The Cross of Berny Read online

  THE CROSS OF BERNY

  OR, IRENE'S LOVERS

  * * *

  EMILE DE GIRARDIN

  THEOPHILE GAUTIER

  JULES SANDEAU MERY

  *

  The Cross of Berny

  Or, Irene's Lovers

  From an 1873 edition

  Epub ISBN 978-1-77659-971-4

  Also available:

  PDF ISBN 978-1-77659-972-1

  © 2014 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved.

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  Contents

  *

  Preface to the American Edition

  Original Preface to the French Edition

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Chapter XIX

  Chapter XX

  Chapter XXI

  Chapter XXII

  Chapter XXIII

  Chapter XXIV

  Chapter XXV

  Chapter XXVI

  Chapter XXVII

  Chapter XXVIII

  Chapter XXIX

  Chapter XXX

  Chapter XXXI

  Chapter XXXII

  Chapter XXXIII

  Chapter XXXIV

  Chapter XXXV

  Chapter XXXVI

  Chapter XXXVII

  Chapter XXXVIII

  Chapter XL

  Chapter XLI

  Preface to the American Edition

  *

  Literary partnerships have often been tried, but very rarely with success in the more imaginative branches of literature. Occasionally two minds have been found to supplement each other sufficiently to produce good joint writing, as in the works of MM. Erckman-Chatrian; but when the partnership has included more than two, it has almost invariably proved a failure, even when composed of individually the brightest intellects, and where the highest hopes have been entertained. Standing almost if not quite alone, in contrast with these failures of the past, THE CROSS OF BERNY is the more remarkable; and has achieved the success not merely of being the simply harmonious joint work of four individual minds,—but of being in itself, and entirely aside from its interest as a literary curiosity, a great book.

  A high rank, then, is claimed for it not upon its success as a literary partnership, for that at best would but excite a sort of curious interest, but upon its intrinsic merit as a work of fiction. The spirit of rivalry in which it was undertaken was perhaps not the best guarantee of harmony in the tone of the whole work, but it has certainly added materially to the wit and brilliancy of the letters, while harmony has been preserved by much tact and skill. No one of its authors could alone have written THE CROSS OF BERNY—together, each one has given us his best, and their joint effort will long live to their fame.

  The shape in which it appears, as a correspondence between four characters whose names are the pseudonyms of the four authors of the book, although at first it may seem to the reader a little awkward, will upon reflection be seen to be wisely chosen, since it allows to each of the prominent characters an individuality otherwise very difficult of attainment. In this way also any differences of style which there may be, tend rather to heighten the effect, and to increase the reality of the characters.

  The title under which the original French edition appeared has been retained in the translation, although since its applicability depends upon a somewhat local allusion, the general reader may possibly fail to appreciate it.

  Original Preface to the French Edition

  *

  The Cross of Berny was, it will be remembered, a brilliant tourney, where Madame de Girardin (née Delphine Gay), Théophile Gautier, Jules Sandeau and Méry, broke lances like valiant knights of old.

  We believe we respond to the general wish by adding to the Bibliothèque Nouvelle this unique work, which assumed and will ever retain a high position among the literary curiosities of the day.

  Not feeling called upon to decide who is the victor in the tilt, we merely lift the pseudonymous veil concealing the champions.

  The letters signed Irene de Chateaudun are by Madame de Girardin.

  The letters signed Edgar de Meilhan are by M. Théophile Gautier.

  The letters signed Raymond de Villiers are by M. Jules Sandeau.

  The letters signed Roger de Monbert are by M. Méry.

  Who are recognised as the four most brilliant of our celebrated contemporaneous authors.—EDITOR.

  Chapter I

  *

  IRENE DE CHATEAUDUN to MME. LA VICOMTESSE DE BRAIMES,

  Hotel de la Préfecture,

  GRENOBLE (Isère).

  PARIS, May 16th, 18—.

  You are a great prophetess, my dear Valentino. Your predictions are verified.

  Thanks to my peculiar disposition, I am already in the most deplorably false position that a reasonable mind and romantic heart could ever have contrived.

  With you, naturally and instinctively, I have always been sincere; indeed it would be difficult to deceive one whom I have so often seen by a single glance read the startled conscience, and lead it from the ways of insolence and shame back into the paths of rectitude.

  It is to you I would confide all my troubles; your counsel may save me ere it be too late.

  You must not think me absurd in ascribing all my unhappiness to what is popularly regarded as "a piece of good luck."

  Governed by my weakness, or rather by my fatal judgment, I have plighted my troth!... Good Heavens! is it really true that I am engaged to Prince de Monbert?

  If you knew the prince you would laugh at my sadness, and at the melancholy tone in which I announce this intelligence.

  Monsieur de Monbert is the most witty and agreeable man in Paris; he is noble-hearted, generous and ...in fact fascinating!... and I love him! He alone pleases me; in his absence I weary of everything; in his presence I am satisfied and happy—the hours glide away uncounted; I have perfect faith in his good heart and sound judgment, and proudly recognise his incontestable superiority—yes, I admire, respect, and, I repeat it, love him!...

  Yet, the promise I have made to dedicate my life to him, frightens me, and for a month I have had but one thought—to postpone this marriage I wished for—to fly from this man whom I have chosen!...

  I question my heart, my experience, my imagination, for an answer to this inexplicable contradiction; and to interpret so many fears, find nothing but school-girl philosophy and poetic fancies, which you will excuse because you love me, and I know my imaginary sufferings will at least awaken pity in your sympathetic breast.

  Yes, my dear Valentine, I am more to be pitied now, than I was in the days of my distress and desolation. I, who so courageously braved the blows of adversity, feel weak and trembling under the weight of a too brilliant fortune.

  This happy destiny for which I alone am responsible, alarms me more than did the
bitter lot that was forced upon me one year ago.

  The actual trials of poverty exhaust the field of thought and prevent us from nursing imaginary cares, for when we have undergone the torture of our own forebodings, struggled with the impetuosity and agony of a nature surrendered to itself, we are disposed to look almost with relief on tangible troubles, and to end by appreciating the cares of poverty as salutary distractions from the sickly anxieties of an unemployed mind.

  Oh! believe me to be serious, and accuse me not of comic-opera philosophy, my dear Valentine! I feel none of that proud disdain for importunate fortune that we read of in novels; nor do I regret "my pretty boat," nor "my cottage by the sea;" here, in this beautiful drawing-room of the Hotel de Langeac, writing to you, I do not sigh for my gloomy garret in the Marais, where my labors day and night were most tiresome, because a mere parody of the noblest arts, an undignified labor making patience and courage ridiculous, a cruel game which we play for life while cursing it.

  No! I regret not this, but I do regret the indolence, the idleness of mind succeeding such trivial exertions. For then there were no resolutions to make, no characters to study, and, above all, no responsibility to bear, nothing to choose, nothing to change.

  I had but to follow every morning the path marked out by necessity the evening before.

  If I were able to copy or originate some hundred designs; if I possessed sufficient carmine or cobalt to color some wretched engravings—worthless, but fashionable—which I must myself deliver on the morrow; if I could succeed in finding some new patterns for embroidery and tapestry, I was content—and for recreation indulged at evenings in the sweetest, that is most absurd, reveries.

  Revery then was a rest to me, now it is a labor, and a dangerous labor when too often resorted to; good thoughts then came to assist me in my misery; now, vexatious presentiments torment my happiness. Then the uncertainty of my future made me mistress of events. I could each day choose a new destiny, and new adventures. My unexpected and undeserved misfortune was so complete that I had nothing more to dread and everything to hope for, and experienced a vague feeling of gratitude for the ultimate succor that I confidently expected.

  I would pass long hours gazing from my window at a little light shining from the fourth-story window of a distant house. What strange conjectures I made, as I silently watched the mysterious beacon!

  Sometimes, in contemplating it, I recalled the questions addressed by Childe Harold to the tomb of Cecilia Metella, asking the cold marble if she who rested there were young and beautiful, a dark-eyed, delicate-featured woman, whose destiny was that reserved by Heaven for those it loves; or was she a venerable matron who had outlived her charms, her children and her kindred?

  So I also questioned this solitary light:

  To what distressed soul did it lend its aid? Some anxious mother watching and praying beside her sick child, or some youthful student plunging with stern delight into the arcana of science, to wrest from the revealing spirits of the night some luminous truth?

  But while the poet questioned death and the past, I questioned the living present, and more than once the distant beacon seemed to answer me. I even imagined that this busy light flickered in concert with mine, and that they brightened and faded in unison.

  I could only see it through a thick foliage of trees, for a large garden planted with poplars, pines and sycamores separated the house where I had taken refuge from the tall building whence the beacon shone for me night after night.

  As I could never succeed in finding the points of the compass, I was ignorant of the exact locality of the house, or even on what street it fronted, and knew nothing of its occupants. But still this light was a friend; it spoke a sympathetic language to my eyes—it said: "Courage! you do not suffer alone; behind these trees and under those stars there is one who watches, labors, dreams." And when the night was majestic and beautiful, when the morn rose slowly in the azure sky, like a radiant host offered by the invisible hand of God to the adoration of the faithful who pray, lament and die by night; when these ever-new splendors dazzled my troubled soul; when I felt myself seized with that poignant admiration which makes solitary hearts find almost grief in joys that cannot be shared, it seemed to me that a dear voice came to calm my excitement, and exclaimed, with fervor, "Is not the night beautiful? What happiness in enjoying it together!"

  When the nightingale, deceived by the silence of the deserted spot, and attracted by these dark shades, became a Parisian for a few days, rejuvenating with his vernal songs the old echoes of the city, again it seemed that the same voice whispered softly through the trembling leaves: "He sings, come listen!"

  So the sad nights glided peacefully away, comforted by these foolish reveries.

  Then I invoked my dear ideal, beloved shadow, protector of every honest heart, proud dream, a perfect choice, a jealous love sometimes making all other love impossible! Oh, my beautiful ideal! Must I then say farewell? Now I no longer dare to invoke thee!...

  But what folly! Why am I so silly as to permit the remembrance of an ideal to haunt me like a remorse? Why do I suffer it to make me unjust towards noble and generous qualities that I should worthily appreciate?

  Do not laugh at me, Valentine, when I assure you that my greatest distress is that my lover does not resemble in any respect my ideal, and I am provoked that I love him—I cannot deceive myself, the contrast is striking—judge for yourself.

  You may laugh if you will, but the whole secret of my distress is the contrast between these two portraits.

  My lover has handsome, intelligent blue eyes—my ideal's eyes are black, full of sadness and fire, not the soft, troubadour eye with long drooping lids—no! My ideal's glance has none of the languishing tenderness of romance, but is proud, powerful, penetrating, the look of a thinker, of a great mind yielding to the influence of love, the gaze of a hero disarmed by passion!

  My lover is tall and slender—my ideal is only a head taller than myself ... Ah! I know you are laughing at me, Valentine! Well! I sometimes laugh at myself....

  My lover is frankness personified—my ideal is not a sly knave, but he is mysterious; he never utters his thoughts, but lets you divine, or rather he speaks to a responsive sentiment in your own bosom.

  My lover is what men call "A good fellow," you are intimate with him in twenty-four hours.

  My ideal is by no means "a good fellow," and although he inspires confidence and respect, you are never at ease in his presence, there is a graceful dignity in his carriage, an imposing gentleness in his manner, that always inspires a kind of fear, a pleasing awe.

  You remember, Valentine, when we were very young girls how we were wont to ask each other, in reading the annals of the past, what situations would have pleased us, what parts we would have liked to play, what great emotions we would have wished to experience; and how you pityingly laughed at my odd taste.

  My dream,par excellence, was to die of fear; I never envied with you the famed heroines, the sublime shepherdesses who saved their country. I envied the timid Esther fainting in the arms of her women at the fierce tones of Ahasuerus, and restored to consciousness by the same voice musically whispering the fondest words ever inspired by a royal love.

  I also admired Semele, dying of fear and admiration at the frowns of a wrathful Jove, but her least of all, because I am terrified in a thunderstorm.

  Well, I am still the same—to love tremblingly is my fondest dream; I do not say, like pretty Madame de S., that I can only be captivated by a man with the passions of a tiger and the manners of a diplomate, I only declare that I cannot understand love without fear.

  And yet my lover does not inspire me with the least fear, and against all reasoning, I mistrust a love that so little resembles the love I imagined.

  The strangest doubts trouble me. When Roger speaks to me tenderly; when he lovingly calls me his dear Irene, I am troubled, alarmed—I feel as if I were deceiving some one, that I am not free, that I belong to another. Oh! what foolish
scruples! How little do I deserve sympathy! You who have known me from my childhood and are interested in my happiness, will understand and commiserate my folly, for folly I know it to be, and judge myself as severely as you would.

  I have resolved to treat these wretched misgivings and childish fears as the creations of a diseased mind, and have arranged a plan for their cure.

  I will go into the country for a short time; good Madame Taverneau offers me the hospitality of her house at Pont-de-l'Arche; she knows nothing of what has happened during the last six months, and still believes me to be a poor young widow, forced to paint fans and screens for her daily bread.

  I am very much amused at hearing her relate my own story without imagining she is talking to the heroine of that singular romance.

  Where could she have learned about my sad situation, the minute details that I supposed no one knew?

  "A young orphan girl of noble birth, at the age of twenty compelled by misfortune to change her name and work for her livelihood, is suddenly restored to affluence by an accident that carried off all her relatives, an immensely rich uncle, his wife and son."

  She also said my uncle detested me, which proved that she was well informed—only she adds that the young heiress is horribly ugly, which I hope is not true!

  I will go to Mme. Taverneau and again become the interesting widow of Monsieur Albert Guérin, of the Navy.

  Perilous widowhood which invited from my dear Mme. Taverneau confidences prematurely enlightening, and which Mlle. Irene de Chateaudun had some difficulty in forgetting.

  Ah! misery is a cruel emancipation! Angelic ignorance, spotless innocence of mind is a luxury that poor young girls, even the most circumspect, cannot enjoy.

  What presence of mind I had to exercise for three long years in order to sustain my part!

  How often have I felt myself blush, when Mme. Taverneau would say: "Poor Albert! he must have adored you."

  How often have I had to restrain my laughter, when, in enumerating the perfections of her own husband, she would add, with a look of pity: "It must distress you to see Charles and me together, our love must recall your sad loss."