第77章 MME.DE MACUMER TO THE COMTESSE DE L'ESTORADE

For the first time in my life,my dear Renee,I have been alone and crying.I was sitting under a willow,on a wooden bench by the side of the long Chantepleurs marsh.The view there is charming,but it needs some merry children to complete it,and I wait for you.I have been married nearly three years,and no child!The thought of your quiver full drove me to explore my heart.

And this is what I find there."Oh!if I had to suffer a hundred-fold what Renee suffered when my godson was born;if I had to see my child in convulsions,even so would to God that I might have a cherub of my own,like your Athenais!"I can see her from here in my mind's eye,and I know she is beautiful as the day,for you tell me nothing about her--that is just like my Renee!I believe you divine my trouble.

Each time my hopes are disappointed,I fall a prey for some days to the blackest melancholy.Then I compose sad elegies.When shall Iembroider little caps and sew lace edgings to encircle a tiny head?

When choose the cambric for the baby-clothes?Shall I never hear baby lips shout "Mamma,"and have my dress pulled by a teasing despot whom my heart adores?Are there to be no wheelmarks of a little carriage on the gravel,no broken toys littered about the courtyard?Shall I never visit the toy-shops,as mothers do,to buy swords,and dolls,and baby-houses?And will it never be mine to watch the unfolding of a precious life--another Felipe,only more dear?I would have a son,if only to learn how a lover can be more to one in his second self.

My park and castle are cold and desolate to me.A childless woman is a monstrosity of nature;we exist only to be mothers.Oh!my sage in woman's livery,how well you have conned the book of life!Everywhere,too,barrenness is a dismal thing.My life is a little too much like one of Gessner's or Florian's sheepfolds,which Rivarol longed to see invaded by a wolf.I too have it in me to make sacrifices!There are forces in me,I feel,which Felipe has no use for;and if I am not to be a mother,I must be allowed to indulge myself in some romantic sorrow.

I have just made this remark to my belated Moor,and it brought tears to his eyes.He cannot stand any joking on his love,so I let him off easily,and only called him a paladin of folly.

At times I am seized with a desire to go on pilgrimage,to bear my longings to the shrine of some madonna or to a watering-place.Next winter I shall take medical advice.I am too much enraged with myself to write more.Good-bye.