Detective Lecoq - Complete Murder Mysteries. Emile Gaboriau
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at this price.
Bertha was wearied with the constancy and adoration of her husband. She had only to express a desire to be at once obeyed, and this blind submission to all her wishes appeared to her servile in a man. A man is born, she thought, to command, and not to obey; to be master, and not slave. She would have preferred a husband who would come in in the middle of the night, still warm from his orgy, having lost at play, and who would strike her if she upbraided him. A tyrant, but a man. Some months after her marriage she suddenly took it into her head to have absurd freaks and extravagant caprices. She wished to prove him, and see how far his constant complacence would go. She thought she would tire him out. It was intolerable to feel absolutely sure of her husband, to know that she so filled his heart that he had room for no other, to have nothing to fear, not even the caprice of an hour. Perhaps there was yet more than this in Bertha’s aversion. She knew herself, and confessed to herself that had Sauvresy wished, she would have been his without being his wife. She was so lonely at her father’s, so wretched in her poverty, that she would have fled from her home, even for this. And she despised her husband because he had not despised her enough!
People were always telling her that she was the happiest of women. Happy! And there were days when she wept when she thought that she was married. Happy! There were times when she longed to fly, to seek adventure and pleasure, all that she yearned for, what she had not had and never would have. The fear of poverty—which she knew well—restrained her. This fear was caused in part by a wise precaution which her father, recently dead, had taken. Sauvresy wished to insert in the marriage-contract a settlement of five hundred thousand francs on his affianced. The worthy Lechailin had opposed this generous act.
“My daughter,” he said, “brings you nothing. Settle forty thousand francs on her if you will, not a sou more; otherwise there shall be no marriage.”
As Sauvresy insisted, the old man added:
“I hope that she will be a good and worthy wife; if so, your fortune will be hers. But if she is not, forty thousand francs will be none too little for her. Of course, if you are afraid that you will die first, you can make a will.”
Sauvresy was forced to yield. Perhaps the worthy school-master knew his daughter; if so he was the only one. Never did so consummate a hypocrisy minister to so profound a perversity, and a depravity so inconceivable in a young and seemingly innocent girl. If, at the bottom of her heart, she thought herself the most wretched of women, there was nothing of it apparent—it was a well-kept secret. She knew how to show to her husband, in place of the love she did not feel, the appearance of a passion at once burning and modest, betraying furtive glances and a flush as of pleasure, when he entered the room.
All the world said:
“Bertha is foolishly fond of her husband.”
Sauvresy was sure of it, and he was the first to say, not caring to conceal his joy:
“My wife adores me.”
Such were man and wife at Valfeuillu when Sauvresy found Tremorel on the banks of the Seine with a pistol in his hand. Sauvresy missed his dinner that evening for the first time since his marriage, though he had promised to be prompt, and the meal was kept waiting for him. Bertha might have been anxious about this delay; she was only indignant at what she called inconsiderateness. She was asking herself how she should punish her husband, when, at ten o’clock at night, the drawing-room door was abruptly thrown open, and Sauvresy stood smiling upon the threshold.
“Bertha,” said he, “I’ve brought you an apparition.”
She scarcely deigned to raise her head. Sauvresy continued:
“An apparition whom you know, of whom I have often spoken to you, whom you will like because I love him, and because he is my oldest comrade, my best friend.”
And standing aside, he gently pushed Hector into the room.
“Madame Sauvresy, permit me to present to you Monsieur the Count de Tremorel.”
Bertha rose suddenly, blushing, confused, agitated by an indefinable emotion, as if she saw in reality an apparition. For the first time in her life she was abashed, and did not dare to raise her large, clear blue eyes.
“Monsieur,” she stammered, “you are welcome.”
She knew Tremorel’s name well. Sauvresy had often mentioned it, and she had seen it often in the papers, and had heard it in the drawing-rooms of all her friends. He who bore it seemed to her, after what she had heard a great personage. He was, according to his reputation, a hero of another age, a social Don Quixote, a terribly fast man of the world. He was one of those men whose lives astonish common people, whom the well-to-do citizen thinks faithless and lawless, whose extravagant passions overleap the narrow bounds of social prejudice; a man who tyrannizes over others, whom all fear, who fights on the slightest provocation, who scatters gold with a prodigal hand, whose iron health resists the most terrible excesses. She had often in her miserable reveries tried to imagine what kind of man this Count de Tremorel was. She awarded him with such qualities as she desired for her fancied hero, with whom she could fly from her husband in search of new adventures. And now, of a sudden, he appeared before her.
“Give Hector your hand, dear,” said Sauvresy. She held out her hand, which Tremorel lightly pressed, and his touch seemed to give her an electric shock.
Sauvresy threw himself into an arm-chair.
“You see, Bertha,” said he, “our friend Hector is exhausted with the life he has been leading. He has been advised to rest, and has come to seek it here, with us.”
“But, dear,” responded Bertha, “aren’t you afraid that the count will be bored a little here?”
“Why?”
“Valfeuillu is very quiet, and we are but dull country folks.”
Bertha talked for the sake of talking, to break a silence which embarrassed her, to make Tremorel speak, and hear his voice. As she talked she observed him, and studied the impression she made on him. Her radiant beauty usually struck those who saw her for the first time with open admiration. He remained impassible. She recognized the worn-out rake of title, the fast man who has tried, experienced, exhausted all things, in his coldness and superb indifference. And because he did not admire her she admired him the more.
“What a difference,” thought she, “between him and that vulgar Sauvresy, who is surprised at everything, whose face shows all that he thinks, whose eye betrays what he is going to say before he opens his mouth.”
Bertha was mistaken. Hector was not as cold and indifferent as she imagined. He was simply wearied, utterly exhausted. He could scarcely sit up after the terrible excitements of the last twenty-four hours. He soon asked permission to retire. Sauvresy, when left alone with his wife, told her all that happened, and the events which resulted in Tremorel’s coming to Valfeuillu; but like a true friend omitted everything that would cast ridicule upon his old comrade.
“He’s a big child,” said he, “a foolish fellow, whose brain is weak but we’ll take care of him and cure him.”
Bertha never listened to her husband so attentively before. She seemed to agree with him, but she really admired Tremorel. Like Jenny, she was struck with the heroism which could squander a fortune and then commit suicide.
“Ah!” sighed she, “Sauvresy would not have done it!”
No, Sauvresy was quite a different man from the Count de Tremorel. The next day he declared his intention to adjust his friend’s affairs. Hector had slept well, having spent the night on an excellent bed, undisturbed by pressing anxieties; and he appeared in the morning sleek and well-dressed, the disorder and desperation of the previous evening having quite disappeared. He had a nature not deeply impressible by events; twenty-four hours consoled him for the worst catastrophes, and he soon forgot the severest lessons of life. If Sauvresy had bid him begone, he would not have known where to go; yet he had already resumed the haughty carelessness of the millionnaire, accustomed to bend men and circumstances to his will. He was once more calm and cold, coolly joking, as if years had