carry conviction, would not be turned aside. Was not the
superintendent, indeed, known for his delicacy and dignity
of feeling? Would he allow himself to accept from any woman
that of which she had stripped herself? No! He would resist,
and if any voice in the world could overcome his resistance,
it would be the voice of the woman he loved.
Page 626
Dumas, Alexandre – Ten Years Later
Another doubt, and that a cruel one, suggested itself to
Madame de Belliere with a sharp, acute pain, like a dagger
thrust. Did he really love her? Would that volatile mind,
that inconstant heart, be likely to be fixed for a moment,
even were it to gaze upon an angel? Was it not the same with
Fouquet, notwithstanding his genius and his uprightness of
conduct, as with those conquerors on the field of battle who
shed tears when they have gained a victory?” I must learn if
it be so, and must judge of that for myself,” said the
marquise. “Who can tell whether that heart, so coveted, is
not common in its impulses, and full of alloy? Who can tell
if that mind, when the touchstone is applied to it, will not
be found of a mean and vulgar character? Come, come,” she
said, “this is doubting and hesitating too much — to the
proof.” She looked at the timepiece. “It is now seven
o’clock,” she said; “he must have arrived, it is the hour
for signing his papers.” With a feverish impatience she rose
and walked towards the mirror, in which she smiled with a
resolute smile of devotedness; she touched the spring and
drew out the handle of the bell. Then, as if exhausted
beforehand by the struggle she had just undergone, she threw
herself on her knees, in utter abandonment, before a large
couch, in which she buried her face in her trembling hands.
Ten minutes afterwards she heard the spring of the door
sound. The door moved upon invisible hinges, and Fouquet
appeared. He looked pale, and seemed bowed down by the
weight of some bitter reflection. He did not hurry, but
simply came at the summons. The pre-occupation of his mind
must indeed have been very great, that a man so devoted to
pleasure, for whom indeed pleasure meant everything, should
obey such a summons so listlessly. The previous night, in
fact, fertile in melancholy ideas, had sharpened his
features, generally so noble in their indifference of
expression, and had traced dark lines of anxiety around his
eyes. Handsome and noble he still was, and the melancholy
expression of his mouth, a rare expression with men, gave a
new character to his features, by which his youth seemed to
be renewed. Dressed in black, the lace in front of his chest
much disarranged by his feverishly restless hand, the looks
of the superintendent, full of dreamy reflection, were fixed
upon the threshold of the room which he had so frequently
approached in search of expected happiness. This gloomy
gentleness of manner, this smiling sadness of expression,
which had replaced his former excessive joy, produced an
indescribable effect upon Madame de Belliere, who was
regarding him at a distance.
A woman’s eye can read the face of the man she loves, its
every feeling of pride, its every expression of suffering;
it might almost be said that Heaven has graciously granted
to women, on account of their very weakness, more than it
has accorded to other creatures. They can conceal their own
feelings from a man, but from them no man can conceal his.
The marquise divined in a single glance the whole weight of
the unhappiness of the superintendent. She divined a night
passed without sleep, a day passed in deceptions. From that
moment she was firm in her own strength, and she felt that
she loved Fouquet beyond everything else. She arose and
approached him, saying, “You wrote to me this morning to say
you were beginning to forget me, and that I, whom you had
not seen lately, had no doubt ceased to think of you. I have
come to undeceive you, monsieur, and the more completely so,
because there is one thing I can read in your eyes.”