第56章 RENEE DE L'ESTORADE TO LOUISE DE MACUMER(1)

My thrice happy Louise,your letter made me dizzy.For a few moments Iheld it in my listless hands,while a tear or two sparkled on it in the setting sun.I was alone beneath the small barren rock where Ihave had a seat placed;far off,like a lance of steel,the Mediterranean shone.The seat is shaded by aromatic shrubs,and I have had a very large jessamine,some honeysuckle,and Spanish brooms transplanted there,so that some day the rock will be entirely covered with climbing plants.The wild vine has already taken root there.But winter draws near,and all this greenery is faded like a piece of old tapestry.In this spot I am never molested;it is understood that here I wish to be alone.It is named Louise's seat--a proof,is it not,that even in solitude I am not alone here?

If I tell you all these details,to you so paltry,and try to describe the vision of green with which my prophetic gaze clothes this bare rock--on which top some freak of nature has set up a magnificent parasol pine--it is because in all this I have found an emblem to which I cling.

It was while your blessed lot was filling me with joy and--must Iconfess it?--with bitter envy too,that I felt the first movement of my child within,and this mystery of physical life reacted upon the inner recesses of my soul.This indefinable sensation,which partakes of the nature at once of a warning,a delight,a pain,a promise,and a fulfilment;this joy,which is mine alone,unshared by mortal,this wonder of wonders,has whispered to me that one day this rock shall be a carpet of flowers,resounding to the merry laughter of children,that I shall at last be blessed among women,and from me shall spring forth fountains of life.Now I know what I have lived for!Thus the first certainty of bearing within me another life brought healing to my wounds.A joy that beggars deion has crowned for me those long days of sacrifice,in which Louis had already found his.

Sacrifice!I said to myself,how far does it excel passion!What pleasure has roots so deep as one which is not personal but creative?

Is not the spirit of Sacrifice a power mightier than any of its results?Is it not that mysterious,tireless divinity,who hides beneath innumerable spheres in an unexplored centre,through which all worlds in turn must pass?Sacrifice,solitary and secret,rich in pleasures only tasted in silence,which none can guess at,and no profane eye has ever seen;Sacrifice,jealous God and tyrant,God of strength and victory,exhaustless spring which,partaking of the very essence of all that exists,can by no expenditure be drained below its own level;--Sacrifice,there is the keynote of my life.

For you,Louise,love is but the reflex of Felipe's passion;the life which I shed upon my little ones will come back to me in ever-growing fulness.The plenty of your golden harvest will pass;mine,though late,will be but the more enduring,for each hour will see it renewed.Love may be the fairest gem which Society has filched from Nature;but what is motherhood save Nature in her most gladsome mood?

A smile has dried my tears.Love makes my Louis happy,but marriage has made me a mother,and who shall say I am not happy also?

With slow steps,then,I returned to my white grange,with the green shutters,to write you these thoughts.

So it is,darling,that the most marvelous,and yet the simplest,process of nature has been going on in me for five months;and yet--in your ear let me whisper it--so far it agitates neither my heart nor my understanding.I see all around me happy;the grandfather-to-be has become a child again,trespassing on the grandchild's place;the father wears a grave and anxious look;they are all most attentive to me,all talk of the joy of being a mother.Alas!I alone remain cold,and I dare not tell you how dead I am to all emotion,though I affect a little in order not to damp the general satisfaction.But with you Imay be frank;and I confess that,at my present stage,motherhood is a mere affair of the imagination.