Though the foregoing conversation affected the Comte de Manerville
somewhat, he made it a point of duty to carry out his intentions, and he
returned to Bordeaux during the winter of the year 1821.
The expenses he incurred in restoring and furnishing his family mansion
sustained the reputation for elegance which had preceded him. Introduced
through his former connections to the royalist society of Bordeaux, to
which he belonged as much by his personal opinions as by his name and
fortune, he soon obtained a fashionable pre-eminence. His knowledge
of life, his manners, his Parisian acquirements enchanted the Faubourg
Saint-Germain of Bordeaux. An old marquise made use of a term formerly
in vogue at court to express the flowery beauty of the fops and beaux of
the olden time, whose language and demeanor were social laws: she called
him “the pink of fashion.” The liberal clique caught up the word and
used it satirically as a nickname, while the royalist party continued to
employ it in good faith.
Paul de Manerville acquitted himself gloriously of the obligations
imposed by his flowery title. It happened to him, as to many a mediocre
actor, that the day when the public granted him their full attention he
became, one may almost say, superior. Feeling at his ease, he displayed
the fine qualities which accompanied his defects. His wit had
nothing sharp or bitter in it; his manners were not supercilious; his
intercourse with women expressed the respect they like,--it was neither
too deferential, nor too familiar; his foppery went no farther than a
care for his personal appearance which made him agreeable; he showed
consideration for rank; he allowed young men a certain freedom, to which
his Parisian experience assigned due limits; though skilful with sword
and pistol, he was noted for a feminine gentleness for which others were
grateful. His medium height and plumpness (which had not yet increased
into obesity, an obstacle to personal elegance) did not prevent his
outer man from playing the part of a Bordelais Brummell. A white skin
tinged with the hues of health, handsome hands and feet, blue eyes with
long lashes, black hair, graceful motions, a chest voice which kept to
its middle tones and vibrated in the listener’s heart, harmonized well
with his sobriquet. Paul was indeed that delicate flower which needs
such careful culture, the qualities of which display themselves only in
a moist and suitable soil,--a flower which rough treatment dwarfs, which
the hot sun burns, and a frost lays low. He was one of those men made
to receive happiness, rather than to give it; who have something of the
woman in their nature, wishing to be divined, understood, encouraged; in
short, a man to whom conjugal love ought to come as a providence.
If such a character creates difficulties in private life, it is gracious
and full of attraction for the world. Consequently, Paul had great
success in the narrow social circle of the provinces, where his mind,
always, so to speak, in half-tints, was better appreciated than in
Paris.
The arrangement of his house and the restoration of the chateau de
Lanstrac, where he introduced the comfort and luxury of an English
country-house, absorbed the capital saved by the notary during the
preceding six years. Reduced now to his strict income of forty-odd
thousand a year, he thought himself wise and prudent in so regulating
his household as not to exceed it.
After publicly exhibiting his equipages, entertaining the most
distinguished young men of the place, and giving various hunting parties
on the estate at Lanstrac, Paul saw very plainly that provincial life
would never do without marriage. Too young to employ his time in
miserly occupations, or in trying to interest himself in the speculative
improvements in which provincials sooner or later engage (compelled
thereto by the necessity of establishing their children), he soon felt
the need of that variety of distractions a habit of which becomes
at last the very life of a Parisian. A name to preserve, property to
transmit to heirs, social relations to be created by a household
where the principal families of the neighborhood could assemble, and
a weariness of all irregular connections, were not, however, the
determining reasons of his matrimonial desires. From the time he first
returned to the provinces he had been secretly in love with the queen of
Bordeaux, the great beauty, Mademoiselle Evangelista.
About the beginning of the century, a rich Spaniard, named Evangelista,
established himself in Bordeaux, where his letters of recommendation,
as well as his large fortune, gave him an entrance to the salons of
the nobility. His wife contributed greatly to maintain him in the good
graces of an aristocracy which may perhaps have adopted him in the first
instance merely to pique the society of the class below them. Madame
Evangelista, who belonged to the Casa-Reale, an illustrious family of
Spain, was a Creole, and, like all women served by slaves, she lived as
a great lady, knew nothing of the value of money, repressed no whims,
even the most expensive, finding them ever satisfied by an adoring
husband who generously concealed from her knowledge the running-gear of
the financial machine. Happy in finding her pleased with Bordeaux, where
his interests obliged him to live, the Spaniard bought a house, set up a
household, received in much style, and gave many proofs of possessing a
fine taste in all things. Thus, from 1800 to 1812, Monsieur and Madame
Evangelista were objects of great interest to the community of Bordeaux.
The Spaniard died in 1813, leaving his wife a widow at thirty-two years
of age, with an immense fortune and the prettiest little girl in the
world, a child of eleven, who promised to be, and did actually become,
a most accomplished young woman. Clever as Madame Evangelista was, the
Restoration altered her position; the royalist party cleared its ranks
and several of the old families left Bordeaux. Though the head and hand
of her husband were lacking in the direction of her affairs, for which
she had hitherto shown the indifference of a Creole and the inaptitude
of a lackadaisical woman, she was determined to make no change in her
manner of living. At the period when Paul resolved to return to his
native town, Mademoiselle Natalie Evangelista was a remarkably beautiful
young girl, and, apparently, the richest match in Bordeaux, where the
steady diminution of her mother’s capital was unknown. In order to
prolong her reign, Madame Evangelista had squandered enormous sums.
Brilliant fetes and the continuation of an almost regal style of living
kept the public in its past belief as to the wealth of the Spanish
family.
Natalie was now in her nineteenth year, but no proposal of marriage
had as yet reached her mother’s ear. Accustomed to gratify her fancies,
Mademoiselle Evangelista wore cashmeres and jewels, and lived in a style
of luxury which alarmed all speculative suitors in a region and at a
period when sons were as calculating as their parents. The fatal remark,
“None but a prince can afford to marry Mademoiselle Evangelista,”
circulated among the salons and the cliques. Mothers of families,
dowagers who had granddaughters to establish, young girls jealous of
Natalie, whose elegance and tyrannical beauty annoyed them, took pains
to envenom this opinion with treacherous remarks. When they heard a
possible suitor say with ecstatic admiration, as Natalie entered a
ball-room, “Heavens, how beautiful she is!” “Yes,” the mammas would
answer, “but expensive.” If some new-comer thought Mademoiselle
Evangelista bewitching and said to a marriageable man that he couldn’t
do it better, “Who would be bold enough,” some woman would reply, “to
marry a girl whose mother gives her a thousand francs a month for her
toilet,--a girl who has horses and a maid of her own, and wears laces?
Yes, her ‘peignoirs’ are trimmed with mechlin. The price of her washing
would support the household of a clerk. She wears pelerines in the
morning which actually cost six francs to get up.”
These, and other speeches said occasionally in the form of praise
extinguished the desires that some men might have had to marry the
beautiful Spanish girl. Queen of every ball, accustomed to flattery,
“blasee” with the smiles and the admiration which followed her every
step, Natalie, nevertheless, knew nothing of life. She lived as the
bird which flies, as the flower that blooms, finding every one about her
eager to do her will. She was ignorant of the price of things; she
knew neither the value of money, nor whence it came, how it should be
managed, and how spent. Possibly she thought that every household had
cooks and coachmen, lady’s-maids and footmen, as the fields have hay and
the trees their fruits. To her, beggars and paupers, fallen trees and
waste lands seemed in the same category. Pampered and petted as her
mother’s hope, no fatigue was allowed to spoil her pleasure. Thus she
bounded through life as a courser on his steppe, unbridled and unshod.
Six month’s after Paul’s arrival the Pink of Fashion and the Queen of
Balls met in presence of the highest society of the town of Bordeaux.
The two flowers looked at each other with apparent coldness, and
mutually thought each other charming. Interested in watching the effects
of the meeting, Madame Evangelista divined in the expression of Paul’s
eyes the feelings within him, and she muttered to herself, “He will be
my son-in-law.” Paul, on the other hand, said to himself, as he looked
at Natalie, “She will be my wife.”
The wealth of the Evangelistas, proverbial in Bordeaux, had remained in
Paul’s mind as a memory of his childhood. Thus the pecuniary conditions
were known to him from the start, without necessitating those
discussions and inquiries which are as repugnant to a timid mind as to a
proud one. When some persons attempting to say to Paul a few flattering
phrases as to Natalie’s manner, language, and beauty, ending by remarks,
cruelly calculated to deter him, on the lavish extravagance of the
Evangelistas, the Pink of Fashion replied with a disdain that was
well-deserved by such provincial pettiness. This method of receiving
such speeches soon silenced them; for he now set the tone to the ideas
and language as well as to the manners of those about him. He had
imported from his travels a certain development of the Britannic
personality with its icy barriers, also a tone of Byronic pessimism
as to life, together with English plate, boot-polish, ponies, yellow
gloves, cigars, and the habit of galloping.
It thus happened that Paul escaped the discouragements hitherto
presented to marriageable men by dowagers and young girls. Madame
Evangelista began by asking him to formal dinners on various occasions.
The Pink of Fashion would not, of course, miss festivities to which none
but the most distinguished young men of the town were bidden. In spite
of the coldness that Paul assumed, which deceived neither mother
nor daughter, he was drawn, step by step, into the path of marriage.
Sometimes as he passed in his tilbury, or rode by on his fine English
horse, he heard the young men of his acquaintance say to one another:--
“There’s a lucky man. He is rich and handsome, and is to marry, so they
say, Mademoiselle Evangelista. There are some men for whom the world
seems made.”
When he met the Evangelistas he felt proud of the particular distinction
which mother and daughter imparted to their bows. If Paul had not
secretly, within his heart, fallen in love with Mademoiselle Natalie,
society would certainly have married him to her in spite of himself.
Society, which never causes good, is the accomplice of much evil; then
when it beholds the evil it has hatched maternally, it rejects and
revenges it. Society in Bordeaux, attributing a “dot” of a million to
Mademoiselle Evangelista, bestowed it upon Paul without awaiting the
consent of either party. Their fortunes, so it was said, agreed as well
as their persons. Paul had the same habits of luxury and elegance in
the midst of which Natalie had been brought up. He had just arranged for
himself a house such as no other man in Bordeaux could have offered her.
Accustomed to Parisian expenses and the caprices of Parisian women, he
alone was fitted to meet the pecuniary difficulties which were likely to
follow this marriage with a girl who was as much of a Creole and a great
lady as her mother. Where they themselves, remarked the marriageable
men, would have been ruined, the Comte de Manerville, rich as he was,
could evade disaster. In short, the marriage was made. Persons in
the highest royalist circles said a few engaging words to Paul which
flattered his vanity:--
“Every one gives you Mademoiselle Evangelista. If you marry her you will
do well. You could not find, even in Paris, a more delightful girl. She
is beautiful, graceful, elegant, and takes after the Casa-Reales through
her mother. You will make a charming couple; you have the same tastes,
the same desires in life, and you will certainly have the most agreeable
house in Bordeaux. Your wife need only bring her night-cap; all is ready
for her. You are fortunate indeed in such a mother-in-law. A woman of
intelligence, and very adroit, she will be a great help to you in
public life, to which you ought to aspire. Besides, she has sacrificed
everything to her daughter, whom she adores, and Natalie will, no doubt,
prove a good wife, for she loves her mother. You must soon bring the
matter to a conclusion.”
“That is all very well,” replied Paul, who, in spite of his love, was
desirous of keeping his freedom of action, “but I must be sure that the
conclusion shall be a happy one.”
He now went frequently to Madame Evangelista’s, partly to occupy his
vacant hours, which were harder for him to employ than for most men.
There alone he breathed the atmosphere of grandeur and luxury to which
he was accustomed.
At forty years of age, Madame Evangelista was beautiful, with the
beauty of those glorious summer sunsets which crown a cloudless day. Her
spotless reputation had given an endless topic of conversation to the
Bordeaux cliques; the curiosity of the women was all the more lively
because the widow gave signs of the temperament which makes a Spanish
woman and a Creole particularly noted. She had black eyes and hair, the
feet and form of a Spanish woman,--that swaying form the movements of
which have a name in Spain. Her face, still beautiful, was particularly
seductive for its Creole complexion, the vividness of which can be
described only by comparing it to muslin overlying crimson, so equally
is the whiteness suffused with color. Her figure, which was full and
rounded, attracted the eye by a grace which united nonchalance with
vivacity, strength with ease. She attracted and she imposed, she
seduced, but promised nothing. She was tall, which gave her at times
the air and carriage of a queen. Men were taken by her conversation
like birds in a snare; for she had by nature that genius which necessity
bestows on schemes; she advanced from concession to concession,
strengthening herself with what she gained to ask for more, knowing
well how to retreat with rapid steps when concessions were demanded in
return. Though ignorant of facts, she had known the courts of Spain
and Naples, the celebrated men of the two Americas, many illustrious
families of England and the continent, all of which gave her so
extensive an education superficially that it seemed immense. She
received her society with the grace and dignity which are never learned,
but which come to certain naturally fine spirits like a second nature;
assimilating choice things wherever they are met. If her reputation
for virtue was unexplained, it gave at any rate much authority to her
actions, her conversation, and her character.
Mother and daughter had a true friendship for each other, beyond the
filial and maternal sentiment. They suited one another, and their
perpetual contact had never produced the slightest jar. Consequently
many persons explained Madame Evangelista’s actions by maternal love.
But although Natalie consoled her mother’s persistent widowhood, she may
not have been the only motive for it. Madame Evangelista had been, it
was said, in love with a man who recovered his titles and property
under the Restoration. This man, desirous of marrying her in 1814 had
discreetly severed the connection in 1816. Madame Evangelista, to all
appearance the best-hearted woman in the world, had, in the depths of
her nature, a fearful quality, explainable only by Catherine de Medici’s
device: “Odiate e aspettate”--“Hate and wait.” Accustomed to rule,
having always been obeyed, she was like other royalties, amiable,
gentle, easy and pleasant in ordinary life, but terrible, implacable,
if the pride of the woman, the Spaniard, and the Casa-Reale was touched.
She never forgave. This woman believed in the power of her hatred; she
made an evil fate of it and bade it hover above her enemy. This fatal
power she employed against the man who had jilted her. Events which
seemed to prove the influence of her “jettatura”--the casting of an evil
eye--confirmed her superstitious faith in herself. Though a minister and
peer of France, this man began to ruin himself, and soon came to total
ruin. His property, his personal and public honor were doomed to perish.
At this crisis Madame Evangelista in her brilliant equipage passed her
faithless lover walking on foot in the Champes Elysees, and crushed him
with a look which flamed with triumph. This misadventure, which occupied
her mind for two years, was the original cause of her not remarrying.
Later, her pride had drawn comparisons between the suitors who presented
themselves and the husband who had loved her so sincerely and so well.
She had thus reached, through mistaken calculations and disappointed
hopes, that period of life when women have no other part to take in life
than that of mother; a part which involves the sacrifice of themselves
to their children, the placing of their interests outside of self upon
another household,--the last refuge of human affections.
Madame Evangelista divined Paul’s nature intuitively, and hid her own
from his perception. Paul was the very man she desired for a son-in-law,
for the responsible editor of her future power. He belonged, through his
mother, to the family of Maulincour, and the old Baronne de Maulincour,
the friend of the Vidame de Pamiers, was then living in the centre of
the faubourg Saint-Germain. The grandson of the baroness, Auguste de
Maulincour, held a fine position in the army. Paul would therefore be
an excellent introducer for the Evangelistas into Parisian society. The
widow had known something of the Paris of the Empire, she now desired to
shine in the Paris of the Restoration. There alone were the elements of
political fortune, the only business in which women of the world could
decently co-operate. Madame Evangelista, compelled by her husband’s
affairs to reside in Bordeaux, disliked the place. She desired a wider
field, as gamblers rush to higher stakes. For her own personal ends,
therefore, she looked to Paul as a means of destiny, she proposed to
employ the resources of her own talent and knowledge of life to advance
her son-in-law, in order to enjoy through him the delights of power.
Many men are thus made the screens of secret feminine ambitions. Madame
Evangelista had, however, more than one interest, as we shall see, in
laying hold of her daughter’s husband.
Paul was naturally captivated by this woman, who charmed him all the
more because she seemed to seek no influence over him. In reality she
was using her ascendancy to magnify herself, her daughter, and all her
surroundings in his eyes, for the purpose of ruling from the start the
man in whom she saw a means of gratifying her social longings. Paul, on
the other hand, began to value himself more highly when he felt himself
appreciated by the mother and daughter. He thought himself much cleverer
than he really was when he found his reflections and sayings accepted
and understood by Mademoiselle Natalie--who raised her head and smiled
in response to them--and by the mother, whose flattery always seemed
involuntary. The two women were so kind and friendly to him, he was so
sure of pleasing them, they ruled him so delightfully by holding the
thread of his self-love, that he soon passed all his time at the hotel
Evangelista.
A year after his return to Bordeaux, Comte Paul, without having declared
himself, was so attentive to Natalie that the world considered him as
courting her. Neither mother nor daughter appeared to be thinking of
marriage. Mademoiselle Evangelista preserved towards Paul the reserve
of a great lady who can make herself charming and converse agreeably
without permitting a single step into intimacy. This reserve, so little
customary among provincials, pleased Paul immensely. Timid men are shy;
sudden proposals alarm them. They retreat from happiness when it comes
with a rush, and accept misfortune if it presents itself mildly with
gentle shadows. Paul therefore committed himself in his own mind all the
more because he saw no effort on Madame Evangelista’s part to bind him.
She fairly seduced him one evening by remarking that to superior women
as well as men there came a period of life when ambition superseded all
the earlier emotions of life.
“That woman is fitted,” thought Paul, as he left her, “to advance me in
diplomacy before I am even made a deputy.”
If, in all the circumstances of life a man does not turn over and over
both things and ideas in order to examine them thoroughly under their
different aspects before taking action, that man is weak and incomplete
and in danger of fatal failure. At this moment Paul was an optimist; he
saw everything to advantage, and did not tell himself than an ambitious
mother-in-law might prove a tyrant. So, every evening as he left the
house, he fancied himself a married man, allured his mind with its own
thought, and slipped on the slippers of wedlock cheerfully. In the first
place, he had enjoyed his freedom too long to regret the loss of it; he
was tired of a bachelor’s life, which offered him nothing new; he
now saw only its annoyances; whereas if he thought at times of the
difficulties of marriage, its pleasures, in which lay novelty, came far
more prominently before his mind.
“Marriage,” he said to himself, “is disagreeable for people without
means, but half its troubles disappear before wealth.”
Every day some favorable consideration swelled the advantages which he
now saw in this particular alliance.
“No matter to what position I attain, Natalie will always be on the
level of her part,” thought he, “and that is no small merit in a woman.
How many of the Empire men I’ve seen who suffered horribly through their
wives! It is a great condition of happiness not to feel one’s pride or
one’s vanity wounded by the companion we have chosen. A man can never
be really unhappy with a well-bred wife; she will never make him
ridiculous; such a woman is certain to be useful to him. Natalie will
receive in her own house admirably.”
So thinking, he taxed his memory as to the most distinguished women of
the faubourg Saint-Germain, in order to convince himself that Natalie
could, if not eclipse them, at any rate stand among them on a footing of
perfect equality. All comparisons were to her advantage, for they rested
on his own imagination, which followed his desires. Paris would have
shown him daily other natures, young girls of other styles of beauty and
charm, and the multiplicity of impressions would have balanced his mind;
whereas in Bordeaux Natalie had no rivals, she was the solitary flower;
moreover, she appeared to him at a moment when Paul was under the
tyranny of an idea to which most men succumb at his age.
Thus these reasons of propinquity, joined to reasons of self-love and a
real passion which had no means of satisfaction except by marriage, led
Paul on to an irrational love, which he had, however, the good sense to
keep to himself. He even endeavored to study Mademoiselle Evangelista
as a man should who desires not to compromise his future life; for the
words of his friend de Marsay did sometimes rumble in his ears like a
warning. But, in the first place, persons accustomed to luxury have a
certain indifference to it which misleads them. They despise it, they
use it; it is an instrument, and not the object of their existence. Paul
never imagined, as he observed the habits of life of the two ladies,
that they covered a gulf of ruin. Then, though there may exist some
general rules to soften the asperities of marriage, there are none by
which they can be accurately foreseen and evaded. When trouble arises
between two persons who have undertaken to render life agreeable and
easy to each other, it comes from the contact of continual intimacy,
which, of course, does not exist between young people before they marry,
and will never exist so long as our present social laws and customs
prevail in France. All is more or less deception between the two young
persons about to take each other for life,--an innocent and involuntary
deception, it is true. Each endeavors to appear in a favorable light;
both take a tone and attitude conveying a more favorable idea of their
nature than they are able to maintain in after years. Real life, like
the weather, is made up of gray and cloudy days alternating with those
when the sun shines and the fields are gay. Young people, however,
exhibit fine weather and no clouds. Later they attribute to marriage the
evils inherent in life itself; for there is in man a disposition to lay
the blame of his own misery on the persons and things that surround him.
To discover in the demeanor, or the countenance, or the words, or the
gestures of Mademoiselle Evangelista any indication that revealed the
imperfections of her character, Paul must have possessed not only the
knowledge of Lavater and Gall, but also a science in which there exists
no formula of doctrine,--the individual and personal science of an
observer, which, for its perfection, requires an almost universal
knowledge. Natalie’s face, like that of most young girls, was
impenetrable. The deep, serene peace given by sculptors to the virgin
faces of Justice and Innocence, divinities aloof from all earthly
agitations, is the greatest charm of a young girl, the sign of her
purity. Nothing, as yet, has stirred her; no shattered passion, no hope
betrayed has clouded the placid expression of that pure face. Is that
expression assumed? If so, there is no young girl behind it.
Natalie, closely held to the heart of her mother, had received, like
other Spanish women, an education that was solely religious, together
with a few instructions from her mother as to the part in life she was
called upon to play. Consequently, the calm, untroubled expression of
her face was natural. And yet it formed a casing in which the woman
was wrapped as the moth in its cocoon. Nevertheless, any man clever at
handling the scalpel of analysis might have detected in Natalie certain
indications of the difficulties her character would present when brought
into contact with conjugal or social life. Her beauty, which was really
marvellous, came from extreme regularity of feature harmonizing with the
proportions of the head and the body. This species of perfection augurs
ill for the mind; and there are few exceptions to the rule. All superior
nature is found to have certain slight imperfections of form which
become irresistible attractions, luminous points from which shine vivid
sentiments, and on which the eye rests gladly. Perfect harmony expresses
usually the coldness of a mixed organization.
Natalie’s waist was round,--a sign of strength, but also the infallible
indication of a will which becomes obstinacy in persons whose mind
is neither keen nor broad. Her hands, like those of a Greek statue,
confirmed the predictions of face and figure by revealing an inclination
for illogical domination, of willing for will’s sake only. Her eyebrows
met,--a sign, according to some observers, which indicates jealousy. The
jealousy of superior minds becomes emulation and leads to great things;
that of small minds turns to hatred. The “hate and wait” of her mother
was in her nature, without disguise. Her eyes were black apparently,
though really brown with orange streaks, contrasting with her hair,
of the ruddy tint so prized by the Romans, called auburn in England, a
color which often appears in the offspring of persons of jet black hair,
like that of Monsieur and Madame Evangelista. The whiteness and delicacy
of Natalie’s complexion gave to the contrast of color in her eyes and
hair an inexpressible charm; and yet it was a charm that was purely
external; for whenever the lines of a face are lacking in a certain
soft roundness, whatever may be the finish and grace of the details, the
beauty therein expressed is not of the soul. These roses of deceptive
youth will drop their leaves, and you will be surprised in a few years
to see hardness and dryness where you once admired what seemed to be the
beauty of noble qualities.
Though the outlines of Natalie’s face had something august about them,
her chin was slightly “empate,”--a painter’s expression which will serve
to show the existence of sentiments the violence of which would only
become manifest in after life. Her mouth, a trifle drawn in, expressed
a haughty pride in keeping with her hand, her chin, her brows, and her
beautiful figure. And--as a last diagnostic to guide the judgment of a
connoisseur--Natalie’s pure voice, a most seductive voice, had certain
metallic tones. Softly as that brassy ring was managed, and in spite of
the grace with which its sounds ran through the compass of the voice,
that organ revealed the character of the Duke of Alba, from whom the
Casa-Reales were collaterally descended. These indications were those
of violent passions without tenderness, sudden devotions, irreconcilable
dislikes, a mind without intelligence, and the desire to rule natural to
persons who feel themselves inferior to their pretensions.
These defects, born of temperament and constitution, were buried in
Natalie like ore in a mine, and would only appear under the shocks and
harsh treatment to which all characters are subjected in this world.
Meantime the grace and freshness of her youth, the distinction of her
manners, her sacred ignorance, and the sweetness of a young girl, gave
a delicate glamour to her features which could not fail to mislead an
unthinking or superficial mind. Her mother had early taught her the
trick of agreeable talk which appears to imply superiority, replying
to arguments by clever jests, and attracting by the graceful volubility
beneath which a woman hides the subsoil of her mind, as Nature disguises
her barren strata beneath a wealth of ephemeral vegetation. Natalie had
the charm of children who have never known what it is to suffer. She
charmed by her frankness, and had none of that solemn air which mothers
impose on their daughters by laying down a programme of behavior and
language until the time comes when they marry and are emancipated. She
was gay and natural, like any young girl who knows nothing of marriage,
expects only pleasure from it, replies to all objections with a jest,
foresees no troubles, and thinks she is acquiring the right to have her
own way.
How could Paul, who loved as men love when desire increases love,
perceive in a girl of this nature whose beauty dazzled him, the woman,
such as she would probably be at thirty, when observers themselves have
been misled by these appearances? Besides, if happiness might prove
difficult to find in a marriage with such a girl, it was not impossible.
Through these embryo defects shone several fine qualities. There is no
good quality which, if properly developed by the hand of an able master,
will not stifle defects, especially in a young girl who loves him. But
to render ductile so intractable a woman, the iron wrist, about which de
Marsay had preached to Paul, was needful. The Parisian dandy was right.
Fear, inspired by love is an infallible instrument by which to manage
the minds of women. Whoso loves, fears; whoso fears is nearer to
affection than to hatred.
Had Paul the coolness, firmness, and judgment required for this
struggle, which an able husband ought not to let the wife suspect? Did
Natalie love Paul? Like most young girls, Natalie mistook for love the
first emotions of instinct and the pleasure she felt in Paul’s external
appearance; but she knew nothing of the things of marriage nor
the demands of a home. To her, the Comte de Manerville, a rising
diplomatist, to whom the courts of Europe were known, and one of the
most elegant young men in Paris, could not seem, what perhaps he was,
an ordinary man, without moral force, timid, though brave in some ways,
energetic perhaps in adversity, but helpless against the vexations
and annoyances that hinder happiness. Would she, in after years, have
sufficient tact and insight to distinguish Paul’s noble qualities in the
midst of his minor defects? Would she not magnify the latter and forget
the former, after the manner of young wives who know nothing of life?
There comes a time when wives will pardon defects in the husband who
spares her annoyances, considering annoyances in the same category as
misfortunes. What conciliating power, what wise experience would uphold
and enlighten the home of this young pair? Paul and his wife would
doubtless think they loved when they had really not advanced beyond the
endearments and compliments of the honeymoon. Would Paul in that early
period yield to the tyranny of his wife, instead of establishing his
empire? Could Paul say, “No?” All was peril to a man so weak where even
a strong man ran some risks.
The subject of this Study is not the transition of a bachelor into a
married man,--a picture which, if broadly composed, would not lack the
attraction which the inner struggles of our nature and feelings give to
the commonest situations in life. The events and the ideas which led to
the marriage of Paul with Natalie Evangelista are an introduction to
our real subject, which is to sketch the great comedy that precedes, in
France, all conjugal pairing. This Scene, until now singularly neglected
by our dramatic authors, although it offers novel resources to their
wit, controlled Paul’s future life and was now awaited by Madame
Evangelista with feelings of terror. We mean the discussion which takes
place on the subject of the marriage contract in all families, whether
noble or bourgeois, for human passions are as keenly excited by small
interests as by large ones. These comedies, played before a notary, all
resemble, more or less, the one we shall now relate, the interest of
which will be far less in the pages of this book than in the memories of
married persons.