Chapter 20

A SHORT TREATISE ON CERTAINTY:
BUT NOT FROM PASCAL'S POINT OF VIEW

When a woman returns to ordinary life after the nursing of her first
child she reappears in the world embellished and charming. This phase
of maternity, while it rejuvenates the women of a certain age, gives
to young women a splendor of freshness, a gay activity, a /brio/ of
mere existence,--if it is permissible to apply to the body a word
which Italy has discovered for the mind. In trying to return to the
charming habits of the honeymoon, Sabine discovered that her husband
was not the former Calyste. Again she observed him, unhappy girl,
instead of resting securely in her happiness. She sought for the fatal
perfume, and smelt it. This time she no longer confided in her friend,
nor in the mother who had so charitably deceived her. She wanted
certainty, and Certainty made no long tarrying. Certainty is never
wanting, it is like the sun; and presently shades are asked for to
keep it out. It is, in matters of the heart, a repetition of the fable
of the woodman calling upon Death,--we soon ask Certainty to leave us
blind.

One morning, about two weeks after the first crisis, Sabine received
this terrible letter:--

Guerande.

To Madame la Baronne du Guenic:

My dear Daughter,--Your aunt Zephirine and I are lost in
conjectures about the dressing-table of which you tell us in your
letter. I have written to Calyste about it, and I beg you to
excuse our ignorance. You can never doubt our hearts, I am sure.
We are piling up riches for you here. Thanks to the advice of
Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel on the management of your property, you
will find yourself within a few years in possession of a
considerable capital without losing any of your income.

Your letter, dear child as dearly loved as if I had borne you in
my bosom and fed you with my milk, surprised me by its brevity,
and above all by your silence about my dearest little Calyste. You
told me nothing of the great Calyste either; but then, I know that
/he/ is happy, etc.

Sabine wrote across this letter these words, "Noble Brittany does not
always lie." She then laid the paper on Calyste's desk.

Calyste found the letter and read it. Seeing Sabine's sentence and
recognizing her handwriting he flung the letter into the fire,
determined to pretend that he had never received it. Sabine spent a
whole week in an agony the secrets of which are known only to angelic
or solitary souls whom the wing of the bad angel has never
overshadowed. Calyste's silence terrified her.

"I, who ought to be all gentleness, all pleasure to him, I have
displeased him, wounded him! My virtue has made itself hateful. I have
no doubt humiliated my