. W hen the company had
dispersed, we suddenly heard strange sounds from Madame
d' A rbigny' s apartment: he took no notice of them;
forced him to ascertain their cause. W e were told that
she was very ill. I would have flown to her; but the Count
obstinately forbade. ' L et us have no scene! ' he said;
but I
' in these affairs women are best left to themselves. '
could not comprehend this want of feeling for a sister, so
contrasted with his invariable k indness to me; and I
I
left
him in an embarrassment which somewhat chilled my fare-
well. A h! had I k nown the delicacy which would fain
have baffled the captivations of a woman he did not believe
formed to mak e me happy, could I have foreseen the events
which were to separate us for ever, my adieu would have
better satisfied his soul and mine own. "
CH A PTE R I I .
O swald ceased for some minutes. Corinne had listened
so tremblingly that she too was silent, fearful of retarding
the moment when he would renew his narrative. -- " I
should have been happy," he continued, " had my ac-
q uaintance with Madame d' A rbigny ended there --
never more set foot in F rance. B ut fate, or, rather, per-
haps, my own weak ness, has poisoned my life for ever.
had I
Y es, dearest love! even beside you. I passed a year in
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? CO B I N N E ; O R I TA L Y . 201
S cotland with my father: our mutual tenderness daily
increased. I was admitted into the sanctuary of that
heavenly spirit; and, in the friendship that united us,
tasted all the consanguine sympathies whose mysterious
link s belong to our whole being. I received most affec-
tionate letters from R aimond, recounting the difficulties he
found in transferring his property, so as to j oin me; but
his perseverance in that aim was unwearied. I loved him
for it; but what friend could I compare with my father?
The reverence I felt for him never check ed my confidence.
I put my faith in his words as in those of an oracle; and
the unfortunate indecision of my character was suspended
while he spok
is venerable,'
not, could not k
e. ' H eaven has formed us for a love of what
says an E nglish author. My father k new
now, to what degree I loved him; and my
fatal conduct might well have taught him to doubt whether
I loved him at all. Y et he pitied me, while dying, for the
grief his loss would inflict. A h, Corinne! I draw near
the recital of my woes: lend my courage thy support: for
in truth I need it. " -- " My dear friend," she answered,
" be it some solace that you unveil your nobly sensitive
heart before the being who most admires and loves you in
the world. " N evil proceeded:-- " H e sent me to L ondon
on business; and I left him without one warning fear,
though never to see him again. H e was more endearing
than ever in our last conversation: it is said that the souls
of the j ust, lik e flowers, breathe their richest balms at the
approach of night. H e embraced me with tears, saying,
that at his age all partings were solemn; but I believed his
life lik e mine: our souls understood each other so well, and
I was too young to think upon his age. The fears and
the confidence of strong affection are alik e inex plicable: he
accompanied me to the door of that old hall which I have
since beheld desert and devastated, lik e my own heart. I
had but been a week in L ondon, when I received the cruel
letter of which I remember every word:-- ' Y esterday, the
1 O th of A ugust, my brother was massacred at the Tuileries,
while defending his k ing. I am proscribed, and forced to
fly, to hide from my persecutors. R aimond had tak en all
my fortune, with his own, to settle in E ngland. H ave you
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? 202CO R I N N E ; O R I TA L Y ,
yet received it? or k now you whom he trusted to remit
it? I had but one line from him, written when the chateau
was attack ed, bidding me only apply to you and I should
k now all. I f you could come hither and remove me, you
might save my life. The E nglish still travel F rance in
safety; but I cannot obtain a passport under my own name.
I f the sister of your hapless friend sufficiently interests
you, my retreat may be learned at Paris of my relation
Monsieur Maltigues: but should you generously wish to
aid me, lose not a moment; for it is said that war will
shortly be declared between our two countries. ' I magine
the effect this took on me! my friend murdered, his sister
in despair, their fortune, she said, in my hands, though I
had not received the least tidings of I t; add to these cir-
cumstances, Madame d' A rbigny' s danger, and belief that I
could preserve her; it was impossible to hesitate. I sent
a messenger to my father with her letter, and my promise
to return in a fortnight; then set forth instantly. B y the
most distressing chance the man fell ill on the way, and my
second letter, from Dover, reached my father before the
first. Thus he k new of my flight, ere informed of its mo-
tives; and ere the ex planation came, had tak en an alarm
which could not be dissipated. I arrived at Paris in three
days, and found that Madame d' A ubigny had retired to a
provincial town six ty leagues off: thither I followed her.
W e were both much agitated at meeting. S he appeared
more lovely in her distress than I had ever thought her --
less artificial, less restrained. W e wept together for her
noble brother, and distracted country. I anx iously enq
as to her fortune. S he told me that she had no news of it;
uired
but in a few days I learned that the bank er to whom Count
R aimond confided it, had returned it to him; and, what was
more singular, a merchant of the town in which we were,
who told me this by chance, assured me that Madame
d' A rbigny never needed to have felt a moment' s doubt of
its safety. I could not understand this; went to ask her
what it meant; and found M. Maltigues, who, with the
readiest coolness, informed me that he had j ust brought
from Paris intelligence of the bank er' s return, as, not hav-
ing heard of him for a month, they had thought he was
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? ColtI N N K J O R I TA L Y . 203
gone to E ngland. * S he confirmed her k insman' s statements,
and I believed them; but, since, have recollected her pre-
tex ts for not showing me the note from K aimond, men-
tioned in her letter, and am now convinced that the whole
was but a stratagem to secure me. I t is certain that, as she
was rich, no interested motives blended with her scheme;
but her great fault lay in using address where love alone
was req uired, and dissimulating when candour would better
have served the cause of her sentimental enterprise: she
loved me as much as those can love, who preconcert not
only their actions but their feelings, and conduct an affair
of the heart with the policy of a state intrigue. I formally
declared that I would never marry without my father' s
approval; yet I could not forbear betraying the transports
her beauty and sadness ex cited. H er plan being to mak e
me captive at any price, she let me perceive that she was
not thoroughly resolved on repulsing my wishes. A s I now
retrace what passed between us, I am assured that she he-
sitated from motives q uite independent of love and virtue;
nay, that their apparent struggles were but her own
secret deliberations. I was constantly alone with her;
and my delicacy could not long resist the temptation.
S he imposed on me all the duties, in yielding me all the
rights of a husband;
than she really felt;
would, fain have tak
yet displayed more remorse, perhaps,
and thus so bound me to her, that I
en her to E ngland, and implored my
father' s consent to our union; but she refused to q uit
F rance, unless as my wife. There she was wise, indeed;
but, well k nowing my filial resolutions, she erred in the
means she used to retain me in spite mine every duty.
W hen the war brok e out, my desire to leave F rance became
still stronger, and her obstacles to it multiplied. S he could
obtain no passport; and if I went alone, her reputation
would be ruined; nay, she should be doubly suspected, for
her correspondence with me. This woman, so mild, so
eq uable, in general, then gave way to a despair which per-
fectly overwhelmed me. S he employed her wit and graces
? This is the less clear for being literal. 1 cannot comprehend how the
bank er' s return should concern Madame d' A rbigny, if be had previously
restored R aimond' s fortune -t nor who possessed it. -- I n.
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? 204CO R I N N E ; O R I TA L Y .
to please, her grief to intimidate me. Perhaps women are
wrong in commanding by tears, enslaving by the strength
of their weak ness; yet, when they fear not to ex ert this
weapon, it is nearly always victorious, at least for a while.
Doubtless, love is weak ened by this sort of usurpation; and
the power of tears, too freq uently ex erted, chills the ima-
gination; but, at that time, there were a thousand ex cuses
for them in F rance. Madame d' A rbigny' s health, too,
seemed daily to decrease: another terrible instrument of
female tyranny is illness. Those who have not, lik e you,'
Corinne, a j ust reliance on their minds, or are not, lik e
E nglishwomen, so proudly modest that feigning is impos-
sible, have always recourse to art; and the best we can
then hope of them is that their deceit is caused by a real
attachment. A third party was now blended with our
connection* -- Monsieur Maltigues. S he pleased him; he
ask ed nothing better than to marry her; though a specu-
lative immorality rendered him indifferent to every thing.
H e loved intrigue as a game, even while not interested in
the stak e; and seconded Madame d' A rbigny' s designs on
me, ready to desert this plot if occasion served for ac-
complishing his own. H e was a man against whom I
felt a singular repugnance; though scarcely thirty, his
manners and person were remark ably hack neyed. I n E ng-
land, where we are accused of coldness, I never met any
thing comparable with the seriousness of his demeanour on
entering a room. I should never have tak en him for a
F renchman, if he had not possessed some taste and plea-
santry, with a love of talk ing very ex traordinary in a man
who seemed sated of the world, and who carried that dis-
position to a system. H e pretended that he was born a
sensitive enthusiast, but that the k nowledge of mank ind
he owed to the revolution had undeceived him. H e per-
ceived, he said, that there was nothing good on earth, save
fortune, or power, or both; and that fine q ualities must
give way to circumstances. H e practised on this theory
cleverly enough; his only mistak e lay in proclaiming it;
but though he had not the national wish to please, he
* The lady' s professed aversion to a third party in . her attachments seems
unaccountably reversed. -- Ta.
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? CO R I N N E J O R I TA L Y . 205
nevertheless desired to create some sensation, and that ren-
dered him thus imprudent: he differed in these respects
from Madame d' A rbigny, who sought to attain her end
without betraying herself, or seek ing to shine, even in her
errors. W hat was most strange in these two persons is,
that the ardent one could k eep her secret, while the insen.
sible k new not how to hold his tongue. S uch as he was,
Maltigues had a great ascendancy over his relative; either
he guessed it, or she told him all; for even from her
habitual wariness she req uired, now and then, to tak
breath, as it were, by an indiscretion. I f Maltigues look
e
ed
on her severely, she was always disturbed; if he seemed
discontented, she would tak e him aside to ask the reason;
if he went away angry, she almost instantly shut herself up
to write to him. I ex plained this to myself from the fact
of his having k nown her from her childhood; he had ma-
naged her affairs since she had lost all nearer ties; but the
chief cause was her proj ect, which I discovered too late,
of marrying him, if I left her; for at no price would she
pass for a deserted woman. S uch a resolution might mak e
you believe that she loved me not; yet love alone could
have induced her preference: but through life she could
mix calculation even with passion, and the factitious pre-
tences of society with her natural feelings. S he wept when
she was agitated, but she could also weep because that was
the way to ex press emotion. S he was happy in being
loved, because she loved, but also because it did her honour
before the world. S he had right impulses while left to
herself, but could only enj
profitable to her self-love. S
and by ' good company,'
oy them if they were rendered
he was a person formed for
and made that false use even of
truth itself, which is so often found in a country where a
zeal for producing effect, by certain sentiments, is much
stronger than the sentiments themselves. I t was long
since I had heard from my father, the war having cut off
all communication. A t last, chance favoured the arrival of
a letter* , in which he adj ured me to return, in the name
? F req uent unex plained chances favour subseq uent letters; indeed, the cor-
respondence henceforth seems to proceed as easily as if the countries had been
at peace-- 1' r.
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? 206 CO R DJ N E ; O B I TA L Y .
of my duty and his affection; at the same time declaring
that, if I married Madame d' A rhigny, I should cause him
the most fatal sorrow; pegging me, at least, to decide on
nothing until I had heard his advice. I replied to him
instantly, giving my word of honour that I would shortly
do as he req uired. Madame d' A rhigny tried, first prayers,
then despondence, to detain me; and finding these fail, re-
sorted to a fresh stratagem; but how could I then suspect
it? S he came to me one morning pale and dishevelled,
threw herself into my arms as if dying with terror, and
besought me to protect her. The order, she said, was
come for her arrest, as sister to Count R aimond, and I
must find her some asylum from her pursuers; at this time
women, indeed, were not spared, and all k inds of horrors
appeared probable. 1 took her to a merchant devoted to
my interest, and hoped to save her, as only Maltigues
shared the secret of her retreat. I n such a situation, how
could I avoid feeling a lively interest in her fate? how
separate myself from her? how say, ' Y ou depend on my
support, and I withdraw it? ' N
image continually haunted me, and I
evertheless my father' s
to entreat her leave for setting forth alone;
ened to give herself up to the assassins if I
and twice, at noonday, rushed from the house in a frantic
state that overwhelmed me with grief and fear. I followed,
vainly conj uring her to return; fortunately it happened
(unless by conspiracy) that each time we were met by
Maltigues, who brought her back with reproaches on her
rashness. O f course I resigned myself to stay, and wrote
to my father, accounting, as well as I could, for my con-
duct; though I blushed at being in F rance, amid the
outrages then acting there, while that country, too, was at
war with my own. Maltigues often rallied me on my
scruples; but, clever as he was, he did not perceive the
effect of his j ests, which revived all the feelings he sought
to ex tinguish. Madame d' A rhigny, however, remark ed
this; but she had no influence over her k insman, who was
often decided by caprice, if self-interest was absent. S he
relapsed into her griefs, both real and assumed, to melt
me; and was never more attractive than while fainting at
took
many occasions
but she threat-
q uitted her,
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? CO H I N N E ; O R I TA L Y . 207
my feet; for she k new how to heighten her beauty as well
as her other charms, and wedded each to some emotion in
order to subdue me. Thus did I live, ever anx ious, ever
vacillating, trembling when I received no letter from my
father, still more wretched when I did; enchained by my
infatuation for Madame d' A rbigny, still more dreading her
violence; for, by a strange inconsistency, though the
gentlest, and often the gayest of women, habitually, she
was the most terrible person in a scene. S he wished to
bind me both by pleasure and by fear, and thus always
transformed her nature to her use. O ne day, in S eptem-
ber, 1793, more than a year after my coming to F rance,
I had a brief letter from my father; but its few words were
so afflicting, that I must spare myself their repetition,
Corinne; it would too much unman me. H e was already
ill, though he did not say so; his pride and delicacy for-
bade; but his letter breathed so much distress, both on
account of my absence, and of my possible marriage, that
while reading it I wondered how I
blind to the misfortunes with which I
was now, however, sufficiently awak
more; and went to Madame d' A
could have been so long
was menaced. I
ened to hesitate no
rbigny, perfectly decided to
tak e leave of her. S he perceived this, and at once retiring
within herself, rose, saying, ' B efore you go, you ought to
be informed of a secret which I blush to avow. I f you
abandon me, it is not me alone you k ill. The fruit of my
guilty love will perish with me. ' N othing can describe
my sensations; that new, that sacred duty, absorbed my
whole soul, and made me more submissively her slave than
ever. I would have married her at once, but for the
ruinous conseq uences that must have befallen me, as an
E nglishman, in then and there giving my name to the
civil authorities. I deferred our union, therefore, till we
could fly to E ngland, and determined never to leave my
victim till then. A t first this calmed her; but she soon
renewed her complaints against ine, for not braving all
impediments to mak e her my wife.
I should shortly have
bent to her will, for I had fallen into the deepest melan-
choly, and passed whole days alone, without power to move,
-- a prey to an idea which I never confessed to myself,
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? 208CO R I N N E J O R I TA L Y .
though its persecution was incessant. I had a foreboding
of my father' s illness, which I considered a weak ness un-
worthy of belief. My reason was so bewildered by the shock
my mistress had dealt me, that I now combated my sense
of duty as a passion; and that which I might have then
thought my passion, tormented me as a duty. Madame
d' A rbigny was perpetually writing me entreaties to visit
her; at last I went, but did not speak on the subj ect which
gave her such rights over me: indeed, she now less fre-
q uently alluded to it herself than I ex pected; but my
sufferings were too great for me to remark that at the
time. O nce, when I had k ept my house for three days,
writing twenty letters to my father, and tearing them all,
M. Maltigues, who seldom sought m>> j came, deputed by his
cousin to tear me from my solitude. Though little interested
in the success of his embassy, as you will discover, he
entered before I
had time to conceal that my face was
bathed in tears. ' W hat is the use of all this, my dear
boy? ' he said; ' either leave my cousin, or marry her.
The one step is as good as the other, each being conclusive. '
. -- ' There are situations in life,' replied I , ' where even
by sacrificing oneself, one may not be able to fulfil every
duty. ' -- '
he added. '
necessary;
That is, there ought to be no such sacrifice,'
I k now of no circumstances in which it is
with a little address one may back out of any
thing. Management is the q ueen of the world. ' -- ' I
covet no such ability,' said I ; ' but at least would wish,
in resigning myself to unhappiness, to afflict no one that
I love. ' -- ' H ave nothing to do, then, with the intricate
work they call love; it is a sick ness of the soul. I am
attack ed by it at times, lik e any one else; but when it so
happens, I tell myself that it shall soon be over, and
always k eep my word. '
with generalities-- for I
him -- I answered, '
S eek ing to deal, lik e himself,
neither could nor would confide in
Do what we will with love, we can-
not banish honour and virtue, that often oppose our in-
clination. ' -- ' I f you mean, by honour, the necessity for
fighting when insulted, there can be no doubt on that
head; but, in other respects, what interest have we in
allowing ourselves to be perplex ed by a thousand fasti-
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? CO R I N N E ; O R I TA L Y . 209
dious chimeras? ' -- '
the word in q uestion. '
--
I nterest! ' I repeated; ' that is not
' To speak seriously, ' he re-
turned, ' there are few men who have a clear view of this
subj ect. I k now they formerly talk ed of honourable mis-
fortunes, and glorious falls; but now that all men are per-
secuted, k naves as well as those by courtesy called honest,
the only difference is between the birds who are trap-
ped, and those who escape. ' -- ' I k now of other distinc-
tions,' I replied, ' where prosperity is despised, and misfor-
tune honoured by the good. ' -- ' S how me the good, though,'
he said, ' whose courageous esteem would console you for
your own destruction. O n the contrary, the self-elected
virtuous are those who ex cuse you if happy, and love you
if powerful. I t is very fine in you, no doubt, to repent
thwarting a father, who ought no longer to meddle with
your affairs; yet do any thing rather than linger where
you may lose your life in a thousand ways. F or my
part, whatever happens to me, I would, at any price, spare
my friends the sight of my sufferings, and myself their
long faces of condolence. ' -- ' I n my opinion,' interrupted
I , ' the aim of an honest man' s life is not the happiness
which serves only himself, but the virtue which is useful
toothers. ' -- ' V irtue! ' ex claimed Maltigues, ' virtue'
he hesitated for a moment, then, with more decision, con-
tinued; ' that' s a language for the vulgar, that even
priests cannot talk between themselves without laughing.
There are good souls whom certain harmonious words
still move; for their sak es let the tune be played: all the
poetry that they call conscience and devotion was in-
vented to console those who cannot get on in the world,
lik e the de profundis that is sung for the dead. The living
and the prosperous are by no means ambitious of lik e
homage. ' I was so irritated that I could not help saying
haughtily, ' I shall be sorry, sir, when I have a right in the
house of Madame d' A rbigny, if she persists in receiving
amanwhothink sandspeak sasyoudo. ' -- ' W henthat
time comes,' he answered, ' you may act as you please;
but if my cousin is led by me, she will never marry a man
who look s forward in such affright to his union with her.
I have always, as she can tell you, censured her folly, and
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? 210CO R I N N E ; O R I TA L Y .
the means she has wasted on an obj ect so little worth her
trouble. ' A t these words, which their accent rendered still
more insulting, I made him a sign to follow me; and,
on our way, it is but j ustice to tell you that he continued
to develope his system with the greatest possible coolness:
he might be no more in a few minutes, yet said not one
serious, one feeling word. ' I f I had been addicted to all
the absurdities of other young men,' he pursued, ' would
not what I have seen in my own country have cured me?
W hen has your scrupulousness done you any good ? ' --
'
I
ne or
now
to
agree with you,' said I , ' that in your country, at present,
it is of less utility than elsewhere;
time, each man has his reward. '
heaven in your calculations -- '
other of us, perhaps, will soon k
but in time, or beyond
-- ' O h, if you include
-- ' A nd why not? O
now what it means. ' --
' I f I die,'
nothing about it;
enlighten me. ' I
he laughed forth, ' I am sure I shall k
if you are k illed, you won' t come back
now remembered that I had tak en no
precautions for informing my father of my probable fate,
or mak ing over to Madame d' A rbigny part of my fortune,
on which I thought she had claims. W e drew near Mal-
tigues' house, and I ask ed leave to write two letters there:
he assented. A s we resumed our route, I gave them to him,
and recommended Madame d' A rbigny to him, as to a
friend of hers on whom I could rely. This proof of
confidence touched him; for, be it observed, to the glory
of honesty, that the most candid profligates are much flat-
tered if they chance to receive a mark of esteem; our
relative position, too, was grave enough to have affected
even him; but as he would not for worlds have had me
guess this, he said j estingly, though I believe prompted by
deeper feelings, ' Y ou are a good fellow, my dear N evil;
I ' d fain do something generous by you: it may bring me
luck , as they say; and truly generosity is so babyish a
q uality, that it ought to be better paid in heaven than on
earth. B ut ere I serve you, our conditions must be made
plain, say what I will -- we fight nevertheless. ' I re-
turned a disdainful consent, for I thought such preface
unnecessary. Maltigues proceeded, in his cold careless
way: -- ' Madame d' A rbigny does not suit you; you are
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? CO R I N N E J CR I TA L Y . 211
in no way congenial; your father would be in despair if
you made such a match, and you would run mad at
having distressed him: therefore it will be better, if I
live, that I should marry the lady; if you k ill me, still
better that she should marry another; for my cousin
is so highly sagacious, even while in love, that she never
fails to provide against the chance of being loved no
longer. A ll this you will learn by her letters. I beq ueath
themtoyou:hereisthek eyofmydesk . I havebeen
her intimate ever since she was born; and you k
mysterious as she is, she has no secrets with me--
dreaming that I should ever tell; it is true I
now that,
little
feel no im-
pulse hurry me on, but I do not attach much importance
to these things; and I think that we men may say what
we lik e to each other about women. A lso, if I die, it is
to her bright eyes that I shall owe such accident; and
though I am q uite ready to die for her, with a good grace,
I am not too obliged by the situation in which her double
intrigue has placed me; for the rest, it is not q uite sure
that you will k ill me. ' S o saying, as we were now beyond
the town, he drew his sword, and stood upon his guard.
H e had spok en with singular vivacity. I was confounded
by what I had heard. The approach of danger, instead of
agitating, animated him; and I k new not whether he had
betrayed the truth, or invented a falsehood out of revenge.
I n this suspense I was very careful of his life: he was not
so adroit a swordsman as myself: ten times might I have
ran him through the breast, but I contented myself with
slightly wounding and disarming him: he seemed sensible
of this. I led him to his own house, and brought him
back to the conversation which our duel had interrupted.
H e then said, ' I am vex ed at having so treated my cousin;
but peril is lik e wine, it gets into one' s head; yet I can
now ex cuse myself; it rested with you to k ill me, and you
spared my life; you could not be happy with her, she is
too cunning; now to me that is nothing; for, charmed as I
am both with her mind and person, she can never do any
thing to my disadvantage, and we shall be of service to
each other when marriage mak es a common interest. B ut
you are romantic, and would be her dupe, therefore I can-
p2
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? 212 corinne; or italy.
not refuse the letters I promised you: read them, start for
E ngland, and do not worry yourself too much as to
Madame d' A rbigny' s regrets. S he will weep, because she
loves you, but she will soon be comforted: she is too
rational a woman to be long unhappy, or, above all, to ap-
pear so. I n three months she shall be Madame de Mal-
tigues. ' A ll that he told me was proved true by her cor-
respondence with him. I felt convinced that her blushing
confession was a falsity, used but to force me into marriage.
This was the basest imposition she had practised on me.
S he certainly loved me, for she even told Maltigues so;
yet flattered him with such art, left him so much to hope,
and studied to please him in a character so contrasted from
that she had ever worn for me, that it was impossible to
doubt her intention of marrying him, if her union with me
was prevented. S uch was the woman, Corinne, who has
for ever wreck ed the peace of my heart and conscience. I
wrote to her ere I departed, and saw her no more. A s
Maltigues predicted, I have since heard that she became
his wife; but I was far from having tasted the bitterest
drop that awaited me. I hoped to obtain my father' s par-
don, sure that, when I told him how I had been misled, he
would love me the more the more pitiable I became. A fter
above a month' s j ourney, by night and day, I crossed Ger-
many, and arrived in E ngland, full of confidence in the
inex haustible bounty of paternal love. Corinne, I had
scarce landed, when a public paper informed me that my
father was no more. Twenty months have passed since
that moment, yet it is ever present, lik e a pursuing phan-
tom. The letters that formed the words, ' L ord N evil
has j ust ex pired,' are written in flames, to which those of
the volcano before us are nothing. I
of grief at my absence in F rance;
renounce my military career, that I
heard that he died
fearing that I should
should marry a woman
of whom he had an indifferent opinion, and settle in a
country at war with my own, entirely forfeiting my reput-
ation as an E nglishman. Corinne, Corinne! am I not a
parricide? Tell me. " -- " N o," she cried, " no;
only unfortunate; your generosity involved you. I re-
spect as much as 1 love you; j udge yourself by my heart;
you are
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? O O H I N N E ; O R I TA L Y . 213
mak e that your conscience! Y our grief distracts you; be-
lieve one who loves you from no illusion: it is because
you are the best, the most affectionate of men, that I adore
you. " --
due to me;
think ;
" Corinne," said O swald, " these tributes are not
though, perhaps, I am less guilty than I
my father pardoned me before he died. I found
the last address he wrote me full of tenderness. A letter
from me had reached him, somewhat to my j ustification;
but the evil was done; his heart was brok en. W hen I
returned to the H all his old servants thronged round me: I
repulsed their consolations, and accused myself to them.
I k nelt at his tomb, swearing, if time for atonement yet were
left me, that I would never marry without his consent.
A las! I promised to one who was no more: what now
availed my ravings? I ought, at least, to consider them as
engagements to do nothing which he would have disap-
proved had he lived. Corinne, dear love! why are you
thus depressed? H e might command me to renounce a
woman who owed to her own artifice the power she ex -
erted over me, but the most sincere, natural, and generous
of her sex , for whom I feel my first true love, which pu-
rifies instead of misguiding my soul, why should a heavenly
being wish to separate me from her?
" O n entering my father' s room, I saw his cloak , his foot-
stool, and his sword still in their wonted stations, though'
his place was vacant, and I called on him in vain. This
memento of his thoughts alone replied. Y ou already
k now a part of it," O swald added, giving the manuscript
to Corinne. " R ead what he wrote on the Duty of Children
to their Parents: your sweet voice, perhaps, may familiarise
me with the words. " S he thus obeyed :--
" A h, how slight a cause will teach self-mistrust to a father
or mother in the decline of life! They are easily taught
that they are no longer wanted on earth. W hat use can
they believe themselves to you, who no longer ask their
advice! ye live but in the present; ye are wedded to it by
your passions, and all that belongs not to that present ap-
pears to you superannuated -- ye are so much occupied by
your young hearts and minds, that, mak ing your own day
your point of history, the eternal resemblances between men
p3
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? 214CO R I N N E ; O R I TA L Y .
and their times escape your attention. The authority of
ex perience seems but a vain fiction, formed for the cre-
dulity of age, as the last enj oyment of its self-love. W hat
an error is this!
" That vast theatre, the world, changes not its actors: it is
always man who appears there, though he varies; and as
all his changes depend on some great passion, whose circle
hath long and oft been trod, it would be strange, if, in the
little combinations of private life, ex perience, the science
of the past, were not the plenteous source of useful instruc-
tion. H onour your fathers and mothers, then! respect
them, if but for the sak e of their by-gone reign, the time
of which they were the only rulers,-- if but for the years
for ever lost, whose reverent seal is imprinted on their
brows. K now your duty, presumptuous children, impa-
tient to walk alone on the path of life. They will leave
you, do not fear it, though so tardy in yielding you place:
-- that father, whose discourses are still tainted by unwel-
come severity, that mother, whose age imposes on you such
tedious cares. They will go, these watchful guardians of
your childhood, these zealous protectors of your youth,
they will depart, and you will seek in vain for better
friends: when they are lost, they will wear new aspects;
for time, which mak es the living old before our eyes, re-
news their youth when death has torn them away. Time
then lends them a might unk nown before: we see them in
our visions of eternity, wherein there is no age, as there
are no gradations; and if they have left virtuous memories
behind we adorn them with a ray from heaven: our
thoughts follow them to the home of the elect; we see
them in scenes of felicity, and beside the bright beams of
which we form their glory, the light of our own best days,
our own most dazzling triumphs, is ex tinguished. " (8) --
" Corinne ! " cried N evil, almost heart-brok en, "
think you
it was against me he breathed that eloq uent complaint? "
-- " N o, no," she replied: " remember how he loved you,
and believed in your affection. I am of opinion that these
reflections were written long ere you committed the faults
with which you reproach yourself. L isten rather to
these thoughts on I ndulgence, that I find some pages later,
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? CO R I N N E ; O R I TA L Y . 5215
-- * W e go through life surrounded by snares, and with
unsteady steps; our senses are seduced by deceptive allure-
ments; our imaginations mislead us by a false glare; our
reason itself each day receives but from ex perience the
degree of light and confidence for that day req uired. S o
many dangers for so much weak ness, so many varied in-
terests with such limited foresight and capacity, in sooth,
so many things unk nown, and so short a life, show us the
high rank we
virtues. A las!
should give to indulgence among the social
where is the man ex empt from foibles,
who can look back on his life without regret and remorse?
H e must be a
stranger to the agitations of timidity, and
never can have ex amined his own heart in the solitude of
conscience. ' (9)
" These," said Corinne, " are the words your father ad-
dresses to you from above. " -- " True," sighed O swald,
" consoling angel! how you cheer me; yet could I but have
seen him, for a moment, ere he died-- could I have said
how unworthy of him I felt myself, and been believed, I
should not tremble lik e the guiltiest of mank ind. I should
not evince the vacillation of conduct and gloom of soul
which can promise happiness to no one. Courage must be
born of conscience; how then should it triumph over her?
E ven now, as the dark ness closes in, methink s I see, in
yon cloud, the thunderbolt that is armed against me.
Corinne, Corinne! comfort your unhappy lover, or leave
me on the earth, which, perhaps, will open at my cries,
and let me descend to the abode of death.
? 200CO R I N N E ; O R I TA L Y .
now this was too much. I was so hurt by her indifference,
that I resolved to tak e leave before the party, and not
remain alone with her one instant. S he heard me ask her
brother to let me see him in the morning, ere I started;
arid, coming to us, told me aloud that she must charge me
with a letter for a friend of hers in E ngland i then added,
hastily, and in a low voice, ' Y
to my brother: would you break
I n an instant she stepped back
ou regret -- you speak but
my heart, by flying thus? '
, and reseated herself among
her visitants. I was agitated by her words, and should
have stayed as she desired, but that R aimond, tak ing my
arm, led me to his own room. W hen the company had
dispersed, we suddenly heard strange sounds from Madame
d' A rbigny' s apartment: he took no notice of them;
forced him to ascertain their cause. W e were told that
she was very ill. I would have flown to her; but the Count
obstinately forbade. ' L et us have no scene! ' he said;
but I
' in these affairs women are best left to themselves. '
could not comprehend this want of feeling for a sister, so
contrasted with his invariable k indness to me; and I
I
left
him in an embarrassment which somewhat chilled my fare-
well. A h! had I k nown the delicacy which would fain
have baffled the captivations of a woman he did not believe
formed to mak e me happy, could I have foreseen the events
which were to separate us for ever, my adieu would have
better satisfied his soul and mine own. "
CH A PTE R I I .
O swald ceased for some minutes. Corinne had listened
so tremblingly that she too was silent, fearful of retarding
the moment when he would renew his narrative. -- " I
should have been happy," he continued, " had my ac-
q uaintance with Madame d' A rbigny ended there --
never more set foot in F rance. B ut fate, or, rather, per-
haps, my own weak ness, has poisoned my life for ever.
had I
Y es, dearest love! even beside you. I passed a year in
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? CO B I N N E ; O R I TA L Y . 201
S cotland with my father: our mutual tenderness daily
increased. I was admitted into the sanctuary of that
heavenly spirit; and, in the friendship that united us,
tasted all the consanguine sympathies whose mysterious
link s belong to our whole being. I received most affec-
tionate letters from R aimond, recounting the difficulties he
found in transferring his property, so as to j oin me; but
his perseverance in that aim was unwearied. I loved him
for it; but what friend could I compare with my father?
The reverence I felt for him never check ed my confidence.
I put my faith in his words as in those of an oracle; and
the unfortunate indecision of my character was suspended
while he spok
is venerable,'
not, could not k
e. ' H eaven has formed us for a love of what
says an E nglish author. My father k new
now, to what degree I loved him; and my
fatal conduct might well have taught him to doubt whether
I loved him at all. Y et he pitied me, while dying, for the
grief his loss would inflict. A h, Corinne! I draw near
the recital of my woes: lend my courage thy support: for
in truth I need it. " -- " My dear friend," she answered,
" be it some solace that you unveil your nobly sensitive
heart before the being who most admires and loves you in
the world. " N evil proceeded:-- " H e sent me to L ondon
on business; and I left him without one warning fear,
though never to see him again. H e was more endearing
than ever in our last conversation: it is said that the souls
of the j ust, lik e flowers, breathe their richest balms at the
approach of night. H e embraced me with tears, saying,
that at his age all partings were solemn; but I believed his
life lik e mine: our souls understood each other so well, and
I was too young to think upon his age. The fears and
the confidence of strong affection are alik e inex plicable: he
accompanied me to the door of that old hall which I have
since beheld desert and devastated, lik e my own heart. I
had but been a week in L ondon, when I received the cruel
letter of which I remember every word:-- ' Y esterday, the
1 O th of A ugust, my brother was massacred at the Tuileries,
while defending his k ing. I am proscribed, and forced to
fly, to hide from my persecutors. R aimond had tak en all
my fortune, with his own, to settle in E ngland. H ave you
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? 202CO R I N N E ; O R I TA L Y ,
yet received it? or k now you whom he trusted to remit
it? I had but one line from him, written when the chateau
was attack ed, bidding me only apply to you and I should
k now all. I f you could come hither and remove me, you
might save my life. The E nglish still travel F rance in
safety; but I cannot obtain a passport under my own name.
I f the sister of your hapless friend sufficiently interests
you, my retreat may be learned at Paris of my relation
Monsieur Maltigues: but should you generously wish to
aid me, lose not a moment; for it is said that war will
shortly be declared between our two countries. ' I magine
the effect this took on me! my friend murdered, his sister
in despair, their fortune, she said, in my hands, though I
had not received the least tidings of I t; add to these cir-
cumstances, Madame d' A rbigny' s danger, and belief that I
could preserve her; it was impossible to hesitate. I sent
a messenger to my father with her letter, and my promise
to return in a fortnight; then set forth instantly. B y the
most distressing chance the man fell ill on the way, and my
second letter, from Dover, reached my father before the
first. Thus he k new of my flight, ere informed of its mo-
tives; and ere the ex planation came, had tak en an alarm
which could not be dissipated. I arrived at Paris in three
days, and found that Madame d' A ubigny had retired to a
provincial town six ty leagues off: thither I followed her.
W e were both much agitated at meeting. S he appeared
more lovely in her distress than I had ever thought her --
less artificial, less restrained. W e wept together for her
noble brother, and distracted country. I anx iously enq
as to her fortune. S he told me that she had no news of it;
uired
but in a few days I learned that the bank er to whom Count
R aimond confided it, had returned it to him; and, what was
more singular, a merchant of the town in which we were,
who told me this by chance, assured me that Madame
d' A rbigny never needed to have felt a moment' s doubt of
its safety. I could not understand this; went to ask her
what it meant; and found M. Maltigues, who, with the
readiest coolness, informed me that he had j ust brought
from Paris intelligence of the bank er' s return, as, not hav-
ing heard of him for a month, they had thought he was
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? ColtI N N K J O R I TA L Y . 203
gone to E ngland. * S he confirmed her k insman' s statements,
and I believed them; but, since, have recollected her pre-
tex ts for not showing me the note from K aimond, men-
tioned in her letter, and am now convinced that the whole
was but a stratagem to secure me. I t is certain that, as she
was rich, no interested motives blended with her scheme;
but her great fault lay in using address where love alone
was req uired, and dissimulating when candour would better
have served the cause of her sentimental enterprise: she
loved me as much as those can love, who preconcert not
only their actions but their feelings, and conduct an affair
of the heart with the policy of a state intrigue. I formally
declared that I would never marry without my father' s
approval; yet I could not forbear betraying the transports
her beauty and sadness ex cited. H er plan being to mak e
me captive at any price, she let me perceive that she was
not thoroughly resolved on repulsing my wishes. A s I now
retrace what passed between us, I am assured that she he-
sitated from motives q uite independent of love and virtue;
nay, that their apparent struggles were but her own
secret deliberations. I was constantly alone with her;
and my delicacy could not long resist the temptation.
S he imposed on me all the duties, in yielding me all the
rights of a husband;
than she really felt;
would, fain have tak
yet displayed more remorse, perhaps,
and thus so bound me to her, that I
en her to E ngland, and implored my
father' s consent to our union; but she refused to q uit
F rance, unless as my wife. There she was wise, indeed;
but, well k nowing my filial resolutions, she erred in the
means she used to retain me in spite mine every duty.
W hen the war brok e out, my desire to leave F rance became
still stronger, and her obstacles to it multiplied. S he could
obtain no passport; and if I went alone, her reputation
would be ruined; nay, she should be doubly suspected, for
her correspondence with me. This woman, so mild, so
eq uable, in general, then gave way to a despair which per-
fectly overwhelmed me. S he employed her wit and graces
? This is the less clear for being literal. 1 cannot comprehend how the
bank er' s return should concern Madame d' A rbigny, if be had previously
restored R aimond' s fortune -t nor who possessed it. -- I n.
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? 204CO R I N N E ; O R I TA L Y .
to please, her grief to intimidate me. Perhaps women are
wrong in commanding by tears, enslaving by the strength
of their weak ness; yet, when they fear not to ex ert this
weapon, it is nearly always victorious, at least for a while.
Doubtless, love is weak ened by this sort of usurpation; and
the power of tears, too freq uently ex erted, chills the ima-
gination; but, at that time, there were a thousand ex cuses
for them in F rance. Madame d' A rbigny' s health, too,
seemed daily to decrease: another terrible instrument of
female tyranny is illness. Those who have not, lik e you,'
Corinne, a j ust reliance on their minds, or are not, lik e
E nglishwomen, so proudly modest that feigning is impos-
sible, have always recourse to art; and the best we can
then hope of them is that their deceit is caused by a real
attachment. A third party was now blended with our
connection* -- Monsieur Maltigues. S he pleased him; he
ask ed nothing better than to marry her; though a specu-
lative immorality rendered him indifferent to every thing.
H e loved intrigue as a game, even while not interested in
the stak e; and seconded Madame d' A rbigny' s designs on
me, ready to desert this plot if occasion served for ac-
complishing his own. H e was a man against whom I
felt a singular repugnance; though scarcely thirty, his
manners and person were remark ably hack neyed. I n E ng-
land, where we are accused of coldness, I never met any
thing comparable with the seriousness of his demeanour on
entering a room. I should never have tak en him for a
F renchman, if he had not possessed some taste and plea-
santry, with a love of talk ing very ex traordinary in a man
who seemed sated of the world, and who carried that dis-
position to a system. H e pretended that he was born a
sensitive enthusiast, but that the k nowledge of mank ind
he owed to the revolution had undeceived him. H e per-
ceived, he said, that there was nothing good on earth, save
fortune, or power, or both; and that fine q ualities must
give way to circumstances. H e practised on this theory
cleverly enough; his only mistak e lay in proclaiming it;
but though he had not the national wish to please, he
* The lady' s professed aversion to a third party in . her attachments seems
unaccountably reversed. -- Ta.
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? CO R I N N E J O R I TA L Y . 205
nevertheless desired to create some sensation, and that ren-
dered him thus imprudent: he differed in these respects
from Madame d' A rbigny, who sought to attain her end
without betraying herself, or seek ing to shine, even in her
errors. W hat was most strange in these two persons is,
that the ardent one could k eep her secret, while the insen.
sible k new not how to hold his tongue. S uch as he was,
Maltigues had a great ascendancy over his relative; either
he guessed it, or she told him all; for even from her
habitual wariness she req uired, now and then, to tak
breath, as it were, by an indiscretion. I f Maltigues look
e
ed
on her severely, she was always disturbed; if he seemed
discontented, she would tak e him aside to ask the reason;
if he went away angry, she almost instantly shut herself up
to write to him. I ex plained this to myself from the fact
of his having k nown her from her childhood; he had ma-
naged her affairs since she had lost all nearer ties; but the
chief cause was her proj ect, which I discovered too late,
of marrying him, if I left her; for at no price would she
pass for a deserted woman. S uch a resolution might mak e
you believe that she loved me not; yet love alone could
have induced her preference: but through life she could
mix calculation even with passion, and the factitious pre-
tences of society with her natural feelings. S he wept when
she was agitated, but she could also weep because that was
the way to ex press emotion. S he was happy in being
loved, because she loved, but also because it did her honour
before the world. S he had right impulses while left to
herself, but could only enj
profitable to her self-love. S
and by ' good company,'
oy them if they were rendered
he was a person formed for
and made that false use even of
truth itself, which is so often found in a country where a
zeal for producing effect, by certain sentiments, is much
stronger than the sentiments themselves. I t was long
since I had heard from my father, the war having cut off
all communication. A t last, chance favoured the arrival of
a letter* , in which he adj ured me to return, in the name
? F req uent unex plained chances favour subseq uent letters; indeed, the cor-
respondence henceforth seems to proceed as easily as if the countries had been
at peace-- 1' r.
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? 206 CO R DJ N E ; O B I TA L Y .
of my duty and his affection; at the same time declaring
that, if I married Madame d' A rhigny, I should cause him
the most fatal sorrow; pegging me, at least, to decide on
nothing until I had heard his advice. I replied to him
instantly, giving my word of honour that I would shortly
do as he req uired. Madame d' A rhigny tried, first prayers,
then despondence, to detain me; and finding these fail, re-
sorted to a fresh stratagem; but how could I then suspect
it? S he came to me one morning pale and dishevelled,
threw herself into my arms as if dying with terror, and
besought me to protect her. The order, she said, was
come for her arrest, as sister to Count R aimond, and I
must find her some asylum from her pursuers; at this time
women, indeed, were not spared, and all k inds of horrors
appeared probable. 1 took her to a merchant devoted to
my interest, and hoped to save her, as only Maltigues
shared the secret of her retreat. I n such a situation, how
could I avoid feeling a lively interest in her fate? how
separate myself from her? how say, ' Y ou depend on my
support, and I withdraw it? ' N
image continually haunted me, and I
evertheless my father' s
to entreat her leave for setting forth alone;
ened to give herself up to the assassins if I
and twice, at noonday, rushed from the house in a frantic
state that overwhelmed me with grief and fear. I followed,
vainly conj uring her to return; fortunately it happened
(unless by conspiracy) that each time we were met by
Maltigues, who brought her back with reproaches on her
rashness. O f course I resigned myself to stay, and wrote
to my father, accounting, as well as I could, for my con-
duct; though I blushed at being in F rance, amid the
outrages then acting there, while that country, too, was at
war with my own. Maltigues often rallied me on my
scruples; but, clever as he was, he did not perceive the
effect of his j ests, which revived all the feelings he sought
to ex tinguish. Madame d' A rhigny, however, remark ed
this; but she had no influence over her k insman, who was
often decided by caprice, if self-interest was absent. S he
relapsed into her griefs, both real and assumed, to melt
me; and was never more attractive than while fainting at
took
many occasions
but she threat-
q uitted her,
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? CO H I N N E ; O R I TA L Y . 207
my feet; for she k new how to heighten her beauty as well
as her other charms, and wedded each to some emotion in
order to subdue me. Thus did I live, ever anx ious, ever
vacillating, trembling when I received no letter from my
father, still more wretched when I did; enchained by my
infatuation for Madame d' A rbigny, still more dreading her
violence; for, by a strange inconsistency, though the
gentlest, and often the gayest of women, habitually, she
was the most terrible person in a scene. S he wished to
bind me both by pleasure and by fear, and thus always
transformed her nature to her use. O ne day, in S eptem-
ber, 1793, more than a year after my coming to F rance,
I had a brief letter from my father; but its few words were
so afflicting, that I must spare myself their repetition,
Corinne; it would too much unman me. H e was already
ill, though he did not say so; his pride and delicacy for-
bade; but his letter breathed so much distress, both on
account of my absence, and of my possible marriage, that
while reading it I wondered how I
blind to the misfortunes with which I
was now, however, sufficiently awak
more; and went to Madame d' A
could have been so long
was menaced. I
ened to hesitate no
rbigny, perfectly decided to
tak e leave of her. S he perceived this, and at once retiring
within herself, rose, saying, ' B efore you go, you ought to
be informed of a secret which I blush to avow. I f you
abandon me, it is not me alone you k ill. The fruit of my
guilty love will perish with me. ' N othing can describe
my sensations; that new, that sacred duty, absorbed my
whole soul, and made me more submissively her slave than
ever. I would have married her at once, but for the
ruinous conseq uences that must have befallen me, as an
E nglishman, in then and there giving my name to the
civil authorities. I deferred our union, therefore, till we
could fly to E ngland, and determined never to leave my
victim till then. A t first this calmed her; but she soon
renewed her complaints against ine, for not braving all
impediments to mak e her my wife.
I should shortly have
bent to her will, for I had fallen into the deepest melan-
choly, and passed whole days alone, without power to move,
-- a prey to an idea which I never confessed to myself,
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? 208CO R I N N E J O R I TA L Y .
though its persecution was incessant. I had a foreboding
of my father' s illness, which I considered a weak ness un-
worthy of belief. My reason was so bewildered by the shock
my mistress had dealt me, that I now combated my sense
of duty as a passion; and that which I might have then
thought my passion, tormented me as a duty. Madame
d' A rbigny was perpetually writing me entreaties to visit
her; at last I went, but did not speak on the subj ect which
gave her such rights over me: indeed, she now less fre-
q uently alluded to it herself than I ex pected; but my
sufferings were too great for me to remark that at the
time. O nce, when I had k ept my house for three days,
writing twenty letters to my father, and tearing them all,
M. Maltigues, who seldom sought m>> j came, deputed by his
cousin to tear me from my solitude. Though little interested
in the success of his embassy, as you will discover, he
entered before I
had time to conceal that my face was
bathed in tears. ' W hat is the use of all this, my dear
boy? ' he said; ' either leave my cousin, or marry her.
The one step is as good as the other, each being conclusive. '
. -- ' There are situations in life,' replied I , ' where even
by sacrificing oneself, one may not be able to fulfil every
duty. ' -- '
he added. '
necessary;
That is, there ought to be no such sacrifice,'
I k now of no circumstances in which it is
with a little address one may back out of any
thing. Management is the q ueen of the world. ' -- ' I
covet no such ability,' said I ; ' but at least would wish,
in resigning myself to unhappiness, to afflict no one that
I love. ' -- ' H ave nothing to do, then, with the intricate
work they call love; it is a sick ness of the soul. I am
attack ed by it at times, lik e any one else; but when it so
happens, I tell myself that it shall soon be over, and
always k eep my word. '
with generalities-- for I
him -- I answered, '
S eek ing to deal, lik e himself,
neither could nor would confide in
Do what we will with love, we can-
not banish honour and virtue, that often oppose our in-
clination. ' -- ' I f you mean, by honour, the necessity for
fighting when insulted, there can be no doubt on that
head; but, in other respects, what interest have we in
allowing ourselves to be perplex ed by a thousand fasti-
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? CO R I N N E ; O R I TA L Y . 209
dious chimeras? ' -- '
the word in q uestion. '
--
I nterest! ' I repeated; ' that is not
' To speak seriously, ' he re-
turned, ' there are few men who have a clear view of this
subj ect. I k now they formerly talk ed of honourable mis-
fortunes, and glorious falls; but now that all men are per-
secuted, k naves as well as those by courtesy called honest,
the only difference is between the birds who are trap-
ped, and those who escape. ' -- ' I k now of other distinc-
tions,' I replied, ' where prosperity is despised, and misfor-
tune honoured by the good. ' -- ' S how me the good, though,'
he said, ' whose courageous esteem would console you for
your own destruction. O n the contrary, the self-elected
virtuous are those who ex cuse you if happy, and love you
if powerful. I t is very fine in you, no doubt, to repent
thwarting a father, who ought no longer to meddle with
your affairs; yet do any thing rather than linger where
you may lose your life in a thousand ways. F or my
part, whatever happens to me, I would, at any price, spare
my friends the sight of my sufferings, and myself their
long faces of condolence. ' -- ' I n my opinion,' interrupted
I , ' the aim of an honest man' s life is not the happiness
which serves only himself, but the virtue which is useful
toothers. ' -- ' V irtue! ' ex claimed Maltigues, ' virtue'
he hesitated for a moment, then, with more decision, con-
tinued; ' that' s a language for the vulgar, that even
priests cannot talk between themselves without laughing.
There are good souls whom certain harmonious words
still move; for their sak es let the tune be played: all the
poetry that they call conscience and devotion was in-
vented to console those who cannot get on in the world,
lik e the de profundis that is sung for the dead. The living
and the prosperous are by no means ambitious of lik e
homage. ' I was so irritated that I could not help saying
haughtily, ' I shall be sorry, sir, when I have a right in the
house of Madame d' A rbigny, if she persists in receiving
amanwhothink sandspeak sasyoudo. ' -- ' W henthat
time comes,' he answered, ' you may act as you please;
but if my cousin is led by me, she will never marry a man
who look s forward in such affright to his union with her.
I have always, as she can tell you, censured her folly, and
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? 210CO R I N N E ; O R I TA L Y .
the means she has wasted on an obj ect so little worth her
trouble. ' A t these words, which their accent rendered still
more insulting, I made him a sign to follow me; and,
on our way, it is but j ustice to tell you that he continued
to develope his system with the greatest possible coolness:
he might be no more in a few minutes, yet said not one
serious, one feeling word. ' I f I had been addicted to all
the absurdities of other young men,' he pursued, ' would
not what I have seen in my own country have cured me?
W hen has your scrupulousness done you any good ? ' --
'
I
ne or
now
to
agree with you,' said I , ' that in your country, at present,
it is of less utility than elsewhere;
time, each man has his reward. '
heaven in your calculations -- '
other of us, perhaps, will soon k
but in time, or beyond
-- ' O h, if you include
-- ' A nd why not? O
now what it means. ' --
' I f I die,'
nothing about it;
enlighten me. ' I
he laughed forth, ' I am sure I shall k
if you are k illed, you won' t come back
now remembered that I had tak en no
precautions for informing my father of my probable fate,
or mak ing over to Madame d' A rbigny part of my fortune,
on which I thought she had claims. W e drew near Mal-
tigues' house, and I ask ed leave to write two letters there:
he assented. A s we resumed our route, I gave them to him,
and recommended Madame d' A rbigny to him, as to a
friend of hers on whom I could rely. This proof of
confidence touched him; for, be it observed, to the glory
of honesty, that the most candid profligates are much flat-
tered if they chance to receive a mark of esteem; our
relative position, too, was grave enough to have affected
even him; but as he would not for worlds have had me
guess this, he said j estingly, though I believe prompted by
deeper feelings, ' Y ou are a good fellow, my dear N evil;
I ' d fain do something generous by you: it may bring me
luck , as they say; and truly generosity is so babyish a
q uality, that it ought to be better paid in heaven than on
earth. B ut ere I serve you, our conditions must be made
plain, say what I will -- we fight nevertheless. ' I re-
turned a disdainful consent, for I thought such preface
unnecessary. Maltigues proceeded, in his cold careless
way: -- ' Madame d' A rbigny does not suit you; you are
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? CO R I N N E J CR I TA L Y . 211
in no way congenial; your father would be in despair if
you made such a match, and you would run mad at
having distressed him: therefore it will be better, if I
live, that I should marry the lady; if you k ill me, still
better that she should marry another; for my cousin
is so highly sagacious, even while in love, that she never
fails to provide against the chance of being loved no
longer. A ll this you will learn by her letters. I beq ueath
themtoyou:hereisthek eyofmydesk . I havebeen
her intimate ever since she was born; and you k
mysterious as she is, she has no secrets with me--
dreaming that I should ever tell; it is true I
now that,
little
feel no im-
pulse hurry me on, but I do not attach much importance
to these things; and I think that we men may say what
we lik e to each other about women. A lso, if I die, it is
to her bright eyes that I shall owe such accident; and
though I am q uite ready to die for her, with a good grace,
I am not too obliged by the situation in which her double
intrigue has placed me; for the rest, it is not q uite sure
that you will k ill me. ' S o saying, as we were now beyond
the town, he drew his sword, and stood upon his guard.
H e had spok en with singular vivacity. I was confounded
by what I had heard. The approach of danger, instead of
agitating, animated him; and I k new not whether he had
betrayed the truth, or invented a falsehood out of revenge.
I n this suspense I was very careful of his life: he was not
so adroit a swordsman as myself: ten times might I have
ran him through the breast, but I contented myself with
slightly wounding and disarming him: he seemed sensible
of this. I led him to his own house, and brought him
back to the conversation which our duel had interrupted.
H e then said, ' I am vex ed at having so treated my cousin;
but peril is lik e wine, it gets into one' s head; yet I can
now ex cuse myself; it rested with you to k ill me, and you
spared my life; you could not be happy with her, she is
too cunning; now to me that is nothing; for, charmed as I
am both with her mind and person, she can never do any
thing to my disadvantage, and we shall be of service to
each other when marriage mak es a common interest. B ut
you are romantic, and would be her dupe, therefore I can-
p2
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? 212 corinne; or italy.
not refuse the letters I promised you: read them, start for
E ngland, and do not worry yourself too much as to
Madame d' A rbigny' s regrets. S he will weep, because she
loves you, but she will soon be comforted: she is too
rational a woman to be long unhappy, or, above all, to ap-
pear so. I n three months she shall be Madame de Mal-
tigues. ' A ll that he told me was proved true by her cor-
respondence with him. I felt convinced that her blushing
confession was a falsity, used but to force me into marriage.
This was the basest imposition she had practised on me.
S he certainly loved me, for she even told Maltigues so;
yet flattered him with such art, left him so much to hope,
and studied to please him in a character so contrasted from
that she had ever worn for me, that it was impossible to
doubt her intention of marrying him, if her union with me
was prevented. S uch was the woman, Corinne, who has
for ever wreck ed the peace of my heart and conscience. I
wrote to her ere I departed, and saw her no more. A s
Maltigues predicted, I have since heard that she became
his wife; but I was far from having tasted the bitterest
drop that awaited me. I hoped to obtain my father' s par-
don, sure that, when I told him how I had been misled, he
would love me the more the more pitiable I became. A fter
above a month' s j ourney, by night and day, I crossed Ger-
many, and arrived in E ngland, full of confidence in the
inex haustible bounty of paternal love. Corinne, I had
scarce landed, when a public paper informed me that my
father was no more. Twenty months have passed since
that moment, yet it is ever present, lik e a pursuing phan-
tom. The letters that formed the words, ' L ord N evil
has j ust ex pired,' are written in flames, to which those of
the volcano before us are nothing. I
of grief at my absence in F rance;
renounce my military career, that I
heard that he died
fearing that I should
should marry a woman
of whom he had an indifferent opinion, and settle in a
country at war with my own, entirely forfeiting my reput-
ation as an E nglishman. Corinne, Corinne! am I not a
parricide? Tell me. " -- " N o," she cried, " no;
only unfortunate; your generosity involved you. I re-
spect as much as 1 love you; j udge yourself by my heart;
you are
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? O O H I N N E ; O R I TA L Y . 213
mak e that your conscience! Y our grief distracts you; be-
lieve one who loves you from no illusion: it is because
you are the best, the most affectionate of men, that I adore
you. " --
due to me;
think ;
" Corinne," said O swald, " these tributes are not
though, perhaps, I am less guilty than I
my father pardoned me before he died. I found
the last address he wrote me full of tenderness. A letter
from me had reached him, somewhat to my j ustification;
but the evil was done; his heart was brok en. W hen I
returned to the H all his old servants thronged round me: I
repulsed their consolations, and accused myself to them.
I k nelt at his tomb, swearing, if time for atonement yet were
left me, that I would never marry without his consent.
A las! I promised to one who was no more: what now
availed my ravings? I ought, at least, to consider them as
engagements to do nothing which he would have disap-
proved had he lived. Corinne, dear love! why are you
thus depressed? H e might command me to renounce a
woman who owed to her own artifice the power she ex -
erted over me, but the most sincere, natural, and generous
of her sex , for whom I feel my first true love, which pu-
rifies instead of misguiding my soul, why should a heavenly
being wish to separate me from her?
" O n entering my father' s room, I saw his cloak , his foot-
stool, and his sword still in their wonted stations, though'
his place was vacant, and I called on him in vain. This
memento of his thoughts alone replied. Y ou already
k now a part of it," O swald added, giving the manuscript
to Corinne. " R ead what he wrote on the Duty of Children
to their Parents: your sweet voice, perhaps, may familiarise
me with the words. " S he thus obeyed :--
" A h, how slight a cause will teach self-mistrust to a father
or mother in the decline of life! They are easily taught
that they are no longer wanted on earth. W hat use can
they believe themselves to you, who no longer ask their
advice! ye live but in the present; ye are wedded to it by
your passions, and all that belongs not to that present ap-
pears to you superannuated -- ye are so much occupied by
your young hearts and minds, that, mak ing your own day
your point of history, the eternal resemblances between men
p3
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? 214CO R I N N E ; O R I TA L Y .
and their times escape your attention. The authority of
ex perience seems but a vain fiction, formed for the cre-
dulity of age, as the last enj oyment of its self-love. W hat
an error is this!
" That vast theatre, the world, changes not its actors: it is
always man who appears there, though he varies; and as
all his changes depend on some great passion, whose circle
hath long and oft been trod, it would be strange, if, in the
little combinations of private life, ex perience, the science
of the past, were not the plenteous source of useful instruc-
tion. H onour your fathers and mothers, then! respect
them, if but for the sak e of their by-gone reign, the time
of which they were the only rulers,-- if but for the years
for ever lost, whose reverent seal is imprinted on their
brows. K now your duty, presumptuous children, impa-
tient to walk alone on the path of life. They will leave
you, do not fear it, though so tardy in yielding you place:
-- that father, whose discourses are still tainted by unwel-
come severity, that mother, whose age imposes on you such
tedious cares. They will go, these watchful guardians of
your childhood, these zealous protectors of your youth,
they will depart, and you will seek in vain for better
friends: when they are lost, they will wear new aspects;
for time, which mak es the living old before our eyes, re-
news their youth when death has torn them away. Time
then lends them a might unk nown before: we see them in
our visions of eternity, wherein there is no age, as there
are no gradations; and if they have left virtuous memories
behind we adorn them with a ray from heaven: our
thoughts follow them to the home of the elect; we see
them in scenes of felicity, and beside the bright beams of
which we form their glory, the light of our own best days,
our own most dazzling triumphs, is ex tinguished. " (8) --
" Corinne ! " cried N evil, almost heart-brok en, "
think you
it was against me he breathed that eloq uent complaint? "
-- " N o, no," she replied: " remember how he loved you,
and believed in your affection. I am of opinion that these
reflections were written long ere you committed the faults
with which you reproach yourself. L isten rather to
these thoughts on I ndulgence, that I find some pages later,
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? CO R I N N E ; O R I TA L Y . 5215
-- * W e go through life surrounded by snares, and with
unsteady steps; our senses are seduced by deceptive allure-
ments; our imaginations mislead us by a false glare; our
reason itself each day receives but from ex perience the
degree of light and confidence for that day req uired. S o
many dangers for so much weak ness, so many varied in-
terests with such limited foresight and capacity, in sooth,
so many things unk nown, and so short a life, show us the
high rank we
virtues. A las!
should give to indulgence among the social
where is the man ex empt from foibles,
who can look back on his life without regret and remorse?
H e must be a
stranger to the agitations of timidity, and
never can have ex amined his own heart in the solitude of
conscience. ' (9)
" These," said Corinne, " are the words your father ad-
dresses to you from above. " -- " True," sighed O swald,
" consoling angel! how you cheer me; yet could I but have
seen him, for a moment, ere he died-- could I have said
how unworthy of him I felt myself, and been believed, I
should not tremble lik e the guiltiest of mank ind. I should
not evince the vacillation of conduct and gloom of soul
which can promise happiness to no one. Courage must be
born of conscience; how then should it triumph over her?
E ven now, as the dark ness closes in, methink s I see, in
yon cloud, the thunderbolt that is armed against me.
Corinne, Corinne! comfort your unhappy lover, or leave
me on the earth, which, perhaps, will open at my cries,
and let me descend to the abode of death.
