_Mouche_ is a game played with five cards dealt to each player, and one
turned over. The turned-over card is trumps. At each round the player is
at liberty to run his chances or to abstain from playing his card. If he
abstains he loses nothing but his own stake, for as long as there are no
forfeits in the basket each player puts in a trifling sum. If he plays
and wins a trick he is paid _pro rata_ to the stake; that is, if there
are five sous in the basket, he wins one sou. The player who fails
to win a trick is made _mouche_; he has to pay the whole stake, which
swells the basket for the next game. Those who decline to play throw
down their cards during the game; but their play is held to be null. The
players can exchange their cards with the remainder of the pack, as
in ecarte, but only by order of sequence, so that the first and second
players may, and sometimes do, absorb the remainder of the pack between
them. The turned-over trump card belongs to the dealer, who is always
the last; he has the right to exchange it for any card in his own hand.
One powerful card is of more importance than all the rest; it is called
Mistigris. Mistigris is the knave of clubs.
This game, simple as it is, is not lacking in interest. The cupidity
natural to mankind develops in it; so does diplomatic wiliness; also
play of countenance. At the hotel du Guenic, each of the players took
twenty counters, representing five sous; which made the sum total of the
stake for each game five farthings, a large amount in the eyes of
this company. Supposing some extraordinary luck, fifty sous might be
won,--more capital than any person in Guerande spent in the course of
any one day. Consequently Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel put into this game
(the innocence of which is only surpassed in the nomenclature of the
Academy by that of La Bataille) a passion corresponding to that of the
hunters after big game. Mademoiselle Zephirine, who went shares in the
game with the baroness, attached no less importance to it. To put up one
farthing for the chance of winning five, game after game, was to this
confirmed hoarder a mighty financial operation, into which she put as
much mental action as the most eager speculator at the Bourse expends
during the rise and fall of consols.
By a certain diplomatic convention, dating from September, 1825, when
Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel lost thirty-five sous, the game was to cease
as soon as a person losing ten sous should express the wish to retire.
Politeness did not allow the rest to give the retiring player the pain
of seeing the game go on without him. But, as all passions have their
Jesuitism, the chevalier and the baron, those wily politicians, had
found a means of eluding this charter. When all the players but one were
anxious to continue an exciting game, the daring sailor, du Halga, one
of those rich fellows prodigal of costs they do not pay, would offer
ten counters to Mademoiselle Zephirine or Mademoiselle Jacqueline, when
either of them, or both of them, had lost their five sous, on condition
of reimbursement in case they won. An old bachelor could allow himself
such gallantries to the sex. The baron also offered ten counters to
the old maids, but under the honest pretext of continuing the game. The
miserly maidens accepted, not, however, without some pressing, as is the
use and wont of maidens. But, before giving way to this vast prodigality
the baron and the chevalier were required to have won; otherwise the
offer would have been taken as an insult.
_Mouche_ became a brilliant affair when a Demoiselle de Kergarouet was
in transit with her aunt. We use the single name, for the
Kergarouets had never been able to induce any one to call them
Kergarouet-Pen-Hoel,--not even their servants, although the latter had
strict orders so to do. At these times the aunt held out to the niece as
a signal treat the _mouche_ at the du Guenics. The girl was ordered
to look amiable, an easy thing to do in the presence of the beautiful
Calyste, whom the four Kergarouet young ladies all adored. Brought up in
the midst of modern civilization, these young persons cared little for
five sous a game, and on such occasions the stakes went higher. Those
were evenings of great emotion to the old blind sister. The baroness
would give her sundry hints by pressing her foot a certain number of
times, according to the size of the stake it was safe to play. To play
or not to play, if the basket were full, involved an inward struggle,
where cupidity fought with fear. If Charlotte de Kergarouet, who was
usually called giddy, was lucky in her bold throws, her aunt on
their return home (if she had not won herself), would be cold and
disapproving, and lecture the girl: she had too much decision in her
character; a young person should never assert herself in presence of
her betters; her manner of taking the basket and beginning to play was
really insolent; the proper behavior of a young girl demanded much more
reserve and greater modesty; etc.
It can easily be imagined that these games, carried on nightly for
twenty years, were interrupted now and then by narratives of events
in the town, or by discussions on public events. Sometimes the players
would sit for half an hour, their cards held fan-shape on their
stomachs, engaged in talking. If, as a result of these inattentions, a
counter was missing from the basket, every one eagerly declared that he
or she had put in their proper number. Usually the chevalier made up the
deficiency, being accused by the rest of thinking so much of his buzzing
ears, his chilly chest, and other symptoms of invalidism that he must
have forgotten his stake. But no sooner did he supply the missing
counter than Zephirine and Jacqueline were seized with remorse; they
imagined that, possibly, they themselves had forgotten their stake; they
believed--they doubted--but, after all, the chevalier was rich enough
to bear such a trifling misfortune. These dignified and noble personages
had the delightful pettiness of suspecting each other. Mademoiselle de
Pen-Hoel would almost invariably accuse the rector of cheating when he
won the basket.
“It is singular,” he would reply, “that I never cheat except when I win
the trick.”
Often the baron would forget where he was when the talk fell on the
misfortunes of the royal house. Sometimes the evening ended in a manner
that was quite unexpected to the players, who all counted on a certain
gain. After a certain number of games and when the hour grew late, these
excellent people would be forced to separate without either loss or
gain, but not without emotion. On these sad evenings complaints were
made of _mouche_ itself; it was dull, it was long; the players accused
their _mouche_ as Negroes stone the moon in the water when the weather
is bad. On one occasion, after an arrival of the Vicomte and Vicomtesse
de Kergarouet, there was talk of whist and boston being games of
more interest than _mouche_. The baroness, who was bored by _mouche_,
encouraged the innovation, and all the company--but not without
reluctance--adopted it. But it proved impossible to make them really
understand the new games, which, on the departure of the Kergarouets,
were voted head-splitters, algebraic problems, and intolerably difficult
to play. All preferred their _mouche_, their dear, agreeable _mouche_.
_Mouche_ accordingly triumphed over modern games, as all ancient things
have ever triumphed in Brittany over novelties.
While the rector was dealing the cards the baroness was asking the
Chevalier du Halga the same questions which she had asked him the
evening before about his health. The chevalier made it a point of honor
to have new ailments. Inquiries might be alike, but the nautical hero
had singular advantages in the way of replies. To-day it chanced that
his ribs troubled him. But here’s a remarkable thing! never did the
worthy chevalier complain of his wounds. The ills that were really the
matter with him he expected, he knew them and he bore them; but his
fancied ailments, his headaches, the gnawings in his stomach, the
buzzing in his ears, and a thousand other fads and symptoms made him
horribly uneasy; he posed as incurable,--and not without reason, for
doctors up to the present time have found no remedy for diseases that
don’t exist.
“Yesterday the trouble was, I believe, in your legs,” said the rector.
“It moves about,” replied the chevalier.
“Legs to ribs?” asked Mademoiselle Zephirine.
“Without stopping on the way?” said Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, smiling.
The chevalier bowed gravely, making a negative gesture which was not a
little droll, and proved to an observer that in his youth the sailor had
been witty and loving and beloved. Perhaps his fossil life at Guerande
hid many memories. When he stood, solemnly planted on his two heron-legs
in the sunshine on the mall, gazing at the sea or watching the gambols
of his little dog, perhaps he was living again in some terrestrial
paradise of a past that was rich in recollections.
“So the old Duc de Lenoncourt is dead,” said the baron, remembering
the paragraph of the “Quotidienne,” where his wife had stopped reading.
“Well, the first gentleman of the Bedchamber followed his master soon. I
shall go next.”
“My dear, my dear!” said his wife, gently tapping the bony calloused
hand of her husband.
“Let him say what he likes, sister,” said Zephirine; “as long as I am
above ground he can’t be under it; I am the elder.”
A gay smile played on the old woman’s lips. Whenever the baron made
reflections of that kind, the players and the visitors present looked
at each other with emotion, distressed by the sadness of the king of
Guerande; and after they had left the house they would say, as they
walked home: “Monsieur du Guenic was sad to-night. Did you notice how he
slept?” And the next day the whole town would talk of the matter. “The
Baron du Guenic fails,” was a phrase that opened the conversation in
many houses.
“How is Thisbe?” asked Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel of the chevalier, as
soon as the cards were dealt.
“The poor little thing is like her master,” replied the chevalier; “she
has some nervous trouble, she goes on three legs constantly. See, like
this.”
In raising and crooking his arm to imitate the dog, the chevalier
exposed his hand to his cunning neighbor, who wanted to see if he had
Mistigris or the trump,--a first wile to which he succumbed.
“Oh!” said the baroness, “the end of Monsieur le cure’s nose is turning
white; he has Mistigris.”
The pleasure of having Mistigris was so great to the rector--as it was
to the other players--that the poor priest could not conceal it. In
all human faces there is a spot where the secret emotions of the heart
betray themselves; and these companions, accustomed for years to observe
each other, had ended by finding out that spot on the rector’s face:
when he had Mistigris the tip of his nose grew pale.
“You had company to-day,” said the chevalier to Mademoiselle de
Pen-Hoel.
“Yes, a cousin of my brother-in-law. He surprised me by announcing the
marriage of the Comtesse de Kergarouet, a Demoiselle de Fontaine.”
“The daughter of ‘Grand-Jacques,’” cried the chevalier, who had lived
with the admiral during his stay in Paris.
“The countess is his heir; she has married an old ambassador. My visitor
told me the strangest things about our neighbor, Mademoiselle des
Touches,--so strange that I can’t believe them. If they were true,
Calyste would never be so constantly with her; he has too much good
sense not to perceive such monstrosities--”
“Monstrosities?” said the baron, waked up by the word.
The baroness and the rector exchanged looks. The cards were dealt;
Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel had Mistigris! Impossible to continue the
conversation! But she was glad to hide her joy under the excitement
caused by her last word.
“Your play, monsieur le baron,” she said, with an air of importance.
“My nephew is not one of those youths who like monstrosities,” remarked
Zephirine, taking out her knitting-needle and scratching her head.
“Mistigris!” cried Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, making no reply to her
friend.
The rector, who appeared to be well-informed in the matter of Calyste
and Mademoiselle des Touches, did not enter the lists.
“What does she do that is so extraordinary, Mademoiselle des Touches?”
asked the baron.
“She smokes,” replied Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel.
“That’s very wholesome,” said the chevalier.
“About her property?” asked the baron.
“Her property?” continued the old maid. “Oh, she is running through it.”
“The game is mine!” said the baroness. “See, I have king, queen, knave
of trumps, Mistigris, and a king. We win the basket, sister.”
This victory, gained at one stroke, without playing a card, horrified
Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, who ceased to concern herself about Calyste
and Mademoiselle des Touches. By nine o’clock no one remained in the
salon but the baroness and the rector. The four old people had gone to
their beds. The chevalier, according to his usual custom, accompanied
Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel to her house in the Place de Guerande, making
remarks as they went along on the cleverness of the last play, on
the joy with which Mademoiselle Zephirine engulfed her gains in those
capacious pockets of hers,--for the old blind woman no longer repressed
upon her face the visible signs of her feelings. Madame du Guenic’s
evident preoccupation was the chief topic of conversation, however. The
chevalier had remarked the abstraction of the beautiful Irish woman.
When they reached Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel’s door-step, and her page
had gone in, the old lady answered, confidentially, the remarks of the
chevalier on the strangely abstracted air of the baroness:--
“I know the cause. Calyste is lost unless we marry him promptly. He
loves Mademoiselle des Touches, an actress!”
“In that case, send for Charlotte.”
“I have sent; my sister will receive my letter to-morrow,” replied
Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, bowing to the chevalier.
Imagine from this sketch of a normal evening the hubbub excited in
Guerande homes by the arrival, the stay, the departure, or even the mere
passage through the town, of a stranger.
When no sounds echoed from the baron’s chamber nor from that of his
sister, the baroness looked at the rector, who was playing pensively
with the counters.
“I see that you begin to share my anxiety about Calyste,” she said to
him.
“Did you notice Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel’s displeased looks to-night?”
asked the rector.
“Yes,” replied the baroness.
“She has, as I know, the best intentions about our dear Calyste; she
loves him as though he were her son, his conduct in Vendee beside his
father, the praises that MADAME bestowed upon his devotion, have only
increased her affection for him. She intends to execute a deed of gift
by which she gives her whole property at her death to whichever of her
nieces Calyste marries. I know that you have another and much richer
marriage in Ireland for your dear Calyste, but it is well to have
two strings to your bow. In case your family will not take charge of
Calyste’s establishment, Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel’s fortune is not to
be despised. You can always find a match of seven thousand francs a year
for the dear boy, but it is not often that you could come across the
savings of forty years and landed property as well managed, built up,
and kept in repair as that of Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel. That ungodly
woman, Mademoiselle des Touches, has come here to ruin many excellent
things. Her life is now known.”
“And what is it?” asked the mother.
“Oh! that of a trollop,” replied the rector,--“a woman of questionable
morals, a writer for the stage; frequenting theatres and actors;
squandering her fortune among pamphleteers, painters, musicians, a
devilish society, in short. She writes books herself, and has taken a
false name by which she is better known, they tell me, than by her own.
She seems to be a sort of circus woman who never enters a church except
to look at the pictures. She has spent quite a fortune in decorating
Les Touches in a most improper fashion, making it a Mohammedan paradise
where the houris are not women. There is more wine drunk there, they
say, during the few weeks of her stay than the whole year round in
Guerande. The Demoiselles Bougniol let their lodgings last year to men
with beards, who were suspected of being Blues; they sang wicked songs
which made those virtuous women blush and weep, and spent their time
mostly at Les Touches. And this is the woman our dear Calyste adores!
If that creature wanted to-night one of the infamous books in which the
atheists of the present day scoff at holy things, Calyste would saddle
his horse himself and gallop to Nantes for it. I am not sure that he
would do as much for the Church. Moreover, this Breton woman is not a
royalist! If Calyste were again called upon to strike a blow for the
cause, and Mademoiselle des Touches--the Sieur Camille Maupin, that is
her other name, as I have just remembered--if she wanted to keep him
with her the chevalier would let his old father go to the field without
him.”
“Oh, no!” said the baroness.
“I should not like to put him to the proof; you would suffer too much,”
replied the rector. “All Guerande is turned upside down about Calyste’s
passion for this amphibious creature, who is neither man nor woman, who
smokes like an hussar, writes like a journalist, and has at this very
moment in her house the most venomous of all writers,--so the postmaster
says, and he’s a _juste-milieu_ man who reads the papers. They are even
talking about her at Nantes. This morning the Kergarouet cousin who
wants to marry Charlotte to a man with sixty thousand francs a year,
went to see Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, and filled her mind with tales
about Mademoiselle des Touches which lasted seven hours. It is now
striking a quarter to ten, and Calyste is not home; he is at Les
Touches,--perhaps he won’t come in all night.”
The baroness listened to the rector, who was substituting monologue for
dialogue unconsciously as he looked at this lamb of his fold, on whose
face could be read her anxiety. She colored and trembled. When the
worthy man saw the tears in the beautiful eyes of the mother, he was
moved to compassion.
“I will see Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel to-morrow,” he said. “Don’t be too
uneasy. The harm may not be as great as they say it is. I will find
out the truth. Mademoiselle Jacqueline has confidence in me. Besides,
Calyste is our child, our pupil,--he will never let the devil inveigle
him; neither will he trouble the peace of his family or destroy the
plans we have made for his future. Therefore, don’t weep; all is not
lost, madame; one fault is not vice.”
“You are only informing me of details,” said the baroness. “Was not I
the first to notice the change in my Calyste? A mother keenly feels the
shock of finding herself second in the heart of her son. She cannot
be deceived. This crisis in a man’s life is one of the trials of
motherhood. I have prepared myself for it, but I did not think it would
come so soon. I hoped, at least, that Calyste would take into his heart
some noble and beautiful being,--not a stage-player, a masquerader, a
theatre woman, an author whose business it is to feign sentiments,
a creature who will deceive him and make him unhappy! She has had
adventures--”
“With several men,” said the rector. “And yet this impious creature was
born in Brittany! She dishonors her land. I shall preach a sermon upon
her next Sunday.”
“Don’t do that!” cried the baroness. “The peasants and the _paludiers_
would be capable of rushing to Les Touches. Calyste is worthy of his
name; he is Breton; some dreadful thing might happen to him, for he
would surely defend her as he would the Blessed Virgin.”
“It is now ten o’clock; I must bid you good-night,” said the abbe,
lighting the wick of his lantern, the glass of which was clear and the
metal shining, which testified to the care his housekeeper bestowed on
the household property. “Who could ever have told me, madame,” he added,
“that a young man brought up by you, trained by me to Christian ideas,
a fervent Catholic, a child who has lived as a lamb without spot, would
plunge into such mire?”
“But is it certain?” said the mother. “How could any woman help loving
Calyste?”
“What other proof is needed than her staying on at Les Touches. In all
the twenty-four years since she came of age she has never stayed there
so long as now; her visits to these parts, happily for us, were few and
short.”
“A woman over forty years old!” exclaimed the baroness. “I have heard
say in Ireland that a woman of this description is the most dangerous
mistress a young man can have.”
“As to that, I have no knowledge,” replied the rector, “and I shall die
in my ignorance.”
“And I, too, alas!” said the baroness, naively. “I wish now that I had
loved with love, so as to understand and counsel and comfort Calyste.”
The rector did not cross the clean little court-yard alone; the baroness
accompanied him to the gate, hoping to hear Calyste’s step coming
through the town. But she heard nothing except the heavy tread of the
rector’s cautious feet, which grew fainter in the distance, and finally
ceased when the closing of the door of the parsonage echoed behind him.