Читать книгу The Last Cavalier: Being the Adventures of Count Sainte-Hermine in the Age of Napoleon - Александр Дюма, Alexandre Dumas - Страница 14

AS THE TWO COMPANIONS AT ARMS were sitting down at their table, Madame la Comtesse and Mademoiselle Claire de Sourdis were announced to Madame Bonaparte.

The women embraced and, gracefully grouping themselves, they inquired after each other’s health and spoke of the weather, as was the mode of aristocratic society. Madame Bonaparte then had Madame de Sourdis sit beside her on a chaise longue, while Hortense took it upon herself to show Claire around the palace, as she was visiting for the first time.

The two girls, though about the same age, made a charming contrast. Hortense was blonde, fresh as a daisy, velvety as a peach. Her golden hair fell down to her knees, and her arms and hands were somewhat thin, for she still awaited Nature’s last touch to turn her into a woman. In her graceful appearance she combined both French vivaciousness and Creole sweetness. And, to complete the charming picture, her blue eyes shone with infinite gentleness.

Her companion had no cause for jealousy in regard to grace and beauty. Both girls were Creoles, but Claire was taller than her friend, and she had the dark complexion that Nature reserves for the southern beauties she seems to favor. Claire had sapphire blue eyes, ebony hair, a waist so slender two hands could span it, and hands and feet as tiny as a child’s.

Both had received excellent educations. Hortense’s education, interrupted by her forced apprenticeship until her mother got out of prison, had been organized so intelligently and assiduously that you would not imagine it had ever been interrupted at all. She could draw very nicely, was an excellent musician, indeed composed music, and wrote romantic poetry, some of which has been passed down to us, not simply because of the author’s elevated position but rather because of its intrinsic value. In fact, both girls were painters, both were musicians, and both spoke two or three foreign languages.

Hortense showed Claire her study, her sketches, her music room, and her aviary. Near the aviary, they sat down in a little boudoir that had been painted by Redouté. There they spoke about society parties, now beginning to reappear more brilliant than ever; about balls, which were vigorously starting up again; and about handsome, accomplished dancers. They talked about Monsieur de Trénis, Monsieur Laffitte, Monsieur d’Alvimar, and both Coulaincourts. They complained about the necessity, at every ball, to dance at least one gavotte and one minuet. And two questions arose quite naturally.

Hortense asked, “Do you know Citizen Duroc, my stepfather’s aide-de-camp?”

And Claire wondered, “Have you had the opportunity to meet Citizen Hector de Sainte-Hermine?”

Claire did not know Duroc.

Hortense did not know Hector.

Hortense more than nearly dared admit that she loved Duroc, for her stepfather, who himself greatly admired Duroc, had given his blessing. Indeed, Duroc was one of those young generals for whom the Tuileries was such a proving ground in those days. He was not yet twenty-eight, his manners were quite distinguished, and he had large but not deeply set eyes. He was taller than average, slender and elegant.

A shadow hovered over their love, however. For while Bonaparte supported it, Josephine did not. She wanted Hortense to marry Louis, one of Napoleon’s younger brothers.

Josephine had two declared enemies within Napoleon’s family, Joseph and Lucien, who had very nearly obtained Bonaparte’s agreement, on his return from Egypt, that he would never see Josephine again. Since his marriage to Josephine, Bonaparte’s brothers were constantly pressing him to divorce, on the pretext that a male child was necessary to realize his ambitious plans. It was an easy argument for them to make, since it appeared they were working against their own interests.

Joseph and Lucien were both married, Joseph perfectly and appropriately. He had married the daughter of Monsieur Clary, a rich merchant from Marseille, and was thus Bernadotte’s brother-in-law. Clary had a third daughter, perhaps more charming than her sisters, and Bonaparte asked for her hand in marriage. “Heavens, no,” the father answered. “One Bonaparte in my family is enough.” If he had agreed, the honorable merchant from Marseille would one day have found himself father-in-law to an emperor and two kings.

As for Lucien, he had made what society calls an unequal marriage. In 1794 or 1795, when Bonaparte was still known only for having taken Toulon, Lucien accepted the position of quartermaster in the little village of Saint-Maximin. A Republican who changed his name to Brutus, Lucien would not permit saints’ names of any kind in his village. So he had rebaptized Saint-Maximin; the village became Marathon. Citizen Brutus, from Marathon. That had a nice ring to it, he thought.

Lucien-Brutus was living in the only hotel in Saint-Maximin-Marathon. The hotelkeeper was a man who had given no thought to changing his name, Constant Boyer, or that of his daughter, an adorable creature named Christine: Sometimes such flowers grow in manure, such pearls in mud.

Saint-Maximin-Marathon offered Lucien-Brutus no society life and no distractions, but he soon discovered he needed neither, because he had found Christine Boyer. Only Christine Boyer was as wise as she was beautiful, and Lucien realized there was no way he could make her his mistress. So, in a moment of love and boredom, Lucien made her his wife. Christine Boyer became not Christine Brutus, but Christine Bonaparte.

The general of the 13th Vendémiaire, who was beginning to see his fortune clearly, grew furious. He swore he would never forgive the husband, never receive the wife, and he sent both of them to a little job in Germany. Later he softened; he did see the woman, and he was not displeased to see his brother Lucien Brutus become Lucien Antoine before the 18th Brumaire.

Lucien and Joseph both became the terror of Madame Bonaparte. By marrying Bonaparte’s nephew Louis to her daughter, Josephine hoped to interest him in her own fortune and to strengthen her protection against the two brothers.

Hortense resisted with all her might. At that time, Louis was quite a handsome young man, if barely twenty years old, with nice eyes and a kind smile—he looked rather like his sister Caroline, who had just married Murat. While he was not at all in love with Hortense, although he did not find her unattractive, he was too passive to resist the forces at play. Nor did Hortense hate Louis. But she was in love with Duroc.

Her little secret gave Claire de Sourdis confidence. She too ended up admitting something, precious little though it was to admit.

She too was in love, if we can call it love. It would be more appropriate to say that she was in thrall to an image, a mystery in the shape of a handsome young man.

He was twenty-three or twenty-four, with blond hair and dark eyes. His features seemed almost too regular for a man, and his hands were as elegant as a woman’s. He was put together so precisely, each part of him so completely in harmony with the whole, that one could readily see that the outward form of the man, however fragile in appearance, hid Herculean strength. Even before the time of Chateaubriand and Byron, who created darkly romantic heroes like René and Manfred, he bore a troubled brow whose pallor bespoke a strange destiny. For terrible legends were attached to his family name—legends known only imperfectly, but they came stained with blood. Yet nobody had ever seen him parade an air of exaggerated mourning, like so many who had lost so much during the Republic, and never had he made show of his pain at dances and salons and social gatherings. In fact, when he did appear in society, he had no need of any such affectations to try to attract attention. People just naturally looked at him. Usually, though, he eschewed the pastimes of his hunting and travel companions, who had never yet managed to drag him to one of those youthful parties which even the most rigid agree to attend sooner or later. And nobody remembered ever having seen him laugh aloud and openly the way most young people do, or even having seen him smile.

There had long been alliances between the Sainte-Hermine and the Sourdis families, and, as is customary in such noble houses, the memory of those alliances remained important. So when by chance young Sainte-Hermine had come to Paris, he had never failed, since Madame de Sourdis had come back from the colonies, to visit her, for he observed the demands of protocol, and never had his visits been other than formal.

The two young people had had occasion to meet, in society, over the past several months. Besides the polite greetings they exchanged, however, words had been spoken sparingly, especially by the young man. But their eyes had spoken eloquently. Hector apparently did not hold the same control over his eyes as he did over his words, and each time he encountered Claire, his gaze made known how lovely he found her and how perfectly she matched all his heart’s desires.

At their first meetings Claire had been moved by his expressive eyes, and since Sainte-Hermine seemed to her an accomplished gentleman in every way, she had permitted herself to look at him too less guardedly. She had also hoped that he would invite her to dance so that a whispered word or the pressure of his hand might affirm the meaning she’d read in his gaze. But, strangely for the time, Sainte-Hermine, the gentleman who took fencing lessons with Saint-Georges and who could shoot a pistol as well as Junot or Fournier, did not dance.

During the balls he attended, Sainte-Hermine would stand coldly and impassibly at some bay window or in a corner of the room. In that, he became an object of bewilderment for all the gay young women who wondered what secret vow might be depriving them of such an elegant dance partner—for he always dressed with such taste in the latest style.

Claire had wondered, too, at Sainte-Hermine’s reserve in her presence, especially since her mother seemed to admire the young man greatly. She spoke as highly about his family, decimated by the Revolution, as she did of him, and she knew that money could not be an obstacle to their union. The substantial fortunes of the two families were roughly equal.

One can understand the impression the mysterious young Sainte-Hermine might make on a young girl’s heart, especially on a young Creole girl’s heart, with the combination of his physical features and moral qualities, his elegance and strength. Claire’s image of him occupied her mind while biding its time to take over her heart.

Hortense made her hopes and desires clear to Claire: She wanted to marry Duroc, whom she loved, rather than Louis Bonaparte, whom she did not—that essentially was the secret she whispered to her friend. But it was not the same, for Claire’s storybook passion made it difficult for her to speak quite so plainly. At the same time that she described Hector’s features in great detail to her friend, she tried also to understand as best she could the shadows surrounding him.

Finally, after Claire’s mother had called twice, after she had stood up and embraced Hortense, as if the idea had just come to mind—as Madame de Sévigné observes, the most important part of a letter is in the postscript—she said: “By the way, dear Hortense, I am forgetting to ask you something.”

“What is that?”

“I understand that Madame de Permon is giving a great ball.”

“Yes. Loulou came to see my mother and me and invited us herself.”

“Are you going?”

“Yes, of course.”

“My dear Hortense,” Claire said in her most endearing voice, “I would like to ask a favor.”

“A favor?”

“Yes. Get an invitation for my mother and me. Is that possible?”

“Yes, I think so.”

Claire leaped with a joy. “Oh, thank you!” she said. “How will you go about it?”

“Well, I could ask Loulou for an invitation. But I prefer having Eugene do it. Eugene is close to Madame de Permon’s son, and Eugene will ask him for what you desire.”

“And I shall go to Madame de Permon’s ball?” cried Claire joyously.

“Yes,” Hortense answered. Then, looking her young friend in the eye, she asked, “Will he be there?”

Claire turned as red as a beet and dropped her eyes. “I think so.”

“You will point him out to me, won’t you?”

“Oh! You’ll recognize him without me doing that, my dear Hortense. Have I not told you that he can be picked out from among a thousand?”

“How sorry I am that he is not a dancer!” said Hortense.

“How do you think I feel?”

The two girls kissed each other and parted, Claire reminding Hortense not to forget the invitation.

Three days later Claire de Sourdis received her invitation by mail.