第8章

And we would go away to be happy somewhere at the world's end, Iknow not where.And with me at your side, you should come back to life and health under the wings of love.""You must not talk like this," said Sister Theresa; "you do not know what you are to me now.I love you far better than Iever loved you before.Every day I pray for you; I see you with other eyes.Armand, if you but knew the happiness of giving yourself up, without shame, to a pure friendship which God watches over! You do not know what joy it is to me to pray for heaven's blessing on you.I never pray for myself: God will do with me according to His will; but, at the price of my soul, Iwish I could be sure that you are happy here on earth, and that you will be happy hereafter throughout all ages.My eternal life is all that trouble has left me to offer up to you.I am old now with weeping; I am neither young nor fair; and in any case, you could not respect the nun who became a wife; no love, not even motherhood, could give me absolution....What can you say to outweigh the uncounted thoughts that have gathered in my heart during the past five years, thoughts that have changed, and worn, and blighted it? I ought to have given a heart less sorrowful to God.""What can I say? Dear Antoinette, I will say this, that I love you; that affection, love, a great love, the joy of living in another heart that is ours, utterly and wholly ours, is so rare a thing and so hard to find, that I doubted you, and put you to sharp proof; but now, today, I love you, Antoinette, with all my soul's strength....If you will follow me into solitude, Iwill hear no voice but yours, I will see no other face.""Hush, Armand! You are shortening the little time that we may be together here on earth.""Antoinette, will you come with me?"

"I am never away from you.My life is in your heart, not through the selfish ties of earthly happiness, or vanity, or enjoyment; pale and withered as I am, I live here for you, in the breast of God.As God is just, you shall be happy----""Words, words all of it! Pale and withered? How if I want you?

How if I cannot be happy without you? Do you still think of nothing but duty with your lover before you? Is he never to come first and above all things else in your heart? In time past you put social success, yourself, heaven knows what, before him; now it is God, it is the welfare of my soul! In Sister Theresa Ifind the Duchess over again, ignorant of the happiness of love, insensible as ever, beneath the semblance of sensibility.You do not love me; you have never loved me----""Oh, my brother----!"

"You do not wish to leave this tomb.You love my soul, do you say? Very well, through you it will be lost forever.I shall make away with myself----""Mother!" Sister Theresa called aloud in Spanish, "I have lied to you; this man is my lover!"The curtain fell at once.The General, in his stupor, scarcely heard the doors within as they clanged.

"Ah! she loves me still!" he cried, understanding all the sublimity of that cry of hers."She loves me still.She must be carried off...."The General left the island, returned to headquarters, pleaded ill-health, asked for leave of absence, and forthwith took his departure for France.

And now for the incidents which brought the two personages in this Scene into their present relation to each other.

The thing known in France as the Faubourg Saint-Germain is neither a Quarter, nor a sect, nor an institution, nor anything else that admits of a precise definition.There are great houses in the Place Royale, the Faubourg Saint-Honore, and the Chaussee d'Antin, in any one of which you may breathe the same atmosphere of Faubourg Saint-Germain.So, to begin with, the whole Faubourg is not within the Faubourg.There are men and women born far enough away from its influences who respond to them and take their place in the circle; and again there are others, born within its limits, who may yet be driven forth forever.For the last forty years the manners, and customs, and speech, in a word, the tradition of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, has been to Paris what the Court used to be in other times; it is what the Hotel Saint-Paul was to the fourteenth century; the Louvre to the fifteenth; the Palais, the Hotel Rambouillet, and the Place Royale to the sixteenth; and lastly, as Versailles was to the seventeenth and the eighteenth.

Just as the ordinary workaday Paris will always centre about some point; so, through all periods of history, the Paris of the nobles and the upper classes converges towards some particular spot.It is a periodically recurrent phenomenon which presents ample matter for reflection to those who are fain to observe or describe the various social zones; and possibly an enquiry into the causes that bring about this centralisation may do more than merely justify the probability of this episode; it may be of service to serious interests which some day will be more deeply rooted in the commonwealth, unless, indeed, experience is as meaningless for political parties as it is for youth.