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MADAME MARGOT

MADAME MARGOT

JOHN BENNETT

N de Janvier 1912.

PARIS LIBRAIRIE G?N?RALE DE DROIT ET DE JURISPRUDENCE 20, Rue Soufflot, 20

LA CONF?D?RATION BALKANIQUE

Il est des ?tats qui se maintiennent d'une fa?on toute n?gative. La Turquie nous fournit, ? ce point de vue, un exemple caract?ristique. Bien que l'Empire ottoman constitue, ? tous les ?gards, une anomalie parmi les ?tats europ?ens, il n'en est pas moins toujours debout. Sans doute, ne se tient-il pas tout ? fait droit, sans doute chancelle-t-il, mais il est n?anmoins vrai qu'il subsiste. C'est un malade certainement, mais ce n'est pas un mort. Et c'est un malade dont la maladie dure depuis si longtemps qu'on commence ? douter qu'elle cessera jamais, une maladie ?ternelle, c'est-?-dire, une vie ?ternelle, puisque la meilleure garantie d'exister, c'est la dur?e de la maladie, la mort ne venant qu'apr?s la cessation de celle-ci. La maladie c'est l'ennemie de la mort. La maladie c'est la vie. Il para?t que la Turquie le comprend ainsi; aussi soigne-t-elle sa maladie, comme les autres ?tats soignent leur sant?. Tandis que ceux-ci vivent de sant?, la Turquie vie de maladie.

Mais pourquoi cet ?tat malade? Est-ce que ce n'est pas un p?ril pour les ?tats sains, les maladies des ?tats pouvant se r?pandre et se gagner, de m?me que les maladies des hommes?

Et pourtant, c'est cette m?me Europe qui entretient le mal, qui le fait exister, c'est elle qui s'expose volontairement ? ?tre atteinte par lui et, en v?rit?, une partie en est d?j? consid?rablement atteinte: nous faisons allusion aux ?tats balkaniques chr?tiens qui, touchant directement le malade ottoman, en ont subi d?j? l'influence malsaine. Peut-?tre les autres ?tats de l'Europe ne craignent-ils pas la Turquie, parce qu'ils en sont s?par?s par les ?tats balkaniques chr?tiens: le Destin a voulu que ces petits pays gardassent les grands ?tats de la contagion turque, comme ils les ont gard?s, autrefois, de l'invasion turque. Les petits ?tats ont toujours fait le jeu des grands ?tats.

En effet, il ne suffirait pas de faire dispara?tre la Turquie de l'Europe, il faudrait encore mettre autre chose ? sa place. La politique internationale, comme la nature, ne souffre pas de vide. Cette r?gle fait aussi la force de l'Autriche-Hongrie, un ?tat qui, par son h?t?rog?n?it? nationale, constitue pareillement une difficult? internationale. Mais cet ?tat subsiste toujours parce que l'on ne sait pas par quelle combinaison politique le remplacer. L'Autriche-Hongrie n'est sans doute pas une combinaison heureuse, mais du moins elle en est une, et il vaut mieux une mauvaise solution qu'aucune.

Si les grandes puissances tombaient d'accord relativement ? la Turquie, celle-ci cesserait d'?tre compt?e parmi les ?tats europ?ens. La meilleure preuve nous en est fournie par l'histoire de la Pologne: aussit?t que la Russie, l'Autriche-Hongrie et la Prusse s'entendirent, la Pologne disparut par le partage entre les contractants. Mais pour ce qui est de la Turquie, les puissances ne peuvent s'entendre ni pour se la partager entre elles, ni pour la donner toute enti?re ? l'une d'elles. Aucune de ces puissances ne trouve son int?r?t ? ce qu'une autre, et non pas pr?cis?ment elle, s'installe ? la Corne d'Or, d'o? on ne pourrait plus la d?loger, et c'est toujours la Turquie que chacune d'elles pr?f?re y voir, cette situation lui donnant des espoirs pour l'avenir.

Mais h?tons-nous de dire qu'en ce qui concerne la Turquie, il y a, outre les grandes puissances, un autre facteur tr?s important qui manquait lors du partage de la Pologne: ce sont les ?tats balkaniques chr?tiens, la Serbie, le Mont?n?gro, la Bulgarie et la Gr?ce. Ce sont l? les h?ritiers l?gitimes de la Turquie d'Europe; ils le sont ethnographiquement et historiquement. Malheureusement, les grandes puissances, qui ont, disent-elles, elles aussi, des int?r?ts dans les Balkans, ne permettent pas aux ?tats balkaniques de s'arranger pour faire, entre eux, le partage de leur voisin. Les grandes puissances ?l?vent donc, ?galement, des droits de succession par rapport ? la Turquie. Elles ?mettent, du reste, de pareilles pr?tentions partout o? il y a quelque chose ? prendre. Les grandes puissances sont des successeurs universels. Et leurs titres? Oh, elles se les fabriquent elles-m?mes, contrairement ? la r?gle que personne ne peut se cr?er soi-m?me de titre ? l'appui du droit r?clam?. La force n'est pas g?n?e par des r?gles. La force dit: la r?gle c'est moi! La force c'est le titre. Qui dit force dit titre.

Les grandes puissances affirment, il est vrai, que les ?tats balkaniques chr?tiens ne sont pas eux-m?mes d'accord au point de vue de la question turque et que, pour emp?cher la collision arm?e entre ces ?tats et la guerre g?n?rale qui pourrait ?ventuellement en r?sulter, elles sont oblig?es d'intervenir. Voil? une affirmation qui n'est pas une v?rit?. En effet, ce n'est pas parce que les ?tats balkaniques chr?tiens sont divis?s que les grandes puissances interviennent, mais tout au contraire, c'est parce que les grandes puissances interviennent, que ces ?tats sont divis?s. Pourquoi, pour ne citer qu'un exemple, la Bulgarie est-elle si intraitable vis-?-vis de la Serbie, en ce qui concerne la question mac?donienne? Parce qu'elle est second?e, dans ces pr?tentions nationales, par la Russie, qui, de m?me qu'en 1878, ne verrait pas aujourd'hui non plus d'un oeil favorable l'agrandissement de la Serbie dans la direction du Sud. Les grandes puissances craignent un accord entre les pays balkaniques chr?tiens, accord qui pourrait donner ? la question turque une solution dont elles ne seraient pas satisfaites. En divisant ces pays entre eux, les grandes puissances, toujours dans un but int?ress?, ajournent, de la sorte, la fin de la question turque et prolongent la vie de la Turquie.

C'est en aspirant aux m?mes vis?es que certaines grandes puissances, parmi lesquelles la Grande-Bretagne occupe la premi?re place, pr?conisent l'id?e d'une conf?d?ration balkanique, conf?d?ration qui serait compos?e de la Turquie et des autres ?tats balkaniques . Ces puissances disent ? la Turquie et aux ?tats balkaniques chr?tiens: Vous ?tes mal les uns avec les autres parce que vous constituez autant de diff?rents ?tats; organisez un seul ?tat dans la forme d'une f?d?ration, et alors la guerre ne vous menacerait plus, car, pour qu'il y ait guerre, il faut deux ou plusieurs ?tats, un seul ?tat ne pouvant se faire la guerre ? lui-m?me. La conf?d?ration balkanique aurait, dans les limites des Balkans, le m?me r?sultat que la conf?d?ration europ?enne aurait dans les limites de l'Europe: elle supprimerait la guerre parce qu'elle assurerait l'amiti? entre anciens adversaires ou, ce qui est la m?me chose, elle assurerait l'amiti? entre anciens adversaires, parce qu'elle supprimerait la guerre.

Mais proposer la conf?d?ration balkanique, ce n'est nullement encore r?soudre la question d'Orient. Cette question consistait, jusqu'? pr?sent, en ceci: savoir de quelle mani?re devraient ?tre distribu?es les provinces actuellement gouvern?es en Europe par les Turcs, une fois que ceux-ci auraient ?t? rejet?s en Asie. Le projet de conf?d?ration balkanique, en ?liminant l'id?e de l'?vacuation de la P?ninsule balkanique par les Turcs, supprime, comme nous le voyons, la question d'Orient. Au lieu de r?soudre cette question, ce projet la tourne. Napol?on Ier a bien dit, il est vrai, que lorsqu'on ne peut vaincre une difficult?, on doit la tourner, r?gle qu'il avait souvent mise ? ex?cution dans ses op?rations militaires: quand, par exemple, il ne pouvait traverser avec son arm?e une grande montagne, il la tournait. La difficult? se trouvait tranch?e par l?, puisque Napol?on d?bouchait avec son arm?e l? o? il d?sirait. Mais, nonobstant certaines analogies entre la guerre et la politique, il n'en reste pas moins acquis qu'il y a aussi entre elles bien des diff?rences. L'une d'elles est pr?cis?ment celle qui a trait ? la solution des questions: en politique, on ne r?sout pas, comme cela peut arriver ? la guerre, une question en la tournant; en politique, une question tourn?e n'est pas une question r?solue, une question tourn?e reste toujours une question.

C'est que la conf?d?ration balkanique, telle que l'Angleterre la voudrait, est une impossibilit?, et l'on sait que ce n'est pas qu'en chimie qu'il y a des impossibilit?s: on en rencontre aussi en politique. La conf?d?ration balkanique est une alchimie politique, et la Grande-Bretagne est un alchimiste qui, bien que de date r?cente et moderne, ne sera pas plus heureux que ses lointains anc?tres.

En effet, c'est n'avoir pas les notions les plus ?l?mentaires sur la Turquie et les Turcs que d'oser ?mettre l'id?e d'une conf?d?ration entre les ?tats balkaniques chr?tiens et la Porte, et si l'Angleterre s'est arr?t?e ? cette id?e, cela montre ? quel point elle a ?puis? tous les autres moyens pour pr?venir la dissolution et le partage de la Turquie, dissolution et partage qui s'accompliraient, en est-elle persuad?e, au d?triment de ses int?r?ts.

She might have been sister to Scheherazade in her exquisite, aquiline, high-born loveliness, a patrician beauty strangely like that of old French romance. Far and away beyond compare she was the loveliest girl in St. Finbar's parish; and the faces of the young girls in St. Finbar's made that ancient, dim, gray parish bloom like the gardens of Paradise.

God, who knows everything, knows whence she had her exquisite, slender body, her aristocratic face, the dusky crimson tide, the touch of fantasy which made her lovely as a strain of wild, passionate music played on the deep strings of a gipsy violin.

For, as the rarest beauty remains imperfect without a touch of strangeness, without something to haunt and to fret the mind, forbidding it to forget, there was a something almost, if not quite, fantastic, in Gabrielle's loveliness--a touch of irregularity difficult to define--making her beauty more significant through being peculiar, more poignant through being strange. Something indefinite and conjectural tinged her being; the ghost of a vaguely intricate and tragical implication beneath her bright young innocence lurked shadowy and malign. Had her beauty been less perfect this, perhaps, had been less notable. Revealed in a casual attitude, for a moment startling in vividness, now for a moment it was lost, and now stole forth again in the stress of unstudied emotion to accent a passing mood.

As one who, looking into her mirror, sees a face there not her own, Margot perceived in her daughter's face an intricately blended likeness, to banish which into forgetfulness she strove desperately in vain,--the recollection of a wild, sweet, irrevocable hour whose memory was fear. Gabrielle's beauty made her tremble.

It is a perilous privilege for a girl to possess loveliness rising above her station in life; there is a price always to be paid for it, sorrow the common fee; such a heritage of beauty often proves but a legacy of shame,--a beauty built for destruction, a loveliness for scorn; haggard wisdom reaps in tears what innocence sowed with laughter.

There was a thought from which Margot shrank as from a draught of poison: Gabrielle degraded and desolate. There was nothing to her more precious than her daughter's innocence; nothing so important as her earthly happiness; these seemed to Margot even more necessary than her eternal peace.

Yet ever a shadow hung over her child, from cradle to grave; her delicate grace and refinement were signatures of dread. Margot's eyes hunted from side to side as do a deer's hard pressed by the dogs--can one elude destiny?

Where were the lovely and the fair she had known in her own youth? Dead, long ago; the graveyard sand lay cold upon their lips; their passion and their sweetness were forgotten long ago. Margot knew that youth and summer night are made for ecstasy. She knew, too, that in forgotten graveyards are many unmarked graves of hapless beauty. Looking into the mirror where life is stripped of its illusions, and truth stands stark and bare in its unmitigated ugliness, panic terror seized Margot.

Was there no refuge, no escape, nor safety anywhere; no retreat, nor harbor, but in hopeless longing; always the far-off lightning and threatening of storm? Peering into the future she was filled with apprehension. In dreams she saw Gabrielle's innocence hanging over a black abyss; in dreams saw a fawn torn by ravening wolves. She awoke, starting up, crying out! There was nothing but the night. Yet she arose from her bed, and, crouched by her crucifix, prayed for her daughter as she never had prayed for herself.

At adolescence Gabrielle was a vision of delight. In temperament she was ardent as is a summer shower, which gives, when it gives, all that it has to give, in a rush of wind and rain. Unspoiled by knowledge, unruined by folly, too innocent to be perplexed by life's anxieties, her soul mistook Earth for the pathway to Paradise, and nothing as yet had discovered her error. With her each hour began afresh the tale of life, a long, sweet, glad surprise.

Rose-winged days and golden nights were come to Gabrielle, whose feet stood at the smiling gate of the Primrose Way. But Margot's days and nights were filled with passionate anxiety, as with increasing doubts and fears she confronted destiny.

The inner house-door gave upon a little paved court, where two twisted old fig-trees grew, many-branched candelabra, tipped in spring with green-leaved lights. Green-leaved shadows wavered below on a duck-pool's marble bowl, stained green from the copper tenons which tied its stones together. Here ducks praised Jove with yellow bills, and splashed viridian wings. In the pool, glimmering, one saw the stuccoed cottage-wall, on the irregular surface of which old colors showed in broken chequers through the new until the wall was patched with unpremeditated beauty. Across the pool the silvery sunlight glimmered like a streak of flame. But the fairest thing reflected there was Gabrielle, dancing on the old stones which paved the court,--dances fantastic as her mood; sarabands to the stately rhythm of odd old songs, deliberately slow; canzons whose pathos was lost in a pirouette; minuets which mimicked the swallows overhead with their swift glissades among the trees and undulating sweeps among the flowers,--snatching the poppies as she passed, and thrusting them in her hair, and pausing at last like a wind-blown flower above her reflection in the pool,--Gabrielle, singing old songs by the world forgotten,--strains of wild beauty, that by wayward loveliness have a peculiar power to please, with old melodies, alluring and sweet; songs such as long ago stole the souls of saints determined upon salvation, and gave themes for many troubadour lays, of which, though all are lovely, the greater part are sad, being memories of loveliness departed into the dust: one of life's paradoxes, that the memory of beauty should be bitter.

Here, remote from the curious world, preserved by the cloistral hedges from prying indiscretion, flowed her secluded existence. Few ever saw her. Such as by chance observed her through some green interstice, dazzled by her beauty, hurried off to spread the tale of an enchanted princess in an enchanted wood; hedge-balked and bewildered, few had ever seen her twice; by which she had been the more thought of through being the less seen.

Many had sought the courtyard; but none had found the way. Margot kept it a solitude lest Gabrielle suffer corruption, and around her maintained a veritable nunnery of care, hovered over her, and kept her as close withdrawn as a novice in a convent-garth.

But beauty cannot be sequestered always safely anywhere. Cloistral life is very well for souls of cloistral nature and of the convent sort; but youth and spring hate convents, and will have life's novitiate, or none. There is a crevice in every hedge, no matter how tall or how thick it may be, and through it, ever, Gabrielle peeps.

Spring followed winter; May's warm slow, yellow, moonlit nights were come.

Then Gabrielle grew tired and white. Her hand became tremulous; her light foot stumbled; she left off dancing in the garden. She sighed wistfully; her song ceased; her mouth showed scarcely a smile's wasted ghost. Her eyes, like those of a wounded creature, followed everywhere; her tears flowed at nothing. She grew as languid as a withering flower. The light of her seemed going out. The pallor of her face and the feverish luster of her eyes startled and frightened Margot.

Days dragged a laggard length; night still more oppressed her. She lay awake, whispering with dry lips she knew not what; calling she knew not whom; her trembling hands pressed against her breast. Fancies for which she found no name, thoughts for which she had no words, and visions inexpressible, would not let her sleep. Night after night she lay awake, consuming the hours with wonder; or, if she slept, awoke in tears, fell asleep to tears again, and waking, tear-wet, trembling, with darkened lids and drawn face, grew daily worse.

Vague, moody wants annoyed her; the night was harassed by melancholy dreams; the day vexed with formless fancies.

Walking alone in the garden, answerless questionings beset and frightened her; she listened where there was nothing to be heard; stared where there was nothing to be seen; found peace nowhere.

Her heart ached with unreasoning pain; she grew as gusty as a storm; the speechless, inexplicable wonder within her breast throbbed like a festered thorn.

Margot too well knew the cause: there was but one alleviation.

Spring, with its universal song, from grove and garden lifted up its deathless melody of bloomy verdure and warm-breathed sweetness. All living creatures voiced the universal theme: "Rejoice with the partner of thine heart in the happy days of thy youth!"

The blue dove moaned out his heart's desire; the copper beetle wooed and won his lady in the dust; butterflies and dragon-flies glittered in the wind, happy in their airy ecstasy--they fluttered among the hedges; they sported among the flowers--and all the earth rejoiced in having its heart's desire. Thrush and mocker sang, "Passion, passion ... heart-breaking passion!" to their pretty feathered paramours. From every spray the vireo cried shrill, in shreds of melody, "Heart's desire! Heart's desire!" In the fragrant green-bay the painted bunting's love-call rang incessantly; while from the tufted grove arose the stirring chant of earth's universal choir, the canticle, all passionate and shrill, of "Love, love, love!" and yet again of "Love!"

How can one keep it from the heart of youth, that, all unknowing, yet numb with longing, breathlessly awaits its coming, and trembles like a leaf with the wordless yearning of unrecognized desire.

Gabrielle was intoxicated with the passion of her own heart, without an object or an aim; her throat was almost choked with youth's sweet, innocent desire; and, ever, within her shaking heart, the questioning wonder grew.

"Mother," she said wistfully, "what is it fills the world with music day and night? What is it makes the whole world sing?"

"Happiness," replied Margot, "and joy of the spring."

"Happiness?" rejoined Gabrielle. "If it be happiness, why does it make my heart ache? Why does spring hurt me so?"

Margot, startled, sat staring, wrung with sudden fear.

"And what is this love of which every one sings--we women most of all?"

"The source of all wretchedness. Leave it alone!" cried Margot. She looked at her daughter in terror.

"But," replied Gabrielle, wondering, "if love be the source of all wretchedness, why is it's song so sweet?"

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