Chapter 18

THE END OF A HONEY-MOON

Guerande, July, 1838.

To Madame la Duchesse de Grandlieu:

Ah, my dear mamma! at the end of three months to know what it is
to be jealous! My heart completes its experience; I now feel the
deepest hatred and the deepest love! I am more than betrayed,--I
am not loved. How fortunate for me to have a mother, a heart on
which to cry out as I will!

It is enough to say to wives who are still half girls: "Here's a
key rusty with memories among those of your palace; go everywhere,
enjoy everything, but keep away from Les Touches!" to make us
eager to go there hot-foot, our eyes shining with the curiosity of
Eve. What a root of bitterness Mademoiselle des Touches planted in
my love! Why did she forbid me to go to Les Touches? What sort of
happiness is mine if it depends on an excursion, on a visit to a
paltry house in Brittany? Why should I fear? Is there anything to
fear? Add to this reasoning of Mrs. Blue-Beard the desire that
nips all women to know if their power is solid or precarious, and
you'll understand how it was that I said one day, with an
unconcerned little air:--

"What sort of place is Les Touches?"

"Les Touches belongs to you," said my divine, dear mother-in-law.

"If Calyste had never set foot in Les Touches!"--cried my aunt
Zephirine, shaking her head.

"He would not be my husband," I added.

"Then you know what happened there?" said my mother-in-law, slyly.

"It is a place of perdition!" exclaimed Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel.
"Mademoiselle des Touches committed many sins there, for which she
is now asking the pardon of God."

"But they saved the soul of that noble woman, and made the fortune
of a convent," cried the Chevalier du Halga. "The Abbe Grimont
told me she had given a hundred thousand francs to the nuns of the
Visitation."

"Should you like to go to Les Touches?" asked my mother-in-law.
"It is worth seeing."

"No, no!" I said hastily.

Doesn't this little scene read to you like a page out of some
diabolical drama?

It was repeated again and again under various pretexts. At last my
mother-in-law said to me: "I understand why you do not go to Les
Touches, and I think you are right."

Oh! you must admit, mamma, that an involuntary, unconscious stab
like that would have decided you to find out if your happiness
rested on such a frail foundation that it would perish at a mere
touch. To do Calyste justice, he never proposed to me to visit
that hermitage, now his property. But as soon as we love we are
creatures devoid of common-sense, and