UNPLEASANT NEWS FROM ROSANETTE.
When Rosanette’s enthusiasm
for the Gardes Mobiles had calmed down, she became
more charming than ever, and Frederick insensibly glided
into the habit of living with her.
The best portion of the day was the
morning on the terrace. In a light cambric dress,
and with her stockingless feet thrust into slippers,
she kept moving about him went and cleaned
her canaries’ cage, gave her gold-fishes some
water, and with a fire-shovel did a little amateur
gardening in the box filled with clay, from which arose
a trellis of nasturtiums, giving an attractive look
to the wall. Then, resting, with their elbows
on the balcony, they stood side by side, gazing at
the vehicles and the passers-by; and they warmed themselves
in the sunlight, and made plans for spending the evening.
He absented himself only for two hours at most, and,
after that, they would go to some theatre, where they
would get seats in front of the stage; and Rosanette,
with a large bouquet of flowers in her hand, would
listen to the instruments, while Frederick, leaning
close to her ear, would tell her comic or amatory
stories. At other times they took an open carriage
to drive to the Bois de Boulogne. They kept walking
about slowly until the middle of the night. At
last they made their way home through the Arc de Triomphe
and the grand avenue, inhaling the breeze, with the
stars above their heads, and with all the gas-lamps
ranged in the background of the perspective like a
double string of luminous pearls.
Frederick always waited for her when
they were going out together. She was a very
long time fastening the two ribbons of her bonnet;
and she smiled at herself in the mirror set in the
wardrobe; then she would draw her arm over his, and,
making him look at himself in the glass beside her:
“We produce a good effect in
this way, the two of us side by side. Ah! my
poor darling, I could eat you!”
He was now her chattel, her property.
She wore on her face a continuous radiance, while
at the same time she appeared more languishing in
manner, more rounded in figure; and, without being
able to explain in what way, he found her altered,
nevertheless.
One day she informed him, as if it
were a very important bit of news, that my lord Arnoux
had lately set up a linen-draper’s shop for a
woman who was formerly employed in his pottery-works.
He used to go there every evening “he
spent a great deal on it no later than a week ago;
he had even given her a set of rosewood furniture.”
“How do you know that?” said Frederick.
“Oh! I’m sure of it.”
Delphine, while carrying out some
orders for her, had made enquiries about the matter,
She must, then, be much attached to Arnoux to take
such a deep interest in his movements. He contented
himself with saying to her in reply:
“What does this signify to you?”
Rosanette looked surprised at this question.
“Why, the rascal owes me money.
Isn’t it atrocious to see him keeping beggars?”
Then, with an expression of triumphant hate in her
face:
“Besides, she is having a nice
laugh at him. She has three others on hand.
So much the better; and I’ll be glad if she eats
him up, even to the last farthing!”
Arnoux had, in fact, let himself be
made use of by the girl from Bordeaux with the indulgence
which characterises senile attachments. His manufactory
was no longer going on. The entire state of his
affairs was pitiable; so that, in order to set them
afloat again, he was at first projecting the establishment
of a cafe chantant, at which only patriotic
pieces would be sung. With a grant from the Minister,
this establishment would become at the same time a
focus for the purpose of propagandism and a source
of profit. Now that power had been directed into
a different channel, the thing was impossible.
His next idea was a big military hat-making
business. He lacked capital, however, to give
it a start.
He was not more fortunate in his domestic
life. Madame Arnoux was less agreeable in manner
towards him, sometimes even a little rude. Berthe
always took her father’s part. This increased
the discord, and the house was becoming intolerable.
He often set forth in the morning, passed his day
in making long excursions out of the city, in order
to divert his thoughts, then dined at a rustic tavern,
abandoning himself to his reflections.
The prolonged absence of Frederick
disturbed his habits. Then he presented himself
one afternoon, begged of him to come and see him as
in former days, and obtained from him a promise to
do so.
Frederick did not feel sufficient
courage within him to go back to Madame Arnoux’s
house. It seemed to him as if he had betrayed
her. But this conduct was very pusillanimous.
There was no excuse for it. There was only one
way of ending the matter, and so, one evening, he set
out on his way.
As the rain was falling, he had just
turned up the Passage Jouffroy, when, under the light
shed from the shop-windows, a fat little man accosted
him. Frederick had no difficulty in recognising
Compain, that orator whose motion had excited so much
laughter at the club. He was leaning on the arm
of an individual whose head was muffled in a zouave’s
red cap, with a very long upper lip, a complexion as
yellow as an orange, a tuft of beard under his jaw,
and big staring eyes listening with wonder.
Compain was, no doubt, proud of him, for he said:
“Let me introduce you to this
jolly dog! He is a bootmaker whom I include amongst
my friends. Come and let us take something!”
Frederick having thanked him, he immediately
thundered against Rateau’s motion, which he
described as a manoeuvre of the aristocrats. In
order to put an end to it, it would be necessary to
begin ’93 over again! Then he enquired
about Regimbart and some others, who were also well
known, such as Masselin, Sanson, Lecornu, Marechal,
and a certain Deslauriers, who had been implicated
in the case of the carbines lately intercepted at
Troyes.
All this was new to Frederick.
Compain knew nothing more about the subject.
He quitted the young man with these words:
“You’ll come soon, will you not? for you
belong to it.”
“To what?”
“The calf’s head!”
“What calf’s head?”
“Ha, you rogue!” returned Compain, giving
him a tap on the stomach.
And the two terrorists plunged into a cafe.
Ten minutes later Frederick was no
longer thinking of Deslauriers. He was on the
footpath of the Rue de Paradis in front of a house;
and he was staring at the light which came from a
lamp in the second floor behind a curtain.
At length he ascended the stairs.
“Is Arnoux there?”
The chambermaid answered:
“No; but come in all the same.”
And, abruptly opening a door:
“Madame, it is Monsieur Moreau!”
She arose, whiter than the collar round her neck.
“To what do I owe the honour of a
visit so unexpected?”
“Nothing. The pleasure of seeing old friends
once more.”
And as he took a seat:
“How is the worthy Arnoux going on?”
“Very well. He has gone out.”
“Ah, I understand! still following
his old nightly practices. A little distraction!”
“And why not? After a day
spent in making calculations, the head needs a rest.”
She even praised her husband as a
hard-working man. Frederick was irritated at
hearing this eulogy; and pointing towards a piece of
black cloth with a narrow blue braid which lay on
her lap:
“What is it you are doing there?”
“A jacket which I am trimming for my daughter.”
“Now that you remind me of it, I have not seen
her. Where is she, pray?”
“At a boarding-school,” was Madame Arnoux’s
reply.
Tears came into her eyes. She
held them back, while she rapidly plied her needle.
To keep himself in countenance, he took up a number
of L’Illustration which had been lying
on the table close to where she sat.
“These caricatures of Cham are very funny, are
they not?”
“Yes.”
Then they relapsed into silence once more.
All of a sudden, a fierce gust of wind shook the window-panes.
“What weather!” said Frederick.
“It was very good of you, indeed,
to come here in the midst of this dreadful rain.”
“Oh! what do I care about that?
I’m not like those whom it prevents, no doubt,
from going to keep their appointments.”
“What appointments?” she asked with an
ingenuous air.
“Don’t you remember?”
A shudder ran through her frame and she hung down
her head.
He gently laid his hand on her arm.
“I assure you that you have given me great pain.”
She replied, with a sort of wail in her voice:
“But I was frightened about my child.”
She told him about Eugene’s
illness, and all the tortures which she had endured
on that day.
“Thanks! thanks! I doubt you no longer.
I love you as much as ever.”
“Ah! no; it is not true!”
“Why so?”
She glanced at him coldly.
“You forget the other! the one
you took with you to the races! the woman whose portrait
you have your mistress!”
“Well, yes!” exclaimed
Frederick, “I don’t deny anything!
I am a wretch! Just listen to me!”
If he had done this, it was through
despair, as one commits suicide. However, he
had made her very unhappy in order to avenge himself
on her with his own shame.
“What mental anguish! Do you not realise
what it means?”
Madame Arnoux turned away her beautiful
face while she held out her hand to him; and they
closed their eyes, absorbed in a kind of intoxication
that was like a sweet, ceaseless rocking. Then
they stood face to face, gazing at one another.
“Could you believe it possible that I no longer
loved you?”
She replied in a low voice, full of caressing tenderness:
“No! in spite of everything,
I felt at the bottom of my heart that it was impossible,
and that one day the obstacle between us two would
disappear!”
“So did I; and I was dying to see you again.”
“I once passed close to you in the Palais-Royal!”
“Did you really?”
And he spoke to her of the happiness
he experienced at coming across her again at the Dambreuses’
house.
“But how I hated you that evening as I was leaving
the place!”
“Poor boy!”
“My life is so sad!”
“And mine, too! If it were
only the vexations, the anxieties, the humiliations,
all that I endure as wife and as mother, seeing that
one must die, I would not complain; the frightful
part of it is my solitude, without anyone.”
“But you have me here with you!”
“Oh! yes!”
A sob of deep emotion made her bosom
swell. She spread out her arms, and they strained
one another, while their lips met in a long kiss.
A creaking sound on the floor not
far from them reached their ears. There was a
woman standing close to them; it was Rosanette.
Madame Arnoux had recognised her. Her eyes, opened
to their widest, scanned this woman, full of astonishment
and indignation. At length Rosanette said to
her:
“I have come to see Monsieur Arnoux about a
matter of business.”
“You see he is not here.”
“Ah! that’s true,”
returned the Maréchale. “Your nurse
is right! A thousand apologies!”
And turning towards Frederick:
“So here you are you?”
The familiar tone in which she addressed
him, and in her own presence, too, made Madame Arnoux
flush as if she had received a slap right across the
face.
“I tell you again, he is not here!”
Then the Maréchale, who was looking this way
and that, said quietly:
“Let us go back together! I have a cab
waiting below.”
He pretended not to hear.
“Come! let us go!”
“Ah! yes! this is a good opportunity! Go!
go!” said Madame Arnoux.
They went off together, and she stooped
over the head of the stairs in order to see them once
more, and a laugh piercing, heart-rending,
reached them from the place where she stood. Frederick
pushed Rosanette into the cab, sat down opposite her,
and during the entire drive did not utter a word.
The infamy, which it outraged him
to see once more flowing back on him, had been brought
about by himself alone. He experienced at the
same time the dishonour of a crushing humiliation
and the regret caused by the loss of his new-found
happiness. Just when, at last, he had it in his
grasp, it had for ever more become impossible, and
that through the fault of this girl of the town, this
harlot. He would have liked to strangle her.
He was choking with rage. When they had got into
the house he flung his hat on a piece of furniture
and tore off his cravat.
“Ha! you have just done a nice thing confess
it!”
She planted herself boldly in front of him.
“Ah! well, what of that? Where’s
the harm?”
“What! You are playing the spy on me?”
“Is that my fault? Why
do you go to amuse yourself with virtuous women?”
“Never mind! I don’t wish you to
insult them.”
“How have I insulted them?”
He had no answer to make to this, and in a more spiteful
tone:
“But on the other occasion, at the Champ de
Mars ”
“Ah! you bore us to death with your old women!”
“Wretch!”
He raised his fist.
“Don’t kill me! I’m pregnant!”
Frederick staggered back.
“You are lying!”
“Why, just look at me!”
She seized a candlestick, and pointing at her face:
“Don’t you recognise the fact there?”
Little yellow spots dotted her skin,
which was strangely swollen. Frederick did not
deny the evidence. He went to the window, and
opened it, took a few steps up and down the room,
and then sank into an armchair.
This event was a calamity which, in
the first place, put off their rupture, and, in the
next place, upset all his plans. The notion of
being a father, moreover, appeared to him grotesque,
inadmissible. But why? If, in place of the
Maréchale And his reverie became
so deep that he had a kind of hallucination.
He saw there, on the carpet, in front of the chimney-piece,
a little girl. She resembled Madame Arnoux and
himself a little dark, and yet fair, with
two black eyes, very large eyebrows, and a red ribbon
in her curling hair. (Oh, how he would have loved
her!) And he seemed to hear her voice saying:
“Papa! papa!”
Rosanette, who had just undressed
herself, came across to him, and noticing a tear in
his eyelids, kissed him gravely on the forehead.
He arose, saying:
“By Jove, we mustn’t kill this little
one!”
Then she talked a lot of nonsense.
To be sure, it would be a boy, and its name would
be Frederick. It would be necessary for her to
begin making its clothes; and, seeing her so happy,
a feeling of pity for her took possession of him.
As he no longer cherished any anger against her, he
desired to know the explanation of the step she had
recently taken. She said it was because Mademoiselle
Vatnaz had sent her that day a bill which had been
protested for some time past; and so she hastened to
Arnoux to get the money from him.
“I’d have given it to you!” said
Frederick.
“It is a simpler course for
me to get over there what belongs to me, and to pay
back to the other one her thousand francs.”
“Is this really all you owe her?”
She answered:
“Certainly!”
On the following day, at nine o’clock
in the evening (the hour specified by the doorkeeper),
Frederick repaired to Mademoiselle Vatnaz’s
residence.
In the anteroom, he jostled against
the furniture, which was heaped together. But
the sound of voices and of music guided him. He
opened a door, and tumbled into the middle of a rout.
Standing up before a piano, which a young lady in
spectacles was fingering, Delmar, as serious as a
pontiff, was declaiming a humanitarian poem on prostitution;
and his hollow voice rolled to the accompaniment of
the metallic chords. A row of women sat close
to the wall, attired, as a rule, in dark colours without
neck-bands or sleeves. Five or six men, all people
of culture, occupied seats here and there. In
an armchair was seated a former writer of fables,
a mere wreck now; and the pungent odour of the two
lamps was intermingled with the aroma of the chocolate
which filled a number of bowls placed on the card-table.
Mademoiselle Vatnaz, with an Oriental
shawl thrown over her shoulders, sat at one side of
the chimney-piece. Dussardier sat facing her at
the other side. He seemed to feel himself in
an embarrassing position. Besides, he was rather
intimidated by his artistic surroundings. Had
the Vatnaz, then, broken off with Delmar? Perhaps
not. However, she seemed jealous of the worthy
shopman; and Frederick, having asked to let him exchange
a word with her, she made a sign to him to go with
them into her own apartment. When the thousand
francs were paid down before her, she asked, in addition,
for interest.
“’Tisn’t worth while,” said
Dussardier.
“Pray hold your tongue!”
This want of moral courage on the
part of so brave a man was agreeable to Frederick
as a justification of his own conduct. He took
away the bill with him, and never again referred to
the scandal at Madame Arnoux’s house. But
from that time forth he saw clearly all the defects
in the Marechale’s character.
She possessed incurable bad taste,
incomprehensible laziness, the ignorance of a savage,
so much so that she regarded Doctor Derogis as a person
of great celebrity, and she felt proud of entertaining
himself and his wife, because they were “married
people.” She lectured with a pedantic air
on the affairs of daily life to Mademoiselle Irma,
a poor little creature endowed with a little voice,
who had as a protector a gentleman “very well
off,” an ex-clerk in the Custom-house, who had
a rare talent for card tricks. Rosanette used
to call him “My big Loulou.”
Frederick could no longer endure the repetition of
her stupid words, such as “Some custard,”
“To Chaillot,” “One could never know,”
etc.; and she persisted in wiping off the dust
in the morning from her trinkets with a pair of old
white gloves. He was above all disgusted by her
treatment of her servant, whose wages were constantly
in arrear, and who even lent her money. On the
days when they settled their accounts, they used to
wrangle like two fish-women; and then, on becoming
reconciled, used to embrace each other. It was
a relief to him when Madame Dambreuse’s evening
parties began again.
There, at any rate, he found something
to amuse him. She was well versed in the intrigues
of society, the changes of ambassadors, the personal
character of dressmakers; and, if commonplaces escaped
her lips, they did so in such a becoming fashion,
that her language might be regarded as the expression
of respect for propriety or of polite irony. It
was worth while to watch the way in which, in the
midst of twenty persons chatting around her, she would,
without overlooking any of them, bring about the answers
she desired and avoid those that were dangerous.
Things of a very simple nature, when related by her,
assumed the aspect of confidences. Her slightest
smile gave rise to dreams; in short, her charm, like
the exquisite scent which she usually carried about
with her, was complex and indefinable.
While he was with her, Frederick experienced
on each occasion the pleasure of a new discovery,
and, nevertheless, he always found her equally serene
the next time they met, like the reflection of limpid
waters.
But why was there such coldness in
her manner towards her niece? At times she even
darted strange looks at her.
As soon as the question of marriage
was started, she had urged as an objection to it,
when discussing the matter with M. Dambreuse, the state
of “the dear child’s” health, and
had at once taken her off to the baths of Balaruc.
On her return fresh pretexts were raised by her that
the young man was not in a good position, that this
ardent passion did not appear to be a very serious
attachment, and that no risk would be run by waiting.
Martinon had replied, when the suggestion was made
to him, that he would wait. His conduct was sublime.
He lectured Frederick. He did more. He enlightened
him as to the best means of pleasing Madame Dambreuse,
even giving him to understand that he had ascertained
from the niece the sentiments of her aunt.
As for M. Dambreuse, far from exhibiting
jealousy, he treated his young friend with the utmost
attention, consulted him about different things, and
even showed anxiety about his future, so that one day,
when they were talking about Pere Roque, he whispered
with a sly air:
“You have done well.”
And Cecile, Miss John, the servants
and the porter, every one of them exercised a fascination
over him in this house. He came there every evening,
quitting Rosanette for that purpose. Her approaching
maternity rendered her graver in manner, and even
a little melancholy, as if she were tortured by anxieties.
To every question put to her she replied:
“You are mistaken; I am quite well.”
She had, as a matter of fact, signed
five notes in her previous transactions, and not having
the courage to tell Frederick after the first had
been paid, she had gone back to the abode of Arnoux,
who had promised her, in writing, the third part of
his profits in the lighting of the towns of Languedoc
by gas (a marvellous undertaking!), while requesting
her not to make use of this letter at the meeting of
shareholders. The meeting was put off from week
to week.
Meanwhile the Maréchale wanted
money. She would have died sooner than ask Frederick
for any. She did not wish to get it from him;
it would have spoiled their love. He contributed
a great deal to the household expenses; but a little
carriage, which he hired by the month, and other sacrifices,
which were indispensable since he had begun to visit
the Dambreuses, prevented him from doing more for
his mistress. On two or three occasions, when
he came back to the house at a different hour from
his usual time, he fancied he could see men’s
backs disappearing behind the door, and she often
went out without wishing to state where she was going.
Frederick did not attempt to enquire minutely into
these matters. One of these days he would make
up his mind as to his future course of action.
He dreamed of another life which would be more amusing
and more noble. It was the fact that he had such
an ideal before his mind that rendered him indulgent
towards the Dambreuse mansion.
It was an establishment in the neighbourhood
of the Rue de Poitiers. There he met the great
M. A., the illustrious B., the profound C., the eloquent
Z., the immense Y., the old terrors of the Left Centre,
the paladins of the Right, the burgraves
of the golden mean; the eternal good old men of the
comedy. He was astonished at their abominable
style of talking, their meannesses, their rancours,
their dishonesty all these personages,
after voting for the Constitution, now striving to
destroy it; and they got into a state of great agitation,
and launched forth manifestoes, pamphlets, and biographies.
Hussonnet’s biography of Fumichon was a masterpiece.
Nonancourt devoted himself to the work of propagandism
in the country districts; M. de Gremonville worked
up the clergy; and Martinon brought together the young
men of the wealthy class. Each exerted himself
according to his resources, including Cisy himself.
With his thoughts now all day long absorbed in matters
of grave moment, he kept making excursions here and
there in a cab in the interests of the party.
M. Dambreuse, like a barometer, constantly
gave expression to its latest variation. Lamartine
could not be alluded to without eliciting from this
gentleman the quotation of a famous phrase of the man
of the people: “Enough of poetry!”
Cavaignac was, from this time forth, nothing better
in his eyes than a traitor. The President, whom
he had admired for a period of three months, was beginning
to fall off in his esteem (as he did not appear to
exhibit the “necessary energy"); and, as he always
wanted a savior, his gratitude, since the affair of
the Conservatoire, belonged to Changarnier: “Thank
God for Changarnier.... Let us place our reliance
on Changarnier.... Oh, there’s nothing to
fear as long as Changarnier ”
M. Thiers was praised, above all,
for his volume against Socialism, in which he showed
that he was quite as much of a thinker as a writer.
There was an immense laugh at Pierre Leroux, who had
quoted passages from the philosophers in the Chamber.
Jokes were made about the phalansterian tail.
The “Market of Ideas” came in for a meed
of applause, and its authors were compared to Aristophanes.
Frederick patronised the work as well as the rest.
Political verbiage and good living
had an enervating effect on his morality. Mediocre
in capacity as these persons appeared to him, he felt
proud of knowing them, and internally longed for the
respectability that attached to a wealthy citizen.
A mistress like Madame Dambreuse would give him a
position.
He set about taking the necessary
steps for achieving that object.
He made it his business to cross her
path, did not fail to go and greet her with a bow
in her box at the theatre, and, being aware of the
hours when she went to church, he would plant himself
behind a pillar in a melancholy attitude. There
was a continual interchange of little notes between
them with regard to curiosities to which they drew
each other’s attention, preparations for a concert,
or the borrowing of books or reviews. In addition
to his visit each night, he sometimes made a call
just as the day was closing; and he experienced a progressive
succession of pleasures in passing through the large
front entrance, through the courtyard, through the
anteroom, and through the two reception-rooms.
Finally, he reached her boudoir, which was as quiet
as a tomb, as warm as an alcove, and in which one
jostled against the upholstered edging of furniture
in the midst of objects of every sort placed here and
there chiffoniers, screens, bowls, and trays
made of lacquer, or shell, or ivory, or malachite,
expensive trifles, to which fresh additions were frequently
made. Amongst single specimens of these rarities
might be noticed three Etretat rollers which were
used as paper-presses, and a Frisian cap hung from
a Chinese folding-screen. Nevertheless, there
was a harmony between all these things, and one was
even impressed by the noble aspect of the entire place,
which was, no doubt, due to the loftiness of the ceiling,
the richness of the portieres, and the long silk fringes
that floated over the gold legs of the stools.
She nearly always sat on a little
sofa, close to the flower-stand, which garnished the
recess of the window. Frederick, seating himself
on the edge of a large wheeled ottoman, addressed
to her compliments of the most appropriate kind that
he could conceive; and she looked at him, with her
head a little on one side, and a smile playing round
her mouth.
He read for her pieces of poetry,
into which he threw his whole soul in order to move
her and excite her admiration. She would now and
then interrupt him with a disparaging remark or a
practical observation; and their conversation relapsed
incessantly into the eternal question of Love.
They discussed with each other what were the circumstances
that produced it, whether women felt it more than
men, and what was the difference between them on that
point. Frederick tried to express his opinion,
and, at the same time, to avoid anything like coarseness
or insipidity. This became at length a species
of contest between them, sometimes agreeable and at
other times tedious.
Whilst at her side, he did not experience
that ravishment of his entire being which drew him
towards Madame Arnoux, nor the feeling of voluptuous
delight with which Rosanette had, at first, inspired
him. But he felt a passion for her as a thing
that was abnormal and difficult of attainment, because
she was of aristocratic rank, because she was wealthy,
because she was a devotee imagining that
she had a delicacy of sentiment as rare as the lace
she wore, together with amulets on her skin, and modest
instincts even in her depravity.
He made a certain use of his old passion
for Madame Arnoux, uttering in his new flame’s
hearing all those amorous sentiments which the other
had caused him to feel in downright earnest, and pretending
that it was Madame Dambreuse herself who had occasioned
them. She received these avowals like one accustomed
to such things, and, without giving him a formal repulse,
did not yield in the slightest degree; and he came
no nearer to seducing her than Martinon did to getting
married. In order to bring matters to an end
with her niece’s suitor, she accused him of
having money for his object, and even begged of her
husband to put the matter to the test. M. Dambreuse
then declared to the young man that Cecile, being
the orphan child of poor parents, had neither expectations
nor a dowry.
Martinon, not believing that this
was true, or feeling that he had gone too far to draw
back, or through one of those outbursts of idiotic
infatuation which may be described as acts of genius,
replied that his patrimony, amounting to fifteen thousand
francs a year, would be sufficient for them.
The banker was touched by this unexpected display
of disinterestedness. He promised the young man
a tax-collectorship, undertaking to obtain the post
for him; and in the month of May, 1850, Martinon married
Mademoiselle Cecile. There was no ball to celebrate
the event. The young people started the same
evening for Italy. Frederick came next day to
pay a visit to Madame Dambreuse. She appeared
to him paler than usual. She sharply contradicted
him about two or three matters of no importance.
However, she went on to observe, all men were egoists.
There were, however, some devoted
men, though he might happen himself to be the only
one.
“Pooh, pooh! you’re just like the rest
of them!”
Her eyelids were red; she had been weeping.
Then, forcing a smile:
“Pardon me; I am in the wrong.
Sad thoughts have taken possession of my mind.”
He could not understand what she meant to convey by
the last words.
“No matter! she is not so hard to overcome as
I imagined,” he thought.
She rang for a glass of water, drank
a mouthful of it, sent it away again, and then began
to complain of the wretched way in which her servants
attended on her. In order to amuse her, he offered
to become her servant himself, pretending that he
knew how to hand round plates, dust furniture, and
announce visitors in fact, to do the duties
of a valet-de-chambre, or, rather, of a running-footman,
although the latter was now out of fashion. He
would have liked to cling on behind her carriage with
a hat adorned with cock’s feathers.
“And how I would follow you
with majestic stride, carrying your pug on my arm!”
“You are facetious,” said Madame Dambreuse.
Was it not a piece of folly, he returned,
to take everything seriously? There were enough
of miseries in the world without creating fresh ones.
Nothing was worth the cost of a single pang. Madame
Dambreuse raised her eyelids with a sort of vague
approval.
This agreement in their views of life
impelled Frederick to take a bolder course. His
former miscalculations now gave him insight. He
went on:
“Our grandsires lived better.
Why not obey the impulse that urges us onward?”
After all, love was not a thing of such importance
in itself.
“But what you have just said is immoral!”
She had resumed her seat on the little
sofa. He sat down at the side of it, near her
feet.
“Don’t you see that I
am lying! For in order to please women, one must
exhibit the thoughtlessness of a buffoon or all the
wild passion of tragedy! They only laugh at us
when we simply tell them that we love them! For
my part, I consider those hyperbolical phrases which
tickle their fancy a profanation of true love, so
that it is no longer possible to give expression to
it, especially when addressing women who possess more
than ordinary intelligence.”
She gazed at him from under her drooping
eyelids. He lowered his voice, while he bent
his head closer to her face.
“Yes! you frighten me!
Perhaps I am offending you? Forgive me! I
did not intend to say all that I have said! ’Tis
not my fault! You are so beautiful!”
Madame Dambreuse closed her eyes,
and he was astonished at his easy victory. The
tall trees in the clouds streaked the sky with long
strips of red, and on every side there seemed to be
a suspension of vital movements. Then he recalled
to mind, in a confused sort of way, evenings just
the same as this, filled with the same unbroken silence.
Where was it that he had known them?
He sank upon his knees, seized her
hand, and swore that he would love her for ever.
Then, as he was leaving her, she beckoned to him to
come back, and said to him in a low tone:
“Come by-and-by and dine with us! We’ll
be all alone!”
It seemed to Frederick, as he descended
the stairs, that he had become a different man, that
he was surrounded by the balmy temperature of hot-houses,
and that he was beyond all question entering into the
higher sphere of patrician adulteries and lofty intrigues.
In order to occupy the first rank there all he required
was a woman of this stamp. Greedy, no doubt,
of power and of success, and married to a man of inferior
calibre, for whom she had done prodigious services,
she longed for some one of ability in order to be
his guide. Nothing was impossible now. He
felt himself capable of riding two hundred leagues
on horseback, of travelling for several nights in
succession without fatigue. His heart overflowed
with pride.
Just in front of him, on the footpath,
a man wrapped in a seedy overcoat was walking, with
downcast eyes, and with such an air of dejection that
Frederick, as he passed, turned aside to have a better
look at him. The other raised his head.
It was Deslauriers. He hesitated. Frederick
fell upon his neck.
“Ah! my poor old friend! What! ’tis
you!”
And he dragged Deslauriers into his
house, at the same time asking his friend a heap of
questions.
Ledru-Rollin’s ex-commissioner
commenced by describing the tortures to which he had
been subjected. As he preached fraternity to the
Conservatives, and respect for the laws to the Socialists,
the former tried to shoot him, and the latter brought
cords to hang him with. After June he had been
brutally dismissed. He found himself involved
in a charge of conspiracy that which was
connected with the seizure of arms at Troyes.
He had subsequently been released for want of evidence
to sustain the charge. Then the acting committee
had sent him to London, where his ears had been boxed
in the very middle of a banquet at which he and his
colleagues were being entertained. On his return
to Paris
“Why did you not call here, then, to see me?”
“You were always out! Your
porter had mysterious airs I did not know
what to think; and, in the next place, I had no desire
to reappear before you in the character of a defeated
man.”
He had knocked at the portals of Democracy,
offering to serve it with his pen, with his tongue,
with all his energies. He had been everywhere
repelled. They had mistrusted him; and he had
sold his watch, his bookcase, and even his linen.
“It would be much better to
be breaking one’s back on the pontoons of Belle
Isle with Senecal!”
Frederick, who had been fastening
his cravat, did not appear to be much affected by
this news.
“Ha! so he is transported, this good Senecal?”
Deslauriers replied, while he surveyed the walls with
an envious air:
“Not everybody has your luck!”
“Excuse me,” said Frederick,
without noticing the allusion to his own circumstances,
“but I am dining in the city. We must get
you something to eat; order whatever you like.
Take even my bed!”
This cordial reception dissipated Deslauriers’
bitterness.
“Your bed? But that might inconvenience
you!”
“Oh, no! I have others!”
“Oh, all right!” returned
the advocate, with a laugh. “Pray, where
are you dining?”
“At Madame Dambreuse’s.”
“Can it be that you are perhaps ?”
“You are too inquisitive,”
said Frederick, with a smile, which confirmed this
hypothesis.
Then, after a glance at the clock, he resumed his
seat.
“That’s how it is! and
we mustn’t despair, my ex-defender of the people!”
“Oh, pardon me; let others bother
themselves about the people henceforth!”
The advocate detested the working-men,
because he had suffered so much on their account in
his province, a coal-mining district. Every pit
had appointed a provisional government, from which
he received orders.
“Besides, their conduct has
been everywhere charming at Lyons, at Lille,
at Havre, at Paris! For, in imitation of the manufacturers,
who would fain exclude the products of the foreigner,
these gentlemen call on us to banish the English,
German, Belgian, and Savoyard workmen. As for
their intelligence, what was the use of that precious
trades’ union of theirs which they established
under the Restoration? In 1830 they joined the
National Guard, without having the common sense to
get the upper hand of it. Is it not the fact
that, since the morning when 1848 dawned, the various
trade-bodies had not reappeared with their banners?
They have even demanded popular representatives for
themselves, who are not to open their lips except
on their own behalf. All this is the same as
if the deputies who represent beetroot were to concern
themselves about nothing save beetroot. Ah!
I’ve had enough of these dodgers who in turn
prostrate themselves before the scaffold of Robespierre,
the boots of the Emperor, and the umbrella of Louis
Philippe a rabble who always yield allegiance
to the person that flings bread into their mouths.
They are always crying out against the venality of
Talleyrand and Mirabeau; but the messenger down below
there would sell his country for fifty centimes
if they’d only promise to fix a tariff of three
francs on his walk. Ah! what a wretched state
of affairs! We ought to set the four corners
of Europe on fire!”
Frederick said in reply:
“The spark is what you lack!
You were simply a lot of shopboys, and even the best
of you were nothing better than penniless students.
As for the workmen, they may well complain; for, if
you except a million taken out of the civil list,
and of which you made a grant to them with the meanest
expressions of flattery, you have done nothing for
them, save to talk in stilted phrases! The workman’s
certificate remains in the hands of the employer,
and the person who is paid wages remains (even in the
eye of the law), the inferior of his master, because
his word is not believed. In short, the Republic
seems to me a worn-out institution. Who knows?
Perhaps Progress can be realised only through an aristocracy
or through a single man? The initiative always
comes from the top, and whatever may be the people’s
pretensions, they are lower than those placed over
them!”
“That may be true,” said Deslauriers.
According to Frederick, the vast majority
of citizens aimed only at a life of peace (he had
been improved by his visits to the Dambreuses), and
the chances were all on the side of the Conservatives.
That party, however, was lacking in new men.
“If you came forward, I am sure ”
He did not finish the sentence.
Deslauriers saw what Frederick meant, and passed his
two hands over his head; then, all of a sudden:
“But what about yourself?
Is there anything to prevent you from doing it?
Why would you not be a deputy?”
In consequence of a double election
there was in the Aube a vacancy for a candidate.
M. Dambreuse, who had been re-elected as a member of
the Legislative Assembly, belonged to a different
arrondissement.
“Do you wish me to interest
myself on your behalf?” He was acquainted with
many publicans, schoolmasters, doctors, notaries’
clerks and their masters. “Besides, you
can make the peasants believe anything you like!”
Frederick felt his ambition rekindling.
Deslauriers added:
“You would find no trouble in getting a situation
for me in Paris.”
“Oh! it would not be hard to manage it through
Monsieur Dambreuse.”
“As we happened to have been
talking just now about coal-mines,” the advocate
went on, “what has become of his big company?
This is the sort of employment that would suit me,
and I could make myself useful to them while preserving
my own independence.”
Frederick promised that he would introduce
him to the banker before three days had passed.
The dinner, which he enjoyed alone
with Madame Dambreuse, was a delightful affair.
She sat facing him with a smile on her countenance
at the opposite side of the table, whereon was placed
a basket of flowers, while a lamp suspended above
their heads shed its light on the scene; and, as the
window was open, they could see the stars. They
talked very little, distrusting themselves, no doubt;
but, the moment the servants had turned their backs,
they sent across a kiss to one another from the tips
of their lips. He told her about his idea of becoming
a candidate. She approved of the project, promising
even to get M. Dambreuse to use every effort on his
behalf.
As the evening advanced, some of her
friends presented themselves for the purpose of congratulating
her, and, at the same time, expressing sympathy with
her; she must be so much pained at the loss of her
niece. Besides, it was all very well for newly-married
people to go on a trip; by-and-by would come incumbrances,
children. But really, Italy did not realise one’s
expectations. They had not as yet passed the age
of illusions; and, in the next place, the honeymoon
made everything look beautiful. The last two
who remained behind were M. de Gremonville and Frederick.
The diplomatist was not inclined to leave. At
last he departed at midnight. Madame Dambreuse
beckoned to Frederick to go with him, and thanked
him for this compliance with her wishes by giving him
a gentle pressure with her hand more delightful than
anything that had gone before.
The Maréchale uttered an exclamation
of joy on seeing him again. She had been waiting
for him for the last five hours. He gave as an
excuse for the delay an indispensable step which he
had to take in the interests of Deslauriers.
His face wore a look of triumph, and was surrounded
by an aureola which dazzled Rosanette.
“’Tis perhaps on account
of your black coat, which fits you well; but I have
never seen you look so handsome! How handsome
you are!”
In a transport of tenderness, she
made a vow internally never again to belong to any
other man, no matter what might be the consequence,
even if she were to die of want.
Her pretty eyes sparkled with such
intense passion that Frederick took her upon his knees
and said to himself:
“What a rascally part I am playing!”
while admiring his own perversity.