"Madame," said Ascanio, "you requested me to design a lily, do you remember? You ordered me to bring the design to you as soon as it should be completed. I completed it this morning, and I have it here."
"We have time enough, Ascanio," said the duchess, with a smile, and in a siren's voice. "Sit you down, pray. Well, my bonny invalid, what of your wound?"
"I am entirely recovered, madame."
"So far as your shoulder is concerned; but here?" said the duchess, laying her hand upon the young man's heart, with a graceful gesture, and a world of sentiment in her tone.
"I beg you, madame, to forget all that nonsense; I am very angry with myself for having annoyed your ladyship with it."
"O mon Dieu! what means this air of constraint? What means this clouded brow, and this harsh voice? All those men wearied you, did they not, Ascanio?—and as for myself, I hate and abhor them, but I fear them! Oh how I longed to be alone with you! Did you not see how quickly I dismissed them?"
"You are right, madame; I felt sadly out of place in such a distinguished company. I, a poor artist, who am here simply to show you this lily."
"Ah! mon Dieu! in a moment, Ascanio," continued the duchess, slinking her head; "you are very cold, and very sober with a friend. The other day you were so expansive and so delightful! Why this change, Ascanio? Doubtless some speech of your master's, who cannot endure me. How could you listen to him, Ascanio? Come, be frank; you have discussed me with him, have you not? and he told you that it was dangerous to trust me; that the friendly feeling I had manifested for you concealed some snare; he told you, did he not, that I detest you?"
"He told me that you loved me, madame," retorted Ascanio, looking earnestly into her face.
Madame d'Etampes was speechless for a moment, in presence of the thoughts which rushed through her mind. She wished without doubt that Ascanio should know her love, but she would have liked time to prepare him for it, and to extinguish gradually, without seeming interested in so doing, his passion for Colombe. How that the ambuscade she had arranged was discovered, she must fight her battle in the broad daylight, and win the victory openly if at all. She made her decision in a second.
"Well, yes," said she, "I do love you. Is it a crime? Is it a sin even? Can one command one's love or hatred? You should never nave known that I love you. For why tell you, when you love another? But that man revealed the whole truth, he laid bare my heart to you, and he did well, Ascanio. Look upon it, and you will see there adoration so deep that you can but be touched by it. And now, Ascanio, you must love me too, mark that."
Anne d'Etampes, a potent, superior nature, disdainful by instinct and ambitious from weariness of her surroundings had had several lovers hitherto, but not one love. She had fascinated the king, Admiral Brion had taken her by surprise, the Comte de Longueval caught her fancy for the moment, but throughout all these intrigues the head had always taken the place of the heart. At last, one day she found this young, true love, tender and deep, which she had so often summoned without avail, and now another woman disputed its possession with her. Ah! so much the worse for that other woman! She could not know what an irresistible passion she had to contend with. All the determination and all the violent impulses of her heart, she, Anne d'Etampes, would make manifest in her affection. That woman did not yet know what a fatal thing it would be to have the Duchesse d'Etampes for her rival, the Duchesse d'Etampes, who desired to have her Ascanio to herself, and whose power was such that she could, with a look, a word, a gesture, crush whatever might come between him and herself. The die was cast, the ambition and the beauty of the king's mistress were thenceforth to serve no other masters than her love for Ascanio and her jealousy of Colombe.
Poor Colombe, at that moment bending over her embroidery, sitting at her spinning-wheel, or kneeling before her prie-Dieu!
Ascanio, in presence of so outspoken and so redoubtable a passion, felt fascinated, carried away, and dismayed, all at the same moment. Benvenuto had said, and Ascanio now realized, that this was no mere whim; but he was deficient, not in the strength to struggle, but in the experience which would have taught him to feign submission. He was hardly twenty years old, and was too candid to pretend; he fancied, poor child, that the memory of Colombe, the name of the innocent girl uttered by him, would be an offensive and defensive weapon, a sword and a shield, while on the other hand it was sure to drive the shaft still deeper into the heart of Madame d'Etampes, who perhaps would soon have grown weary of a love in which she had no rival and no battle to wage.
"Come, Ascanio," she resumed more calmly, seeing that the young man held his peace, alarmed perhaps by the words she had let fall, "let us for to-day forget my love, which an imprudent word of yours inopportunely awakened. Let us think now of yourself only. Oh! I love you more on your own account than mine, I swear to you. I long to brighten your life as you have brightened mine. You are an orphan, take me for your mother. You heard what I said to Montbrion and Medina, and you may have thought that I am all ambition. 'T is true, I am ambitious, but for you alone. How long is it since I conceived this project of creating an independent duchy in the heart of Italy for a son of France? Only since I have loved you. If I were queen there, who would be the veritable king? You. For you I would cause empire and kingdom to change places! Ah! Ascanio, you do not know me; you do not know what a woman I am. You see that I tell you the whole truth, I unfold my plans to you without reserve. How do you, in your turn, confide in me, Ascanio. What are your wishes, that I may fulfil them! What are your passions, that I may minister to them!"
"Madame, I desire to be as frank and loyal as yourself, and to tell you the truth, as you have told it to me. I ask nothing, I wish nothing, I long for nothing, save Colombe's love."
"But she loves you not; you yourself told me so!"
"I was desperate the other day, true. But to-day who can say?" Ascanio lowered his eyes and his voice: "For you love me!" he added.
The duchess was taken aback by this instance of the instinctive divination of true love. There was a moment of silence, and that moment sufficed for her to collect her thoughts.
"Ascanio, let us not talk to-day of affairs of the heart," she said. "I made that request once before; I make it again. Love isn't the whole of life to you men. For instance, have you never thirsted for wealth, honors, glory?"
"Oh! yes, yes! for a month past I have most ardently longed for them," replied Ascanio, always reverting to the same idea in spite of himself.
Again there was a pause.
"Are you fond of Italy?" Anne resumed with effort.
"Yes, madame," said Ascanio. "There are flowering orange groves there, beneath which it is so pleasant to wander and converse. There the bluest of blue skies surrounds, caresses, and adorns everything that is beautiful."
"Oh, to fly thither with you!—to have you all to myself!—to be all in all to you, as you would be all in all to me! Mon Dieu! mon Dieu!" cried the duchess, likewise yielding to the irresistible force of her love. But she at once recovered herself, fearing to frighten Ascanio again, and continued: "I thought that you loved art before everything."
"Before everything I love—to love!" said Ascanio. "Oh! it is my great master Cellini, not I, who throws his whole being into his work. He is the great, the marvellous, the sublime artist! I am a poor apprentice, nothing more. I came to France with him, not to acquire wealth, nor glory, but because I loved him, that's all, and it was impossible for me to part from him; for at that time he was everything to me. I have no personal will, no strength independent of his strength. I became a goldsmith to gratify him, and because he wished it, as I became a carver because of his enthusiasm for skilful and delicate carving."
"Very well," said the duchess, "now listen: to live in Italy, all-powerful, almost a king; to patronize artists, Cellini at their head; to give him bronze, and silver and gold, to carve and cast and mould; and beyond all that, to love and be loved. Say, Ascanio, is it not a lovely dream?"
"It would be Paradise, madame, if it were Colombe whom I loved and who loved me."
"Still Colombe, always Colombe!" cried the duchess. "So be it; since the subject persistently forces itself into our words and our thoughts; since your Colombe is here with us, constantly before your eyes, and constantly in your heart, let us speak of her and of myself frankly and without hypocrisy: she does not love you, and you know it full well."
"Oh, no! I do not know it now, madame."
"But how can she love you when she is to marry another?" cried the duchess.
"Her father forces her, perhaps."
"Her father forces her! And do you think that if you loved me as you loved her,—do you think that if I were in her place there is in this wide world any force or will or power that could keep us apart? Oh, I would leave everything, I would fly from everything, I would run to your arms, and would give you my love, my honor, and my life to guard! No, no! I say she does not love you. And now would you have me tell you something else? you do not love her!"
"What! I not love Colombe! I think you said that I do not love her, madame?"
"No, you do not love her. You deceive yourself. At your age, one mistakes the need of loving for love. If you had seen me first, you would love me instead of her. Oh, when I think that you might have loved me! But no, no! it is much better that you should choose me in preference to her. I do not know this Colombe; she is lovely and pure, and whatever you choose; but these slips of girls know nothing about loving. Your Colombe would never have told you what I, whom you despise, have just said; she would have too much vanity, too much diffidence, too much shame perhaps. But my love is simple, and expresses itself in simple words. You despise me, you think that I forget my sex, and all because I don't dissemble. Some day, when you know the world better, when you have drunk so deeply of life that you have reached the dregs,—sorrow,—then you will think better of your present injustice, then you will admire me. But I do not choose to be admired, Ascanio, I choose to be loved. I say again, Ascanio, if I loved you less, I might be false, artful, coquettish; but I love you too well to try to fascinate you. I long to receive your heart as a gift, not to steal it. What will be the end of your love for that child? Tell me. You will suffer, my best beloved, and that's all. But I can serve you in many ways. In the first place, I have suffered for two, and perhaps God will permit my surplusage of suffering to be credited to you; and then I lay my wealth, my power, my experience, all at your feet. I will add my life to yours, and will save you from all sorts of missteps and from all forms of corruption. To arrive at fortune, or even to attain glory, an artist must often stoop to base, crawling expedients. You will be beyond all necessity for that with me. I will lift you ever higher and higher; I will be your stepping-stone. With me you will continue to be the proud, the noble, the pure Ascanio."
"But Colombe! Colombe, madame! Is not she too an immaculate pearl?"
"My child, believe what I say," replied the duchess, relapsing from feverish exaltation to melancholy. "Your pure white, innocent Colombe will make your life monotonous and dreary. You are both too divine. God didn't make angels to be joined together, but to make bad people better."
The duchess's manner was so eloquent, and her voice so sincere, that Ascanio was conscious of a thrill of affectionate compassion stealing over him, in spite of himself.
"Alas! madame," he said, "I see that I am indeed honored by your affection, and I am very deeply touched; but it is even better to love!"
"Oh, how true! how true that is! I prefer your disdain to the king's softest words. Ah me! I love for the first time: for the first time, I swear!"
"And the king? pray do you not love him, madame?"
"No, I am his mistress, but he is not my master."
"But he loves you!"
"Mon Dieu!" cried Anne, gazing earnestly into Ascanio's face, and seizing both his hands in hers: "Am I so fortunate that you are jealous? Does the king's love offend you? Listen: hitherto I have been in your eyes the duchess, wealthy, noble, powerful, offering to stir up crowned heads and overturn thrones. Do you prefer the poor, lonely woman, out of the world, with a simple white robe, and a wild flower in her hair? Do you prefer that, Ascanio? Let us leave Paris, the court, the world! Let us take refuge in some far off nook in your sunny Italy, beneath the lofty pines of Rome, or on the shores of your lovely Bay of Naples. Here I am: I am ready. O Ascanio, Ascanio, does it really flatter your pride, that I would sacrifice a crowned lover for your sake?"
"Madame," said Ascanio, whose heart was beginning to melt in the flame of so great a passion, "madame, my heart is too proud and too exacting; you cannot give me the past."
"The past! O you men, you men! always cruel! The past! In God's name ought an unfortunate woman to be compelled to answer for her past, when it has almost always been made what it was by events and circumstances stronger than herself? Suppose that a storm should arise and a whirlwind carry you off to Italy; when you return, one year, two years, three years hence, should you take it ill of your Colombe, whom you love so dearly to-day, because she had obeyed her parents and married Comte d'Orbec? Would you make her virtue a subject of reproach? would you punish her for obeying one of God's commandments? And if she had not your memory to feed upon, if she had never known you,—if, in her deathly ennui, crushed with grief, forgotten for a moment by God, she had sought to gain some knowledge of that paradise called love, the door of which was closed to her,—if she had loved another than her husband, whom she could not love,—if in a moment of delirium she had given her heart in exchange for another,—she would then be ruined in your eyes, dishonored in your heart. She could no longer hope to be blessed by your love, because she had not an unsullied past to give in exchange for your heart. Oh! I repeat, it is unjust, it is cruel!"
"Madame—"
"Who told you that is not my story? Listen to what I say, and believe what I declare to be the truth. I say again that I have suffered for both; and this poor woman, whom God forgives, you refuse to forgive. You do not understand how much greater and nobler it is to raise one's self from the abyss after falling into it, than to pass close by without seeing it, having the bandage of happiness over your eyes. O Ascanio, Ascanio! I deemed you better than the others, because you were younger, and fairer to look upon—"
"O madame!"
"Reach me your hand, Ascanio, and at one bound I will spring from the bottom of the abyss to your heart. Will you? To-morrow I will have broken with the king, the court, the world. Oh, I am valiant in love! But I do not wish to make myself any greater than I am. It would be but a trifling sacrifice for me, believe me. All these men are not worth one glance from you. But, if you would trust to me, dear child, you would let me retain my authority, and continue my plans for you. I would make you great, and you men can do without love if you attain glory: you are ambitious,—you may not know it yet, but you are. As for the king's love, don't be alarmed about that: I will turn it aside upon some other to whom he will give his heart while I retain his mind. Choose, Ascanio. Powerful through my means and with me, or I humble through your means and with you. Look you: a short time since, as you know, I was in this chair, and the most powerful courtiers were at my feet. Sit you in my place: sit you there, and behold me at your feet. Oh, how I love to be here, Ascanio! oh what bliss to see you and look into your eyes! You turn pale, Ascanio! Oh, if you would but tell me that you would love me some day, though not for a long, a very long while!"
"Madame! madame!" cried Ascanio, hiding his face in his hands, and covering eyes and ears, so conscious was he of the potent fascination of the aspect and the accent of the siren.
"Do not call me madame, do not call me Anne," said the duchess, putting aside his hands: "call me Louise. It is also my name, but a name by which no one has ever called me, and it shall be yours. Louise! Louise!—Do you not think it a sweet name, Ascanio?"
"I know one sweeter still," replied Ascanio.
"Beware, Ascanio!" cried the wounded lioness: "if you make me suffer too keenly, I may perhaps come to hate you as much as I love you."
"Mon Dieu!" replied the young man, shaking his head, as if to avert the spell: "Mon Dieu! you confuse my thoughts, and overwhelm my heart! Am I delirious? Have I a fever? Am I dreaming? If I say harsh things to you, forgive me, for I do it to awaken myself. I see you, lovely, adored, a queen, here at my feet. It cannot be that such temptations exist except to lead souls to perdition. Ah! you are, as you say, in an abyss; but instead of rising out of it yourself, you would draw me in. Oh, do not expose my weakness to such a trial!"
"There is neither temptation, nor trial, nor dream; there is a resplendent reality for us both: I love you, Ascanio, I love you!"
"You love me, but you will repent of your love hereafter and will reproach me some day for what you have brought into my life, or what I have taken away from yours."
"Ah! you do not know me," cried the duchess, "if you think me weak enough to repent. Stay: will you have a pledge?"
Anne hastily seated herself at a table upon which were writing materials, and, seizing a pen, dashed off a few words.
"Take this," she said, "and doubt me again, if you dare!"
Ascanio took the paper and read:—
"Oh, that cannot be, madame! It seems to me that my love would be a cause of shame to you."
"Shame!" cried the duchess: "do I know shame? I am too proud for that. My pride is my virtue!"
"Ah! I know a lovelier and more saintly virtue than that," said Ascanio, clinging to the thought of Colombe with a desperate effort.
The blow struck home. The duchess rose, trembling with indignation.
"You are an obstinate, hard-hearted child, Ascanio," she said in a broken voice: "I would fain have spared you much suffering, but I see that sorrow alone can teach you what life is. You will come back to me, Ascanio; you will return wounded, bleeding, heartbroken, and you will know then the worth of your Colombe and of myself. I will forgive you then, because I love you; but ere that time comes terrible things will happen. Au revoir. "
And Madame d'Etampes, wild with love and hatred, left the room, forgetting that the two lines she had written in a moment of exaltation remained in Ascanio's hands.