payment page
In time Madame Valmondé abandoned every speculation but the one that Désirée had been sent to her by a beneficent Providence to be the child of her affection, seeing that she was without child of the flesh. For the girl grew to be beautiful and gentle, affectionate and sincere—the idol of Valmondé.
The story begins hopefully. A couple who long for children take in a lost child, and the mother loves this child utterly as a gift of heaven. Madame Valmondé’s love for her daughter never fails; the shame and disgrace that Armand suffers when the child’s ancestry becomes clear is not at all a concern for Madame Valmondé, who loves the child as an extension of the heaven-sent girl. It is this intensity of love that has the potential to bring out graciousness and gladness in Armand as well, and love indeed transforms him for a while. But while Madame Valmondé gladly accepts the child that she believes God sent her, no questions asked, Armand’s love is conditional. The moment he sees that his wife and son don’t meet his expectations, he hardens his heart against them to the point of driving them to their deaths.
Armand,” she called to him, in a voice which must have stabbed him, if he was human. But he did not notice. “Armand,” she said again. Then she rose and tottered towards him. “Armand,” she panted once more, clutching his arm, “look at our child. What does it mean? tell me.”
He coldly but gently loosened her fingers from about his arm and thrust the hand away from him.
This painful moment occurs when Désirée struggles to accept and give words to her realization about her son. Armand first attempts to ignore her and, after she calls out to him, either does not see her distress or pretends not to. In fact, he seems disgusted by her mere presence and touch, as if her hand on his arm might somehow contaminate him—an outward manifestation of the shame he feels for having taken, as wife and mistress of L’Abri, a woman of mixed racial heritage. The woman for whom his passion “swept along like an avalanche” only a short while ago now is hardly worthy of notice, certainly not as a fellow human. He feels no more obligation to her than he does to La Blanche, whom he considers property rather than a person, and cannot tolerate Désirée’s demands that he respond to her as a husband to his wife.
