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.
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.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v03 - Bag to Ber
One might write a volume on his women, a volume to refute
the charge that his bad men are better drawn than his good, a
volume to discuss Mr. Henry James's epigrammatic declaration that
a five-franc piece may be fairly called the protagonist of the
(Comédie humaine. In short one might go on defending and prais-
ing and even criticizing Balzac for a lifetime, and be little further
advanced than when one began; for to criticize Balzac, is it not to
criticize life itself?
W. P. Zent-
-
THE MEETING IN THE CONVENT
From "The Duchess of Langeais)
I
N A Spanish town on an island of the Mediterranean there is a
convent of the Barefooted Carmelites, where the rule of the
Order instituted by Saint Theresa is still kept with the prim-
itive rigor of the reformation brought about by that illustrious
woman. Extraordinary as this fact may seem, it is true. Though
the monasteries of the Peninsula and those of the Continent were
nearly all destroyed or broken up by the outburst of the French
Revolution and the turmoil of the Napoleonic wars, yet on this
island, protected by the British fleets, the wealthy convent and
its peaceful inmates were sheltered from the dangers of change
and general spoliation. The storms from all quarters which
shook the first fifteen years of the nineteenth century subsided
ere they reached this lonely rock near the coast of Andalusia.
If the name of the great Emperor echoed fitfully upon its shores,
it may be doubted whether the fantastic march of his glory or
the flaming majesty of his meteoric life ever reached the compre-
hension of those saintly women kneeling in their distant cloister.
A conventual rigor, which was never relaxed, gave to this
haven a special place in the thoughts and history of the Catholic
world. The purity of its rule drew to its shelter from different
parts of Europe sad women, whose souls, deprived of human
ties, longed for the death in life which they found here in the
bosom of God. No other convent was so fitted to wean the
heart and teach it that aloofness from the things of this world
## p. 1368 (#162) ###########################################
1368
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
3
which the religious life imperatively demands. On the Continent
may be found a number of such Houses, nobly planned to meet
the wants of their sacred purpose. Some are buried in the
depths of solitary valleys; others hang, as it were, in mid-air
above the hills, clinging to the mountain slopes or projecting
from the verge of precipices. On all sides man has sought out
the poesy of the infinite, the solemnity of silence: he has sought
God; and on the mountain-tops, in the abysmal depths, among
the caverned cliffs he has found Him. Yet nowhere as on this
European islet, half African though it be, can he find such differ-
ing harmonies all blending to lift the soul and quell its springs
of anguish; to cool its fevers, and give to the sorrows of life a
bed of rest.
The monastery is built at the extremity of the island at its
highest part, where the rock by some convulsion of Nature has
been rent sharply down to the sea, and presents at all points
keen angles and edges, slightly eaten away at the water-line by
the action of the waves, but insurmountable to all approach.
The rock is also protected from assault by dangerous reefs run-
ning far out from its base, over which frolic the blue waters of
the Mediterranean. It is only from the sea that the visitor can
perceive the four principal parts of the square structure, which
adheres minutely as to shape, height, and the piercing of its
windows to the prescribed laws of monastic architecture. On
the side towards the town the church hides the massive lines of
the cloister, whose roof is covered with large tiles to protect it
from winds and storms, and also from the fierce heat of the sun.
The church, the gift of a Spanish family, looks down upon the
town and crowns it. Its bold yet elegant façade gives a noble
aspect to the little maritime city. Is it not a picture of terres-
trial sublimity? See the tiny town with clustering roofs, rising
like an amphitheatre from the picturesque port upward to the
noble Gothic frontal of the church, from which spring the slen-
der shafts of the bell-towers with their pointed finials: religion
dominating life: offering to man the end and the way of liv-
ing,- image of a thought altogether Spanish. Place this scene
upon the bosom of the Mediterranean beneath an ardent sky;
plant it with palms whose waving fronds mingle their green life
with the sculptured leafage of the immutable architecture; look
at the white fringes of the sea as it runs up the reef and they
sparkle upon the sapphire of its wave; see the galleries and the
## p. 1369 (#163) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1369
terraces built upon the roofs of houses, where the inhabitants
come at eve to breathe the flower-scented air as it rises through
the tree-tops from their little gardens. Below, in the harbor,
are the white sails. The serenity of night is coming on; listen
to the notes of the organ, the chant of evening orisons, the
echoing bells of the ships at sea: on all sides sound and peace,
oftenest peace.
Within the church are three naves, dark and mysterious. The
fury of the winds evidently forbade the architect to build out lat-
eral buttresses, such as adorn all other cathedrals, and between
which little chapels are usually constructed. Thus the strong
walls which flank the lesser naves shed no light into the building.
Outside, their gray masses are shored up from point to point by
enormous beams. The great nave and its two small lateral gal-
leries are lighted solely by the rose-window of stained glass,
which pierces with miraculous art the wall above the great por-
tal, whose fortunate exposure permits a wealth of tracery and
dentellated stone-work belonging to that order of architecture
miscalled Gothic.
The greater part of the three naves is given up to the inhabi-
tants of the town who come to hear Mass and the Offices of the
Church. In front of the choir is a latticed screen, within which
brown curtains hang in ample folds, slightly parted in the middle
to give a limited view of the altar and the officiating priest. The
screen is divided at intervals by pillars that hold up a gallery
within the choir which contains the organ. This construction, in
harmony with the rest of the building, continues, in sculptured
wood, the little columns of the lateral galleries which are sup-
ported by the pillars of the great nave. Thus it is impossible
for the boldest curiosity, if any such should dare to mount the
narrow balustrade of these galleries, to see farther into the choir
than the octagonal stained windows which pierce the apse behind
the high altar.
At the time of the French expedition into Spain for the pur-
pose of re-establishing the authority of Ferdinand VII. , and
after the fall of Cadiz, a French general who was sent to the
island to obtain its recognition of the royal government pro-
longed his stay upon it that he might reconnoitre the convent and
gain, if possible, admittance there. The enterprise was a delicate
But a man of passion, a man whose life had been, so to
speak, a series of poems in action, who had lived romances
one.
## p. 1370 (#164) ###########################################
1370
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
instead of writing them; above all a man of deeds,— might well
be tempted by a project apparently so impossible. To open for
himself legally the gates of a convent of women! The Pope and
the Metropolitan Archbishop would scarcely sanction it. Should
he use force or artifice ? In case of failure was he not certain
to lose his station and his military future, besides missing his
aim ? The Duc d'Angoulême was still in Spain; and of all the
indiscretions which an officer in favor with the commander-in-
chief could commit, this alone would be punished without pity.
The general had solicited his present mission for the purpose of
following up a secret hope, albeit no hope was ever so despair-
ing. This last effort, however, was a matter of conscience. The
house of these Barefooted Carmelites was the only Spanish con-
vent which had escaped his search. While crossing from the
mainland, a voyage which took less than an hour, a strong pre-
sentiment of success had seized his heart. Since then, although
he had seen nothing of the convent but its walls, nothing of the
nuns, not so much as their brown habit; though he had heard
only the echoes of their chanted liturgies,— he had gathered from
those walls and from these chants faint indications that seemed
to justify his fragile hope. Slight as the auguries thus capri-
ciously awakened might be, no human passion was
violently roused than the curiosity of this French general. To
the heart there are no insignificant events; it magnifies all
things; it puts in the same balance the fall of an empire and the
fall of a woman's glove,- and oftentimes the glove outweighs
the empire. But let us give the facts in their actual simplicity:
after the facts will come the feelings.
An hour after the expedition had landed on the island the
royal authority was re-established. A few Spaniards who had
taken refuge there after the fall of Cadiz embarked on a vessel
which the general allowed them to charter for their voyage to
London. There was thus neither resistance nor reaction. This
little insular restoration could not, however, be accomplished with-
out a Mass, at which both companies of the troops were ordered
to be present. Not knowing the rigor of the Carmelite rule, the
general hoped to gain in the church some information about the
nuns who were immured in the convent, one of whom might be
a being dearer to him than life, more precious even than honor.
His hopes were at first cruelly disappointed. Mass was cele-
brated with the utmost pomp.
In honor of this solemn occasion
ever more
1
## p. 1371 (#165) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1371
man.
are
the curtains which habitually hid the choir were drawn aside,
and gave to view the rich ornaments, the priceless pictures,
and the shrines incrusted with jewels whose brilliancy surpassed
that of the votive offerings fastened by the mariners of the
port to the pillars of the great nave. The nuns, however, had
retired to the seclusion of the organ gallery.
Yet in spite of this check, and while the Mass of thanksgiv-
ing was being sung, suddenly and secretly the drama widened
into an interest as profound as any that ever moved the heart of
The Sister who played the organ roused an enthusiasm so
vivid that not one soldier present regretted the order which had
brought him to the church. The men listened to the music with
pleasure; the officers were carried away by it.
As for the gen-
eral, he remained to all appearance calm and cold: the feelings
with which he heard the notes given forth by the nun
among the small number of earthly things whose expression is
withheld from impotent human speech, but which-like death,
like God, like eternity — can be perceived only at their slender
point of contact with the heart of man. By a strange chance the
music of the organ seemed to be that of Rossini, -a composer
who more than any other has carried human passion into the art
of music, and whose works by their number and extent will some
day inspire an Homeric respect. From among the scores of this
fine genius the nun seemed to have chiefly studied that of Moses
in Egypt; doubtless because the feelings of sacred music are there
carried to the highest pitch. Perhaps these two souls-one so
gloriously European, the other unknown - had met together in
some intuitive perception of the same poetic thought. This idea
occurred to two officers now present, true dilettanti, who no
doubt keenly regretted the Théatre Favart in their Spanish exile.
At last, at the Te Deum, it was impossible not to recognize a
French soul in the character which the music suddenly took on.
The triumph of his Most Christian Majesty evidently roused to
joy the heart of that cloistered nun. Surely she was a French-
woman. Presently the patriotic spirit burst forth, sparkling like
a jet of light through the antiphonals of the organ, as the Sister
recalled melodies breathing the delicacy of Parisian taste, and
blended them with vague memories of our national anthems.
Spanish hands could not have put into this graceful homage
paid to victorious arms the fire that thus betrayed the origin of
the musician.
## p. 1372 (#166) ###########################################
1372
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1
“France is everywhere! ” said a soldier.
The general left the church during the Te Deum; it was
impossible for him to listen to it. The notes of the musician
revealed to him a woman loved to madness; who had buried
herself so deeply in the heart of religion, hid herself so care-
fully away from the sight of the world, that up to this time she
had escaped the keen search of men armed not only with
immense power, but with great sagacity and intelligence. The
hopes which had wakened in the general's heart seemed justi-
fied as he listened to the vague echo of a tender and melancholy
air, La Fleuve du Tage,' -a ballad whose prelude he had
often heard in Paris in the boudoir of the woman he loved, and
which this nun now used to express, amid the joys of the con-
querors, the suffering of an exiled heart. Terrible moment! to
long for the resurrection of a lost love; to find that love — still
lost; to meet it mysteriously after five years in which passion,
exasperated by the void, had been intensified by the useless
efforts made to satisfy it.
Who is there that has not, once at least in his life, upturned
everything about him, his papers and his receptacles, taxing his
memory impatiently as he seeks some precious lost object; and
then felt the ineffable pleasure of finding it after days consumed
in the search, after hoping and despairing of its recovery, -
spending upon some trifle an excitement of mind almost amount-
ing to a passion ? Well, stretch this fury of search through five
long years; put a woman, a heart, a love in the place of the
insignificant trifle; lift the passion into the highest realms of
feeling; and then picture to yourself an ardent man, a man with
the heart of lion and the front of Jove, one of those men who
command, and communicate to those about them, respectful
terror, - you will then understand the abrupt departure of the
general during the Te Deum, at the moment when the prelude
of an air, once heard in Paris with delight under gilded ceilings,
vibrated through the dark naves of the church by the sea.
He went down the hilly street which led up to the convent,
without pausing until the sonorous echoes of the organ could no
longer reach his ear. Unable to think of anything but of the
love that like a volcanic eruption rent his heart, the French gen-
eral only perceived that the Te Deum was ended when the
Spanish contingent poured from the church. He felt that his
conduct and appearance were open to ridicule, and he hastily
1
.
1
1
1
1
## p. 1373 (#167) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1373
resumed his place at the head of the cavalcade, explaining to the
alcalde and to the governor of the town that a sudden indisposi-
tion had obliged him to come out into the air. Then it suddenly
occurred to him to use the pretext thus hastily given, as a
means of prolonging his stay on the island. Excusing himself
on the score of increased illness, he declined to preside at the
banquet given by the authorities of the island to the French
officers, and took to his bed, after writing to the major-general
that a passing illness compelled him to turn over his command
to the colonel. This commonplace artifice, natural as it was,
left him free from all duties and able to seek the fulfilment of
his hopes. Like a man essentially Catholic and monarchical, he
inquired the hours of the various services, and showed the
utmost interest in the duties of religion, -a piety which in
Spain excited no surprise.
II
The following day, while the soldiers were embarking, the gen-
eral went up to the convent to be present at vespers. He found
the church deserted by the townspeople, who in spite of their
natural devotion were attracted to the port by the embarkation
of the troops. The Frenchman, glad to find himself alone in the
church, took pains to make the clink of his spurs resound
through the vaulted roof; he walked noisily, and coughed, and
spoke aloud to himself, hoping to inform the nuns, but especially
the Sister at the organ, that if the French soldiers were depart-
ing, one at least remained behind. Was this singular method of
communication heard and understood ? The general believed it
was. In the Magnificat the organ seemed to give an answer
which came to him in the vibrations of the air. The soul of the
nun floated towards him on the wings of the notes she touched,
quivering with the movements of the sound. The music burst
forth with power; it glorified the church. This hymn of joy,
consecrated by the sublime liturgy of Roman Christianity to the
uplifting of the soul in presence of the splendors of the ever-
living God, became the utterance of a heart terrified at its own
happiness in presence of the splendors of a perishable love,
which still lived, and came to move it once more beyond the
tomb where this woman had buried herself, to rise again the
bride of Christ.
## p. 1374 (#168) ###########################################
1374
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
The organ is beyond all question the finest, the most daring,
the most magnificent of the instruments created by human genius.
It is an orchestra in itself, from which a practiced hand may
demand all things; for it expresses all things. Is it not, as it
were, a coign of vantage, where the soul may poise itself ere it
springs into space, bearing, as it flies, the listening mind through
a thousand scenes of life towards the infinite which parts earth
from heaven? 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.
the charge that his bad men are better drawn than his good, a
volume to discuss Mr. Henry James's epigrammatic declaration that
a five-franc piece may be fairly called the protagonist of the
(Comédie humaine. In short one might go on defending and prais-
ing and even criticizing Balzac for a lifetime, and be little further
advanced than when one began; for to criticize Balzac, is it not to
criticize life itself?
W. P. Zent-
-
THE MEETING IN THE CONVENT
From "The Duchess of Langeais)
I
N A Spanish town on an island of the Mediterranean there is a
convent of the Barefooted Carmelites, where the rule of the
Order instituted by Saint Theresa is still kept with the prim-
itive rigor of the reformation brought about by that illustrious
woman. Extraordinary as this fact may seem, it is true. Though
the monasteries of the Peninsula and those of the Continent were
nearly all destroyed or broken up by the outburst of the French
Revolution and the turmoil of the Napoleonic wars, yet on this
island, protected by the British fleets, the wealthy convent and
its peaceful inmates were sheltered from the dangers of change
and general spoliation. The storms from all quarters which
shook the first fifteen years of the nineteenth century subsided
ere they reached this lonely rock near the coast of Andalusia.
If the name of the great Emperor echoed fitfully upon its shores,
it may be doubted whether the fantastic march of his glory or
the flaming majesty of his meteoric life ever reached the compre-
hension of those saintly women kneeling in their distant cloister.
A conventual rigor, which was never relaxed, gave to this
haven a special place in the thoughts and history of the Catholic
world. The purity of its rule drew to its shelter from different
parts of Europe sad women, whose souls, deprived of human
ties, longed for the death in life which they found here in the
bosom of God. No other convent was so fitted to wean the
heart and teach it that aloofness from the things of this world
## p. 1368 (#162) ###########################################
1368
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
3
which the religious life imperatively demands. On the Continent
may be found a number of such Houses, nobly planned to meet
the wants of their sacred purpose. Some are buried in the
depths of solitary valleys; others hang, as it were, in mid-air
above the hills, clinging to the mountain slopes or projecting
from the verge of precipices. On all sides man has sought out
the poesy of the infinite, the solemnity of silence: he has sought
God; and on the mountain-tops, in the abysmal depths, among
the caverned cliffs he has found Him. Yet nowhere as on this
European islet, half African though it be, can he find such differ-
ing harmonies all blending to lift the soul and quell its springs
of anguish; to cool its fevers, and give to the sorrows of life a
bed of rest.
The monastery is built at the extremity of the island at its
highest part, where the rock by some convulsion of Nature has
been rent sharply down to the sea, and presents at all points
keen angles and edges, slightly eaten away at the water-line by
the action of the waves, but insurmountable to all approach.
The rock is also protected from assault by dangerous reefs run-
ning far out from its base, over which frolic the blue waters of
the Mediterranean. It is only from the sea that the visitor can
perceive the four principal parts of the square structure, which
adheres minutely as to shape, height, and the piercing of its
windows to the prescribed laws of monastic architecture. On
the side towards the town the church hides the massive lines of
the cloister, whose roof is covered with large tiles to protect it
from winds and storms, and also from the fierce heat of the sun.
The church, the gift of a Spanish family, looks down upon the
town and crowns it. Its bold yet elegant façade gives a noble
aspect to the little maritime city. Is it not a picture of terres-
trial sublimity? See the tiny town with clustering roofs, rising
like an amphitheatre from the picturesque port upward to the
noble Gothic frontal of the church, from which spring the slen-
der shafts of the bell-towers with their pointed finials: religion
dominating life: offering to man the end and the way of liv-
ing,- image of a thought altogether Spanish. Place this scene
upon the bosom of the Mediterranean beneath an ardent sky;
plant it with palms whose waving fronds mingle their green life
with the sculptured leafage of the immutable architecture; look
at the white fringes of the sea as it runs up the reef and they
sparkle upon the sapphire of its wave; see the galleries and the
## p. 1369 (#163) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1369
terraces built upon the roofs of houses, where the inhabitants
come at eve to breathe the flower-scented air as it rises through
the tree-tops from their little gardens. Below, in the harbor,
are the white sails. The serenity of night is coming on; listen
to the notes of the organ, the chant of evening orisons, the
echoing bells of the ships at sea: on all sides sound and peace,
oftenest peace.
Within the church are three naves, dark and mysterious. The
fury of the winds evidently forbade the architect to build out lat-
eral buttresses, such as adorn all other cathedrals, and between
which little chapels are usually constructed. Thus the strong
walls which flank the lesser naves shed no light into the building.
Outside, their gray masses are shored up from point to point by
enormous beams. The great nave and its two small lateral gal-
leries are lighted solely by the rose-window of stained glass,
which pierces with miraculous art the wall above the great por-
tal, whose fortunate exposure permits a wealth of tracery and
dentellated stone-work belonging to that order of architecture
miscalled Gothic.
The greater part of the three naves is given up to the inhabi-
tants of the town who come to hear Mass and the Offices of the
Church. In front of the choir is a latticed screen, within which
brown curtains hang in ample folds, slightly parted in the middle
to give a limited view of the altar and the officiating priest. The
screen is divided at intervals by pillars that hold up a gallery
within the choir which contains the organ. This construction, in
harmony with the rest of the building, continues, in sculptured
wood, the little columns of the lateral galleries which are sup-
ported by the pillars of the great nave. Thus it is impossible
for the boldest curiosity, if any such should dare to mount the
narrow balustrade of these galleries, to see farther into the choir
than the octagonal stained windows which pierce the apse behind
the high altar.
At the time of the French expedition into Spain for the pur-
pose of re-establishing the authority of Ferdinand VII. , and
after the fall of Cadiz, a French general who was sent to the
island to obtain its recognition of the royal government pro-
longed his stay upon it that he might reconnoitre the convent and
gain, if possible, admittance there. The enterprise was a delicate
But a man of passion, a man whose life had been, so to
speak, a series of poems in action, who had lived romances
one.
## p. 1370 (#164) ###########################################
1370
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
instead of writing them; above all a man of deeds,— might well
be tempted by a project apparently so impossible. To open for
himself legally the gates of a convent of women! The Pope and
the Metropolitan Archbishop would scarcely sanction it. Should
he use force or artifice ? In case of failure was he not certain
to lose his station and his military future, besides missing his
aim ? The Duc d'Angoulême was still in Spain; and of all the
indiscretions which an officer in favor with the commander-in-
chief could commit, this alone would be punished without pity.
The general had solicited his present mission for the purpose of
following up a secret hope, albeit no hope was ever so despair-
ing. This last effort, however, was a matter of conscience. The
house of these Barefooted Carmelites was the only Spanish con-
vent which had escaped his search. While crossing from the
mainland, a voyage which took less than an hour, a strong pre-
sentiment of success had seized his heart. Since then, although
he had seen nothing of the convent but its walls, nothing of the
nuns, not so much as their brown habit; though he had heard
only the echoes of their chanted liturgies,— he had gathered from
those walls and from these chants faint indications that seemed
to justify his fragile hope. Slight as the auguries thus capri-
ciously awakened might be, no human passion was
violently roused than the curiosity of this French general. To
the heart there are no insignificant events; it magnifies all
things; it puts in the same balance the fall of an empire and the
fall of a woman's glove,- and oftentimes the glove outweighs
the empire. But let us give the facts in their actual simplicity:
after the facts will come the feelings.
An hour after the expedition had landed on the island the
royal authority was re-established. A few Spaniards who had
taken refuge there after the fall of Cadiz embarked on a vessel
which the general allowed them to charter for their voyage to
London. There was thus neither resistance nor reaction. This
little insular restoration could not, however, be accomplished with-
out a Mass, at which both companies of the troops were ordered
to be present. Not knowing the rigor of the Carmelite rule, the
general hoped to gain in the church some information about the
nuns who were immured in the convent, one of whom might be
a being dearer to him than life, more precious even than honor.
His hopes were at first cruelly disappointed. Mass was cele-
brated with the utmost pomp.
In honor of this solemn occasion
ever more
1
## p. 1371 (#165) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1371
man.
are
the curtains which habitually hid the choir were drawn aside,
and gave to view the rich ornaments, the priceless pictures,
and the shrines incrusted with jewels whose brilliancy surpassed
that of the votive offerings fastened by the mariners of the
port to the pillars of the great nave. The nuns, however, had
retired to the seclusion of the organ gallery.
Yet in spite of this check, and while the Mass of thanksgiv-
ing was being sung, suddenly and secretly the drama widened
into an interest as profound as any that ever moved the heart of
The Sister who played the organ roused an enthusiasm so
vivid that not one soldier present regretted the order which had
brought him to the church. The men listened to the music with
pleasure; the officers were carried away by it.
As for the gen-
eral, he remained to all appearance calm and cold: the feelings
with which he heard the notes given forth by the nun
among the small number of earthly things whose expression is
withheld from impotent human speech, but which-like death,
like God, like eternity — can be perceived only at their slender
point of contact with the heart of man. By a strange chance the
music of the organ seemed to be that of Rossini, -a composer
who more than any other has carried human passion into the art
of music, and whose works by their number and extent will some
day inspire an Homeric respect. From among the scores of this
fine genius the nun seemed to have chiefly studied that of Moses
in Egypt; doubtless because the feelings of sacred music are there
carried to the highest pitch. Perhaps these two souls-one so
gloriously European, the other unknown - had met together in
some intuitive perception of the same poetic thought. This idea
occurred to two officers now present, true dilettanti, who no
doubt keenly regretted the Théatre Favart in their Spanish exile.
At last, at the Te Deum, it was impossible not to recognize a
French soul in the character which the music suddenly took on.
The triumph of his Most Christian Majesty evidently roused to
joy the heart of that cloistered nun. Surely she was a French-
woman. Presently the patriotic spirit burst forth, sparkling like
a jet of light through the antiphonals of the organ, as the Sister
recalled melodies breathing the delicacy of Parisian taste, and
blended them with vague memories of our national anthems.
Spanish hands could not have put into this graceful homage
paid to victorious arms the fire that thus betrayed the origin of
the musician.
## p. 1372 (#166) ###########################################
1372
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1
“France is everywhere! ” said a soldier.
The general left the church during the Te Deum; it was
impossible for him to listen to it. The notes of the musician
revealed to him a woman loved to madness; who had buried
herself so deeply in the heart of religion, hid herself so care-
fully away from the sight of the world, that up to this time she
had escaped the keen search of men armed not only with
immense power, but with great sagacity and intelligence. The
hopes which had wakened in the general's heart seemed justi-
fied as he listened to the vague echo of a tender and melancholy
air, La Fleuve du Tage,' -a ballad whose prelude he had
often heard in Paris in the boudoir of the woman he loved, and
which this nun now used to express, amid the joys of the con-
querors, the suffering of an exiled heart. Terrible moment! to
long for the resurrection of a lost love; to find that love — still
lost; to meet it mysteriously after five years in which passion,
exasperated by the void, had been intensified by the useless
efforts made to satisfy it.
Who is there that has not, once at least in his life, upturned
everything about him, his papers and his receptacles, taxing his
memory impatiently as he seeks some precious lost object; and
then felt the ineffable pleasure of finding it after days consumed
in the search, after hoping and despairing of its recovery, -
spending upon some trifle an excitement of mind almost amount-
ing to a passion ? Well, stretch this fury of search through five
long years; put a woman, a heart, a love in the place of the
insignificant trifle; lift the passion into the highest realms of
feeling; and then picture to yourself an ardent man, a man with
the heart of lion and the front of Jove, one of those men who
command, and communicate to those about them, respectful
terror, - you will then understand the abrupt departure of the
general during the Te Deum, at the moment when the prelude
of an air, once heard in Paris with delight under gilded ceilings,
vibrated through the dark naves of the church by the sea.
He went down the hilly street which led up to the convent,
without pausing until the sonorous echoes of the organ could no
longer reach his ear. Unable to think of anything but of the
love that like a volcanic eruption rent his heart, the French gen-
eral only perceived that the Te Deum was ended when the
Spanish contingent poured from the church. He felt that his
conduct and appearance were open to ridicule, and he hastily
1
.
1
1
1
1
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HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1373
resumed his place at the head of the cavalcade, explaining to the
alcalde and to the governor of the town that a sudden indisposi-
tion had obliged him to come out into the air. Then it suddenly
occurred to him to use the pretext thus hastily given, as a
means of prolonging his stay on the island. Excusing himself
on the score of increased illness, he declined to preside at the
banquet given by the authorities of the island to the French
officers, and took to his bed, after writing to the major-general
that a passing illness compelled him to turn over his command
to the colonel. This commonplace artifice, natural as it was,
left him free from all duties and able to seek the fulfilment of
his hopes. Like a man essentially Catholic and monarchical, he
inquired the hours of the various services, and showed the
utmost interest in the duties of religion, -a piety which in
Spain excited no surprise.
II
The following day, while the soldiers were embarking, the gen-
eral went up to the convent to be present at vespers. He found
the church deserted by the townspeople, who in spite of their
natural devotion were attracted to the port by the embarkation
of the troops. The Frenchman, glad to find himself alone in the
church, took pains to make the clink of his spurs resound
through the vaulted roof; he walked noisily, and coughed, and
spoke aloud to himself, hoping to inform the nuns, but especially
the Sister at the organ, that if the French soldiers were depart-
ing, one at least remained behind. Was this singular method of
communication heard and understood ? The general believed it
was. In the Magnificat the organ seemed to give an answer
which came to him in the vibrations of the air. The soul of the
nun floated towards him on the wings of the notes she touched,
quivering with the movements of the sound. The music burst
forth with power; it glorified the church. This hymn of joy,
consecrated by the sublime liturgy of Roman Christianity to the
uplifting of the soul in presence of the splendors of the ever-
living God, became the utterance of a heart terrified at its own
happiness in presence of the splendors of a perishable love,
which still lived, and came to move it once more beyond the
tomb where this woman had buried herself, to rise again the
bride of Christ.
## p. 1374 (#168) ###########################################
1374
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
The organ is beyond all question the finest, the most daring,
the most magnificent of the instruments created by human genius.
It is an orchestra in itself, from which a practiced hand may
demand all things; for it expresses all things. Is it not, as it
were, a coign of vantage, where the soul may poise itself ere it
springs into space, bearing, as it flies, the listening mind through
a thousand scenes of life towards the infinite which parts earth
from heaven? 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) ###########################################
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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
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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) ###########################################
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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.
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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
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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.
