The revolution of 1830 stopped Christian’s career, and gave further pretexts for temporary absences which only added to the coolness which already existed between husband and wife.  After handing in his resignation, the Baron fixed his residence at his chateau in the Vosges mountains, for which he shared the hereditary predilection of his family.  His tastes were in perfect harmony with this dwelling, for he had quickly become the perfect type of a country gentleman, scorning the court and rarely leaving his ancestral acres.  He was too kind-hearted to exact that his wife should share his country tastes and retired life.  The unlimited confidence which he had in her, a loyalty which never allowed him to suppose evil or suspect her, a nature very little inclined to jealousy, made him allow Clemence the greatest liberty.  The young woman lived at will in Paris with her aunt, or at Bergenheim with her husband, without a suspicious thought ever entering his head.  Really,—­what had he to fear?  What wrong could she reproach him with?  Was he not full of kindness and attention toward her?  Did he not leave her mistress of her own fortune, free to do as she liked, to gratify every caprice?  He thus lived upon his faith in the marriage contract, with unbounded confidence and old-fashioned loyalty.

According to general opinion, Madame de Bergenheim was a very fortunate woman, to whom virtue must be so easy that it could hardly be called a merit.  Happiness, according to society, consists in a box at the Opera, a fine carriage, and a husband who pays the bills without frowning.  Add to the above privileges, a hundred thousand francs’ worth of diamonds, and a woman has really no right to dream or to suffer.  There are, however, poor, loving creatures who stifle under this happiness as if under one of those leaden covers that Dante speaks of; they breathe, in imagination, the pure, vital air that a fatal instinct has revealed to them; they struggle between duty and desire; they gaze, like captive doves and with a sorrowful eye, upon the forbidden region where it would be so blissful to soar; for, in fastening a chain to their feet, the law did not bandage their eyes, and nature gave them wings; if the wings tear the chain asunder, shame and misfortune await them!  Society will never forgive the heart that catches a glimpse of the joys it is unacquainted with; even a brief hour in that paradise has to be expiated by implacable social damnation and its everlasting flames.

CHAPTER XIV

GERFAUT’S ALLEGORY