“It was this infernal ring,” he cried: “it caught my finger and made me
miss a sure ball!”
He removed the diamond ring, not without difficulty, and I stepped
forward to take it; but he anticipated me, ran to the Venus, slipped
the ring on her third finger, and resumed his position at the head of
his townsmen.
He was pale, but calm and determined. Thereafter he did not make
a single mistake, and the Spaniards were completely routed. The
enthusiasm of the spectators was a fine spectacle; some shouted for joy
again and again, and tossed their caps in the air; others shook his
hands and called him an honour to the province. If he had repelled an
invasion, I doubt whether he would have received more enthusiastic and
more sincere congratulations. The chagrin of the defeated party added
still more to the splendour of his victory.
“We will play again, my good fellow,” he said to the Aragonese in a
lofty tone; “but I will give you points.”
I should have been glad if M. Alphonse had been more modest, and I
was almost distressed by his rival’s humiliation. The Spanish giant
felt the insult keenly. I saw him turn pale under his tanned skin. He
glanced with a sullen expression at his racquet, and ground his teeth;
then he muttered in a voice choked with rage:
“_Me lo pagarás!_”
M. de Peyrehorade’s appearance interrupted his son’s triumph. My host,
greatly surprised not to find him superintending the harnessing of
the new calèche, was much more surprised when he saw him drenched
with perspiration, and with his racquet in his hand. M. Alphonse ran
to the house, washed his face and hands, resumed his new coat and his
patent-leather boots, and five minutes later we were driving rapidly
toward Puygarrig. All the tennis players of the town and a great number
of spectators followed us with joyous shouts. The stout horses that
drew us could hardly keep in advance of those dauntless Catalans.
We had reached Puygarrig, and the procession was about to start for
the mayor’s office, when M. Alphonse put his hand to his forehead and
whispered to me:
“What a fool I am! I have forgotten the ring! It is on the Venus’s
finger, the devil take her! For Heaven’s sake, don’t tell my mother.
Perhaps she will not notice anything.”
“You might send some one to get it,” I said.
“No, no! my servant stayed at Ille, and I don’t trust these people
here. Twelve hundred francs’ worth of diamonds! that might be too much
of a temptation for more than one of them. Besides, what would they all
think of my absent-mindedness? They would make too much fun of me. They
would call me the statue’s husband.--However, I trust that no one will
steal it. Luckily, all my knaves are afraid of the idol. They don’t
dare go within arm’s length of it.--Bah! it’s no matter; I have another
ring.”
The two ceremonies, civil and religious, were performed with suitable
pomp, and Mademoiselle de Puygarrig received a ring that formerly
belonged to a milliner’s girl at Paris, with no suspicion that her
husband was bestowing upon her a pledge of love. Then we betook
ourselves to the table, where we ate and drank, yes, and sang, all at
great length. I sympathised with the bride amid the vulgar merriment
that burst forth all about her; however, she put a better face on it
than I could have hoped, and her embarrassment was neither awkwardness
nor affectation. It may be that courage comes of itself with difficult
situations.
The breakfast came to an end when God willed; it was four o’clock; the
men went out to walk in the park, which was magnificent, or watched the
peasant girls of Puygarrig, dressed in their gala costumes, dance on
the lawn in front of the château. In this way, we passed several hours.
Meanwhile the women were hovering eagerly about the bride, who showed
them her wedding gifts. Then she changed her dress, and I observed
that she had covered her lovely hair with a cap and a hat adorned with
feathers; for there is nothing that wives are in such a hurry to do as
to assume as soon as possible those articles of apparel which custom
forbids them to wear when they are still unmarried.
It was nearly eight o’clock when we prepared to start for Ille.
But before we started there was a pathetic scene. Mademoiselle de
Puygarrig’s aunt, who had taken the place of a mother to her, a woman
of a very advanced age and very religious, was not to go to the town
with us. At our departure, she delivered a touching sermon to her niece
on her duties as a wife, the result of which was a torrent of tears,
and embraces without end. M. de Peyrehorade compared this separation to
the abduction of the Sabine women.
We started at last, however, and on the road we all exerted ourselves
to the utmost to divert the bride and make her laugh; but it was all to
no purpose.
At Ille supper awaited us, and such a supper! If the vulgar hilarity of
the morning had disgusted me, I was fairly sickened by the equivocal
remarks and jests which were aimed at the groom, and especially at the
bride. M. Alphonse, who had disappeared a moment before taking his
place at the table, was as pale as death and as solemn as an iceberg.
He kept drinking old Collioure wine, almost as strong as brandy. I was
by his side and felt in duty bound to warn him.
“Take care! they say that this wine----”
I have no idea what foolish remark I made, to put myself in unison with
the other guests.
He pressed my knee with his and said in a very low tone:
“When we leave the table, let me have a word with you.”
His solemn tone surprised me. I looked at him more closely and noticed
the extraordinary change in his expression.
“Are you feeling ill?” I asked him.
“No.”
And he returned to his drinking.
Meanwhile, amid shouts and clapping of hands, a child of eleven years,
who had slipped under the table, exhibited to the guests a dainty white
and rose-coloured ribbon which he had taken from the bride’s ankle.
They called that her garter. It was immediately cut into pieces and
distributed among the young men, who decorated their buttonholes with
them, according to an ancient custom still observed in some patriarchal
families. This episode caused the bride to blush to the whites of her
eyes. But her confusion reached its height when M. de Peyrehorade,
having called for silence, sang some Catalan verses, impromptu, so he
said. Their meaning, so far as I understood it, was this:
“Pray, what is this, my friends? Does the wine I have drunk make me see
double? There are two Venuses here----”
The bridegroom abruptly turned his head away with a terrified
expression which made everybody laugh.
“Yes,” continued M. de Peyrehorade, “there are two Venuses beneath my
roof. One I found in the earth, like a truffle; the other, descended
from the skies, has come to share her girdle with us.”
He meant to say her garter.
“My son, choose whichever you prefer--the Roman or the Catalan Venus.
The rascal chooses the Catalan, and his choice is wise. The Roman is
black, the Catalan white. The Roman is cold, the Catalan inflames all
who approach her.”
This deliverance caused such an uproar, such noisy applause and such
roars of laughter, that I thought that the ceiling would fall on our
heads. There were only three sober faces at the table--those of the
bride and groom, and my own. I had a terrible headache; and then,
for some unknown reason, a wedding always depresses me. This one, in
addition, disgusted me more or less.
The last couplets having been sung by the mayor’s deputy--and they were
very free, I must say--we went to the salon to make merry over the
retirement of the bride, who was soon to be escorted to her chamber,
for it was near midnight.
M. Alphonse led me into a window recess, and said to me, averting his
eyes:
“You will laugh at me, but I don’t know what the matter is with me; I
am bewitched! the devil has got hold of me!”
The first idea that came to my mind was that he believed himself to be
threatened by some misfortune of the sort of which Montaigne and Madame
de Sévigné speak:
“The sway of love is always full of tragic episodes,” etc.
“I supposed that accidents of that sort happened only to men of
intellect,” I said to myself.--“You have drunk too much Collioure wine,
my dear Monsieur Alphonse,” I said aloud. “I warned you.”
“Yes, that may be. But there is something much more terrible than
that.”
He spoke in a halting voice. I concluded that he was downright tipsy.
“You remember my ring?” he continued, after a pause.
“Well! has it been stolen?”
“No.”
“Then you have it?”
“No--I--I can’t take it off that infernal Venus’s finger!”
“Nonsense! you didn’t pull hard enough.”
“Yes, I did. But the Venus--she has bent her finger.”
He looked me in the eye with a haggard expression, leaning against the
window-frame to avoid falling.
“What a fable!” I said. “You pushed the ring on too far. To-morrow you
can recover it with a pair of pincers. But take care that you don’t
injure the statue.”
“No, I tell you. The Venus’s finger is drawn in, bent; she has closed
her hand--do you understand? She is my wife, apparently, as I have
given her my ring. She refuses to give it back.”
I felt a sudden shiver, and for a moment I was all goose-flesh. Then,
as he heaved a profound sigh, he sent a puff of alcoholic fumes into my
face, and all my emotion vanished.
“The wretch is completely drunk,” I thought.
“You are an antiquary, monsieur,” continued the bridegroom in a piteous
tone; “you know all about these statues; perhaps there is some spring,
some devilish contrivance that I don’t know about. Suppose you were to
go out and look?”
“Willingly,” I said; “come with me.”
“No, I prefer that you should go alone.”