The Love of Long Ago

by Guy de Maupassant

　　

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The old-fashioned chateau was built on a wooded knoll in the midst oftall trees with dark-green foliage; the park extended to a greatdistance, in one direction to the edge of the forest, in another to thedistant country. A few yards from the front of the house was a hugestone basin with marble ladies taking a bath; other, basins were seen atintervals down to the foot of the slope, and a stream of water fell incascades from one basin to another.From the manor house, which preserved the grace of a superannuatedcoquette, down to the grottos incrusted with shell-work, where slumberedthe loves of a bygone age, everything in this antique demesne hadretained the physiognomy of former days. Everything seemed to speakstill of ancient customs, of the manners of long ago, of formergallantries, and of the elegant trivialities so dear to our grandmothers.In a parlor in the style of Louis XV, whose walls were covered withshepherds paying court to shepherdesses, beautiful ladies in hoop-skirts,and gallant gentlemen in wigs, a very old woman, who seemed dead as soonas she ceased to move, was almost lying down in a large easy-chair, ateach side of which hung a thin, mummy-like hand.Her dim eyes were gazing dreamily toward the distant horizon as if theysought to follow through the park the visions of her youth. Through theopen window every now and then came a breath of air laden with the odorof grass and the perfume of flowers. It made her white locks flutteraround her wrinkled forehead and old memories float through her brain.Beside her, on a tapestried stool, a young girl, with long fair hairhanging in braids down her back, was embroidering an altar-cloth. Therewas a pensive expression in her eyes, and it was easy to see that she wasdreaming, while her agile fingers flew over her work.But the old lady turned round her head, and said:"Berthe, read me something out of the newspapers, that I may still knowsometimes what is going on in the world."The young girl took up a newspaper, and cast a rapid glance over it."There is a great deal about politics, grandmamma; shall I pass thatover?""Yes, yes, darling. Are there no love stories? Is gallantry, then, deadin France, that they no longer talk about abductions or adventures asthey did formerly?"The girl made a long search through the columns of the newspaper."Here is one," she said. "It is entitled 'A Love Drama!'"The old woman smiled through her wrinkles. "Read that for me," she said.And Berthe commenced. It was a case of vitriol throwing. A wife, inorder to avenge herself on her husband's mistress, had burned her faceand eyes. She had left the Court of Assizes acquitted, declared to beinnocent, amid the applause of the crowd.The grandmother moved about excitedly in her chair, and exclaimed:"This is horrible--why, it is perfectly horrible!See whether you can find anything else to read to me, darling."Berthe again made a search; and farther down among the reports ofcriminal cases, she read:"'Gloomy Drama. A shop girl, no longer young, allowed herself to be ledastray by a young man. Then, to avenge herself on her lover, whose heartproved fickle, she shot him with a revolver. The unhappy man is maimedfor life. The jury, all men of moral character, condoning the illicitlove of the murderess, honorably acquitted her.'"This time the old grandmother appeared quite shocked, and, in a tremblingvoice, she said:"Why, you people are mad nowadays. You are mad! The good God has givenyou love, the only enchantment in life. Man has added to this gallantrythe only distraction of our dull hours, and here you are mixing up withit vitriol and revolvers, as if one were to put mud into a flagon ofSpanish wine."Berthe did not seem to understand her grandmother's indignation."But, grandmamma, this woman avenged herself. Remember she was married,and her husband deceived her."The grandmother gave a start."What ideas have they been filling your head with, you young girls oftoday?"Berthe replied:"But marriage is sacred, grandmamma."The grandmother's heart, which had its birth in the great age ofgallantry, gave a sudden leap."It is love that is sacred," she said. "Listen, child, to an old womanwho has seen three generations, and who has had a long, long experienceof men and women. Marriage and love have nothing in common. We marry tofound a family, and we form families in order to constitute society.Society cannot dispense with marriage. If society is a chain, eachfamily is a link in that chain. In order to weld those links, we alwaysseek metals of the same order. When we marry, we must bring togethersuitable conditions; we must combine fortunes, unite similar races andaim at the common interest, which is riches and children. We marry onlyonce my child, because the world requires us to do so, but we may lovetwenty times in one lifetime because nature has made us like this.Marriage, you see, is law, and love is an instinct which impels us,sometimes along a straight, and sometimes along a devious path. Theworld has made laws to combat our instincts--it was necessary to makethem; but our instincts are always stronger, and we ought not to resistthem too much, because they come from God; while the laws only come frommen. If we did not perfume life with love, as much love as possible,darling, as we put sugar into drugs for children, nobody would care totake it just as it is."Berthe opened her eyes wide in astonishment. She murmured:"Oh! grandmamma, we can only love once."The grandmother raised her trembling hands toward Heaven, as if again toinvoke the defunct god of gallantries. She exclaimed indignantly:"You have become a race of serfs, a race of common people. Since theRevolution, it is impossible any longer to recognize society. You haveattached big words to every action, and wearisome duties to every cornerof existence; you believe in equality and eternal passion. People havewritten poetry telling you that people have died of love. In my timepoetry was written to teach men to love every woman. And we! when weliked a gentleman, my child, we sent him a page. And when a freshcaprice came into our hearts, we were not slow in getting rid of the lastLover--unless we kept both of them."The old woman smiled a keen smile, and a gleam of roguery twinkled in hergray eye, the intellectual, skeptical roguery of those people who did notbelieve that they were made of the same clay as the rest, and who livedas masters for whom common beliefs were not intended.The young girl, turning very pale, faltered out:"So, then, women have no honor?"The grandmother ceased to smile. If she had kept in her soul some ofVoltaire's irony, she had also a little of Jean Jacques's glowingphilosophy: "No honor! because we loved, and dared to say so, and evenboasted of it? But, my child, if one of us, among the greatest ladies inFrance, had lived without a lover, she would have had the entire courtlaughing at her. Those who wished to live differently had only to entera convent. And you imagine, perhaps, that your husbands will love butyou alone, all their lives. As if, indeed, this could be the case.I tell you that marriage is a thing necessary in order that societyshould exist, but it is not in the nature of our race, do you understand?There is only one good thing in life, and that is love. And how youmisunderstand it! how you spoil it! You treat it as something solemnlike a sacrament, or something to be bought, like a dress."The young girl caught the old woman's trembling hands in her own."Hold your tongue, I beg of you, grandmamma!"And, on her knees, with tears in her eyes, she prayed to Heaven to bestowon her a great passion, one sole, eternal passion in accordance with thedream of modern poets, while the grandmother, kissing her on theforehead, quite imbued still with that charming, healthy reason withwhich gallant philosophers tinctured the thought of the eighteenthcentury, murmured:"Take care, my poor darling! If you believe in such folly as that, youwill be very unhappy."

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