Though the excitement of the fete had driven from Paul’s mind the
anxious thoughts that now and then assailed it, when he was alone with
himself and in his bed they returned to torment him.
“It seems to me,” he said to himself, “that without that good Mathias my
mother-in-law would have tricked me. And yet, is that believable? What
interest could lead her to deceive me? Are we not to join fortunes and
live together? Well, well, why should I worry about it? In two days
Natalie will be my wife, our money relations are plainly defined,
nothing can come between us. Vogue la galere--Nevertheless, I’ll be upon
my guard. Suppose Mathias was right? Well, if he was, I’m not obliged to
marry my mother-in-law.”
In this second battle of the contract Paul’s future had completely
changed in aspect, though he was not aware of it. Of the two persons
whom he was marrying, one, the cleverest, was now his mortal enemy,
and meditated already withdrawing her interests from the common fund.
Incapable of observing the difference that a Creole nature placed
between his mother-in-law and other women, Paul was far from suspecting
her craftiness. The Creole nature is apart from all others; it derives
from Europe by its intellect, from the tropics by the illogical violence
of its passions, from the East by the apathetic indifference with which
it does, or suffers, either good or evil, equally,--a graceful nature
withal, but dangerous, as a child is dangerous if not watched. Like a
child, the Creole woman must have her way immediately; like a child, she
would burn a house to boil an egg. In her soft and easy life she takes
no care upon her mind; but when impassioned, she thinks of all things.
She has something of the perfidy of the Negroes by whom she has been
surrounded from her cradle, but she is also as naive and even, at times,
as artless as they. Like them and like the children, she wishes doggedly
for one thing with a growing intensity of desire, and will brood upon
that idea until she hatches it. A strange assemblage of virtues
and defects! which her Spanish nature had strengthened in Madame
Evangelista, and over which her French experience had cast the glaze of
its politeness.
This character, slumbering in married happiness for sixteen years,
occupied since then with the trivialities of social life, this nature
to which a first hatred had revealed its strength, awoke now like a
conflagration; at the moment of the woman’s life when she was losing
the dearest object of her affections and needed another element for the
energy that possessed her, this flame burst forth. Natalie could be but
three days more beneath her influence! Madame Evangelista, vanquished
at other points, had one clear day before her, the last of those that
a daughter spends beside her mother. A few words, and the Creole nature
could influence the lives of the two beings about to walk together
through the brambled paths and the dusty high-roads of Parisian society,
for Natalie believed in her mother blindly. What far-reaching power
would the counsel of that Creole nature have on a mind so subservient!
The whole future of these lives might be determined by one single
speech. No code, no human institution can prevent the crime that
kills by words. There lies the weakness of social law; in that is the
difference between the morals of the great world and the morals of the
people: one is frank, the other hypocritical; one employs the knife,
the other the venom of ideas and language; to one death, to the other
impunity.
The next morning, about mid-day, Madame Evangelista was half seated,
half lying on the edge of her daughter’s bed. During that waking hour
they caressed and played together in happy memory of their loving life;
a life in which no discord had ever troubled either the harmony of
their feelings, the agreement of their ideas, or the mutual choice and
enjoyment of their pleasures.
“Poor little darling!” said the mother, shedding true tears, “how can I
help being sorrowful when I think that after I have fulfilled your every
wish during your whole life you will belong, to-morrow night, to a man
you must obey?”
“Oh, my dear mother, as for obeying!--” and Natalie made a little motion
of her head which expressed a graceful rebellion. “You are joking,” she
continued. “My father always gratified your caprices; and why not? he
loved you. And I am loved, too.”
“Yes, Paul has a certain love for you. But if a married woman is
not careful nothing more rapidly evaporates than conjugal love. The
influence a wife ought to have over her husband depends entirely on how
she begins with him. You need the best advice.”
“But you will be with us.”
“Possibly, my child. Last night, while the ball was going on, I
reflected on the dangers of our being together. If my presence were to
do you harm, if the little acts by which you ought slowly, but surely,
to establish your authority as a wife should be attributed to my
influence, your home would become a hell. At the first frown I saw upon
your husband’s brow I, proud as I am, should instantly leave his house.
If I were driven to leave it, better, I think, not to enter it. I should
never forgive your husband if he caused trouble between us. Whereas,
when you have once become the mistress, when your husband is to you what
your father was to me, that danger is no longer to be feared. Though
this wise policy will cost your young and tender heart a pang, your
happiness demands that you become the absolute sovereign of your home.”
“Then why, mamma, did you say just now I must obey him?”
“My dear little daughter, in order that a wife may rule, she must always
seem to do what her husband wishes. If you were not told this you might
by some impulsive opposition destroy your future. Paul is a weak young
man; he might allow a friend to rule him; he might even fall under the
dominion of some woman who would make you feel her influence. Prevent
such disasters by making yourself from the very start his ruler. Is it
not better that he be governed by you than by others?”
“Yes, certainly,” said Natalie. “I should think only of his happiness.”
“And it is my privilege, darling, to think only of yours, and to wish
not to leave you at so crucial a moment without a compass in the midst
of the reefs through which you must steer.”
“But, dearest mother, are we not strong enough, you and I, to stay
together beside him, without having to fear those frowns you seem to
dread. Paul loves you, mamma.”
“Oh! oh! He fears me more than he loves me. Observe him carefully to-day
when I tell him that I shall let you go to Paris without me, and you
will see on his face, no matter what pains he takes to conceal it, his
inward joy.”
“Why should he feel so?”
“Why? Dear child! I am like Saint-Jean Bouche-d’Or. I will tell that to
himself, and before you.”
“But suppose I marry on condition that you do not leave me?” urged
Natalie.
“Our separation is necessary,” replied her mother. “Several
considerations have greatly changed my future. I am now poor. You will
lead a brilliant life in Paris, and I could not live with you suitably
without spending the little that remains to me. Whereas, if I go to
Lanstrac, I can take care of your property there and restore my fortune
by economy.”
“You, mamma! _You_ practise economy!” cried Natalie, laughing. “Don’t
begin to be a grandmother yet. What! do you mean to leave me for such
reasons as those? Dear mother, Paul may seem to you a trifle stupid, but
he is not one atom selfish or grasping.”
“Ah!” replied Madame Evangelista, in a tone of voice big with
suggestions which made the girl’s heart throb, “those discussions about
the contract have made me distrustful. I have my doubts about him--But
don’t be troubled, dear child,” she added, taking her daughter by the
neck and kissing her. “I will not leave you long alone. Whenever my
return can take place without making difficulty between you, whenever
Paul can rightly judge me, we will begin once more our happy little
life, our evening confidences--”
“Oh! mother, how can you think of living without your Natalie?”
“Because, dear angel, I shall live for her. My mother’s heart will be
satisfied in the thought that I contribute, as I ought, to your future
happiness.”
“But, my dear, adorable mother, must I be alone with Paul, here, now,
all at once? What will become of me? what will happen? what must I do?
what must I not do?”
“Poor child! do you think that I would utterly abandon you to your first
battle? We will write to each other three times a week like lovers.
We shall thus be close to each other’s hearts incessantly. Nothing
can happen to you that I shall not know, and I can save you from all
misfortune. Besides, it would be too ridiculous if I never went to see
you; it would seem to show dislike or disrespect to your husband; I will
always spend a month or two every year with you in Paris.”
“Alone, already alone, and with him!” cried Natalie in terror,
interrupting her mother.
“But you wish to be his wife?”
“Yes, I wish it. But tell me how I should behave,--you, who did what you
pleased with my father. You know the way; I’ll obey you blindly.”
Madame Evangelista kissed her daughter’s forehead. She had willed and
awaited this request.
“Child, my counsels must adept themselves to circumstances. All men
are not alike. The lion and the frog are not more unlike than one man
compared with another,--morally, I mean. Do I know to-day what will
happen to you to-morrow? No; therefore I can only give you general
advice upon the whole tenor of your conduct.”
“Dear mother, tell me, quick, all that you know yourself.”
“In the first place, my dear child, the cause of the failure of married
women who desire to keep their husbands’ hearts--and,” she said, making
a parenthesis, “to keep their hearts and rule them is one and the same
thing--Well, the principle cause of conjugal disunion is to be found in
perpetual intercourse, which never existed in the olden time, but which
has been introduced into this country of late years with the mania for
family. Since the Revolution the manners and customs of the bourgeois
have invaded the homes of the aristocracy. This misfortune is due to one
of their writers, Rousseau, an infamous heretic, whose ideas were all
anti-social and who pretended, I don’t know how, to justify the most
senseless things. He declared that all women had the same rights and
the same faculties; that living in a state of society we ought,
nevertheless, to obey nature--as if the wife of a Spanish grandee, as
if you or I had anything in common with the women of the people! Since
then, well-bred women have suckled their children, have educated their
daughters, and stayed in their own homes. Life has become so involved
that happiness is almost impossible,--for a perfect harmony between
natures such as that which has made you and me live as two friends is an
exception. Perpetual contact is as dangerous for parents and children as
it is for husband and wife. There are few souls in which love survives
this fatal omnipresence. Therefore, I say, erect between yourself and
Paul the barriers of society; go to balls and operas; go out in the
morning, dine out in the evenings, pay visits constantly, and grant but
little of your time to your husband. By this means you will always keep
your value to him. When two beings bound together for life have
nothing to live upon but sentiment, its resources are soon exhausted,
indifference, satiety, and disgust succeed. When sentiment has withered
what will become of you? Remember, affection once extinguished can lead
to nothing but indifference or contempt. Be ever young and ever new to
him. He may weary you,--that often happens,--but you must never weary
him. The faculty of being bored without showing it is a condition of
all species of power. You cannot diversify happiness by the cares of
property or the occupations of a family. If you do not make your husband
share your social interests, if you do not keep him amused you will fall
into a dismal apathy. Then begins the SPLEEN of love. But a man will
always love the woman who amuses him and keeps him happy. To give
happiness and to receive it are two lines of feminine conduct which are
separated by a gulf.”
“Dear mother, I am listening to you, but I don’t understand one word you
say.”
“If you love Paul to the extent of doing all he asks of you, if you make
your happiness depend on him, all is over with your future life; you
will never be mistress of your home, and the best precepts in the world
will do you no good.”
“That is plainer; but I see the rule without knowing how to apply it,”
said Natalie, laughing. “I have the theory; the practice will come.”
“My poor Ninie,” replied the mother, who dropped an honest tear at the
thought of her daughter’s marriage, “things will happen to teach it to
you--And,” she continued, after a pause, during which the mother and
daughter held each other closely embraced in the truest sympathy,
“remember this, my Natalie: we all have our destiny as women, just as
men have their vocation as men. A woman is born to be a woman of the
world and a charming hostess, as a man is born to be a general or a
poet. Your vocation is to please. Your education has formed you for
society. In these days women should be educated for the salon as they
once were for the gynoecium. You were not born to be the mother of a
family or the steward of a household. If you have children, I hope
they will not come to spoil your figure on the morrow of your marriage;
nothing is so bourgeois as to have a child at once. If you have them
two or three years after your marriage, well and good; governesses and
tutors will bring them up. YOU are to be the lady, the great lady, who
represents the luxury and the pleasure of the house. But remember
one thing--let your superiority be visible in those things only which
flatter a man’s self-love; hide the superiority you must also acquire
over him in great things.”
“But you frighten me, mamma,” cried Natalie. “How can I remember
all these precepts? How shall I ever manage, I, such a child, and so
heedless, to reflect and calculate before I act?”
“But, my dear little girl, I am telling you to-day that which you must
surely learn later, buying your experience by fatal faults and errors
of conduct which will cause you bitter regrets and embarrass your whole
life.”
“But how must I begin?” asked Natalie, artlessly.
“Instinct will guide you,” replied her mother. “At this moment Paul
desires you more than he loves you; for love born of desires is a hope;
the love that succeeds their satisfaction is the reality. There, my
dear, is the question; there lies your power. What woman is not loved
before marriage? Be so on the morrow and you shall remain so always.
Paul is a weak man who is easily trained to habit. If he yields to you
once he will yield always. A woman ardently desired can ask all things;
do not commit the folly of many women who do not see the importance of
the first hours of their sway,--that of wasting your power on trifles,
on silly things with no result. Use the empire your husband’s first
emotions give you to accustom him to obedience. And when you make him
yield, choose that it be on some unreasonable point, so as to test the
measure of your power by the measure of his concession. What victory
would there be in making him agree to a reasonable thing? Would that
be obeying you? We must always, as the Castilian proverb says, take
the bull by the horns; when a bull has once seen the inutility of his
defence and of his strength he is beaten. When your husband does a
foolish thing for you, you can govern him.”
“Why so?”
“Because, my child, marriage lasts a lifetime, and a husband is not a
man like other men. Therefore, never commit the folly of giving yourself
into his power in everything. Keep up a constant reserve in your speech
and in your actions. You may even be cold to him without danger, for you
can modify coldness at will. Besides, nothing is more easy to maintain
than our dignity. The words, ‘It is not becoming in your wife to do thus
and so,’ is a great talisman. The life of a woman lies in the words, ‘I
will not.’ They are the final argument. Feminine power is in them,
and therefore they should only be used on real occasions. But they
constitute a means of governing far beyond that of argument or
discussion. I, my dear child, reigned over your father by his faith in
me. If your husband believes in you, you can do all things with him. To
inspire that belief you must make him think that you understand him. Do
not suppose that that is an easy thing to do. A woman can always make a
man think that he is loved, but to make him admit that he is understood
is far more difficult. I am bound to tell you all now, my child, for
to-morrow life with its complications, life with two wills which
_must_ be made one, begins for you. Bear in mind, at all moments, that
difficulty. The only means of harmonizing your two wills is to arrange
from the first that there shall be but one; and that will must be yours.
Many persons declare that a wife creates her own unhappiness by changing
sides in this way; but, my dear, she can only become the mistress
by controlling events instead of bearing them; and that advantage
compensates for any difficulty.”
Natalie kissed her mother’s hands with tears of gratitude. Like all
women in whom mental emotion is never warmed by physical emotion, she
suddenly comprehended the bearings of this feminine policy; but, like
a spoiled child that never admits the force of reason and returns
obstinately to its one desire, she came back to the charge with one of
those personal arguments which the logic of a child suggests:--
“Dear mamma,” she said, “it is only a few days since you were talking
of Paul’s advancement, and saying that you alone could promote it; why,
then, do you suddenly turn round and abandon us to ourselves?”
“I did not then know the extent of my obligations nor the amount of my
debts,” replied the mother, who would not suffer her real motive to be
seen. “Besides, a year or two hence I can take up that matter again.
Come, let us dress; Paul will be here soon. Be as sweet and caressing
as you were,--you know?--that night when we first discussed this fatal
contract; for to-day we must save the last fragments of our fortune, and
I must win for you a thing to which I am superstitiously attached.”
“What is it?”
“The ‘Discreto.’”
Paul arrived about four o’clock. Though he endeavored to meet his
mother-in-law with a gracious look upon his face, Madame Evangelista saw
traces of the clouds which the counsels of the night and the reflections
of the morning had brought there.
“Mathias has told him!” she thought, resolving to defeat the old
notary’s action. “My dear son,” she said, “you left your diamonds in the
drawer of the console, and I frankly confess that I would rather not see
again the things that threatened to bring a cloud between us. Besides,
as Monsieur Mathias said, they ought to be sold at once to meet the
first payment on the estates you have purchased.”
“They are not mine,” he said. “I have given them to Natalie, and when
you see them upon her you will forget the pain they caused you.”
Madame Evangelista took his hand and pressed it cordially, with a tear
of emotion.
“Listen to me, my dear children,” she said, looking from Paul to
Natalie; “since you really feel thus, I have a proposition to make to
both of you. I find myself obliged to sell my pearl necklace and my
earrings. Yes, Paul, it is necessary; I do not choose to put a penny of
my fortune into an annuity; I know what I owe to you. Well, I admit
a weakness; to sell the ‘Discreto’ seems to me a disaster. To sell a
diamond which bears the name of Philip the Second and once adorned his
royal hand, an historic stone which the Duke of Alba touched for ten
years in the hilt of his sword--no, no, I cannot! Elie Magus estimates
my necklace and ear-rings at a hundred and some odd thousand francs
without the clasps. Will you exchange the other jewels I made over to
you for these? you will gain by the transaction, but what of that? I am
not selfish. Instead of those mere fancy jewels, Paul, your wife will
have fine diamonds which she can really enjoy. Isn’t it better that I
should sell those ornaments which will surely go out of fashion, and
that you should keep in the family these priceless stones?”
“But, my dear mother, consider yourself,” said Paul.
“I,” replied Madame Evangelista, “I want such things no longer. Yes,
Paul, I am going to be your bailiff at Lanstrac. It would be folly in
me to go to Paris at the moment when I ought to be here to liquidate
my property and settle my affairs. I shall grow miserly for my
grandchildren.”
“Dear mother,” said Paul, much moved, “ought I to accept this exchange
without paying you the difference?”
“Good heavens! are you not, both of you, my dearest interests? Do
you suppose I shall not find happiness in thinking, as I sit in my
chimney-corner, ‘Natalie is dazzling to-night at the Duchesse de Berry’s
ball’? When she sees my diamond at her throat and my ear-rings in
her ears she will have one of those little enjoyments of vanity which
contribute so much to a woman’s happiness and make her so gay and
fascinating. Nothing saddens a woman more than to have her vanity
repressed; I have never seen an ill-dressed woman who was amiable or
good-humored.”
“Heavens! what was Mathias thinking about?” thought Paul. “Well, then,
mamma,” he said, in a low voice, “I accept.”
“But I am confounded!” said Natalie.
At this moment Solonet arrived to announce the good news that he had
found among the speculators of Bordeaux two contractors who were much
attracted by the house, the gardens of which could be covered with
dwellings.
“They offer two hundred and fifty thousand francs,” he said; “but if you
consent to the sale, I can make them give you three hundred thousand.
There are three acres of land in the garden.”
“My husband paid two hundred thousand for the place, therefore I
consent,” she replied. “But you must reserve the furniture and the
mirrors.”
“Ah!” said Solonet, “you are beginning to understand business.”
“Alas! I must,” she said, sighing.
“I am told that a great many persons are coming to your midnight
service,” said Solonet, perceiving that his presence was inopportune,
and preparing to go.
Madame Evangelista accompanied him to the door of the last salon, and
there she said, in a low voice:--
“I now have personal property to the amount of two hundred and fifty
thousand francs; if I can get two hundred thousand for my share of the
house it will make a handsome capital, which I shall want to invest to
the very best advantage. I count on you for that. I shall probably live
at Lanstrac.”
The young notary kissed his client’s hand with a gesture of gratitude;
for the widow’s tone of voice made Solonet fancy that this alliance,
really made from self-interest only, might extend a little farther.
“You can count on me,” he replied. “I can find you investments in
merchandise on which you will risk nothing and make very considerable
profits.”
“Adieu until to-morrow,” she said; “you are to be our witness, you know,
with Monsieur le Marquis de Gyas.”
“My dear mother,” said Paul, when she returned to them, “why do you
refuse to come to Paris? Natalie is provoked with me, as if I were the
cause of your decision.”
“I have thought it all over, my children, and I am sure that I should
hamper you. You would feel obliged to make me a third in all you did,
and young people have ideas of their own which I might, unintentionally,
thwart. Go to Paris. I do not wish to exercise over the Comtesse de
Manerville the gentle authority I have held over Natalie. I desire to
leave her wholly to you. Don’t you see, Paul, that there are habits and
ways between us which must be broken up? My influence ought to yield to
yours. I want you to love me, and to believe that I have your interests
more at heart than you think for. Young husbands are, sooner or later,
jealous for the love of a wife for her mother. Perhaps they are right.
When you are thoroughly united, when love has blended your two souls
into one, then, my dear son, you will not fear an opposing influence if
I live in your house. I know the world, and men, and things; I have seen
the peace of many a home destroyed by the blind love of mothers who
made themselves in the end as intolerable to their daughters as to
their sons-in-law. The affection of old people is often exacting and
querulous. Perhaps I could not efface myself as I should. I have the
weakness to think myself still handsome; I have flatterers who declare
that I am still agreeable; I should have, I fear, certain pretensions
which might interfere with your lives. Let me, therefore, make one more
sacrifice for your happiness. I have given you my fortune, and now I
desire to resign to you my last vanities as a woman. Your notary Mathias
is getting old. He cannot look after your estates as I will. I will be
your bailiff; I will create for myself those natural occupations which
are the pleasures of old age. Later, if necessary, I will come to you
in Paris, and second you in your projects of ambition. Come, Paul, be
frank; my proposal suits you, does it not?”
Paul would not admit it, but he was at heart delighted to get his
liberty. The suspicions which Mathias had put into his mind respecting
his mother-in-law were, however, dissipated by this conversation, which
Madame Evangelista carried on still longer in the same tone.
“My mother was right,” thought Natalie, who had watched Paul’s
countenance. “He _is_ glad to know that I am separated from her--why?”
That “why” was the first note of a rising distrust; did it prove the
power of those maternal instructions?
There are certain characters which on the faith of a single proof
believe in friendship. To persons thus constituted the north wind drives
away the clouds as rapidly as the south wind brings them; they stop at
effects and never hark back to causes. Paul had one of those essentially
confiding natures, without ill-feelings, but also without foresight. His
weakness proceeded far more from his kindness, his belief in goodness,
than from actual debility of soul.
Natalie was sad and thoughtful, for she knew not what to do without
her mother. Paul, with that self-confident conceit which comes of love,
smiled to himself at her sadness, thinking how soon the pleasures
of marriage and the excitements of Paris would drive it away. Madame
Evangelista saw this confidence with much satisfaction. She had already
taken two great steps. Her daughter possessed the diamonds which had
cost Paul two hundred thousand francs; and she had gained her point of
leaving these two children to themselves with no other guide than their
illogical love. Her revenge was thus preparing, unknown to her daughter,
who would, sooner or later, become its accomplice. Did Natalie love
Paul? That was a question still undecided, the answer to which might
modify her projects, for she loved her daughter too sincerely not to
respect her happiness. Paul’s future, therefore, still depended on
himself. If he could make his wife love him, he was saved.
The next day, at midnight, after an evening spent together, with the
addition of the four witnesses, to whom Madame Evangelista gave the
formal dinner which follows the legal marriage, the bridal pair,
accompanied by their friends, heard mass by torchlight, in presence of
a crowd of inquisitive persons. A marriage celebrated at night always
suggests to the mind an unpleasant omen. Light is the symbol of life and
pleasure, the forecasts of which are lacking to a midnight wedding. Ask
the intrepid soul why it shivers; why the chill of those black arches
enervates it; why the sound of steps startles it; why it notices the cry
of bats and the hoot of owls. Though there is absolutely no reason to
tremble, all present do tremble, and the darkness, emblem of death,
saddens them. Natalie, parted from her mother, wept. The girl was now a
prey to those doubts which grasp the heart as it enters a new career in
which, despite all assurances of happiness, a thousand pitfalls await
the steps of a young wife. She was cold and wanted a mantle. The air and
manner of Madame Evangelista and that of the bridal pair excited some
comment among the elegant crowd which surrounded the altar.
“Solonet tells me that the bride and bridegroom leave for Paris
to-morrow morning, all alone.”
“Madame Evangelista was to live with them, I thought.”
“Count Paul has got rid of her already.”
“What a mistake!” said the Marquise de Gyas. “To shut the door on the
mother of his wife is to open it to a lover. Doesn’t he know what a
mother is?”
“He has been very hard on Madame Evangelista; the poor woman has had to
sell her house and her diamonds, and is going to live at Lanstrac.”
“Natalie looks very sad.”
“Would you like to be made to take a journey the day after your
marriage?”
“It is very awkward.”
“I am glad I came here to-night,” said a lady. “I am now convinced of
the necessity of the pomps of marriage and of wedding fetes; a scene
like this is very bare and sad. If I may say what I think,” she added,
in a whisper to her neighbor, “this marriage seems to me indecent.”
Madame Evangelista took Natalie in her carriage and accompanied her,
alone, to Paul’s house.
“Well, mother, it is done!”
“Remember, my dear child, my last advice, and you will be a happy woman.
Be his wife, and not his mistress.”
When Natalie had retired, the mother played the little comedy of
flinging herself with tears into the arms of her son-in-law. It was the
only provincial thing that Madame Evangelista allowed herself, but she
had her reasons for it. Amid tears and speeches, apparently half
wild and despairing, she obtained of Paul those concessions which all
husbands make.
The next day she put the married pair into their carriage, and
accompanied them to the ferry, by which the road to Paris crosses the
Gironde. With a look and a word Natalie enabled her mother to see that
if Paul had won the trick in the game of the contract, her revenge
was beginning. Natalie was already reducing her husband to perfect
obedience.