When a woman returns to ordinary life after the nursing of her first
child she reappears in the world embellished and charming. This phase
of maternity, while it rejuvenates the women of a certain age, gives to
young women a splendor of freshness, a gay activity, a _brio_ of mere
existence,--if it is permissible to apply to the body a word which Italy
has discovered for the mind. In trying to return to the charming habits
of the honeymoon, Sabine discovered that her husband was not the former
Calyste. Again she observed him, unhappy girl, instead of resting
securely in her happiness. She sought for the fatal perfume, and smelt
it. This time she no longer confided in her friend, nor in the mother
who had so charitably deceived her. She wanted certainty, and Certainty
made no long tarrying. Certainty is never wanting, it is like the sun;
and presently shades are asked for to keep it out. It is, in matters
of the heart, a repetition of the fable of the woodman calling upon
Death,--we soon ask Certainty to leave us blind.
One morning, about two weeks after the first crisis, Sabine received
this terrible letter:--
Guerande.
To Madame la Baronne du Guenic:
My dear Daughter,--Your aunt Zephirine and I are lost in
conjectures about the dressing-table of which you tell us in your
letter. I have written to Calyste about it, and I beg you to
excuse our ignorance. You can never doubt our hearts, I am sure.
We are piling up riches for you here. Thanks to the advice of
Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel on the management of your property, you
will find yourself within a few years in possession of a
considerable capital without losing any of your income.
Your letter, dear child as dearly loved as if I had borne you in
my bosom and fed you with my milk, surprised me by its brevity,
and above all by your silence about my dearest little Calyste. You
told me nothing of the great Calyste either; but then, I know that
_he_ is happy, etc.
Sabine wrote across this letter these words, “Noble Brittany does not
always lie.” She then laid the paper on Calyste’s desk.
Calyste found the letter and read it. Seeing Sabine’s sentence
and recognizing her handwriting he flung the letter into the fire,
determined to pretend that he had never received it. Sabine spent a
whole week in an agony the secrets of which are known only to angelic
or solitary souls whom the wing of the bad angel has never overshadowed.
Calyste’s silence terrified her.
“I, who ought to be all gentleness, all pleasure to him, I have
displeased him, wounded him! My virtue has made itself hateful. I have
no doubt humiliated my idol,” she said to herself. These thoughts
plowed furrows in her heart. She wanted to ask pardon for her fault,
but Certainty let loose upon her other proofs. Grown bold and insolent,
Beatrix wrote to Calyste at his own home; Madame du Guenic received the
letter, and gave it to her husband without opening it, but she said to
him, in a changed voice and with death in her soul: “My friend, that
letter is from the Jockey Club; I recognize both the paper and the
perfume.”
Calyste colored, and put the letter into his pocket.
“Why don’t you read it?”
“I know what it is about.”
The young wife sat down. No longer did fever burn her, she wept no more;
but madness such as, in feeble beings, gives birth to miracles of crime,
madness which lays hands on arsenic for themselves or for their rivals,
possessed her. At this moment little Calyste was brought in, and she
took him in her arms to dance him. The child, just awakened, sought the
breast beneath the gown.
“He remembers,--he, at any rate,” she said in a low voice.
Calyste went to his own room to read his letter. When he was no longer
present the poor young woman burst into tears, and wept as women weep
when they are all alone.
Pain, as well as pleasure, has its initiation. The first crisis, like
that in which poor Sabine nearly succumbed, returns no more than the
first fruits of other things return. It is the first wedge struck in the
torture of the heart; all others are expected, the shock to the nerves
is known, the capital of our forces has been already drawn upon for
vigorous resistance. So Sabine, sure of her betrayal, spent three
hours with her son in her arms beside the fire in a way that surprised
herself, when Gasselin, turned into a footman, came to say:--
“Madame is served.”
“Let monsieur know.”
“Monsieur does not dine at home, Madame la baronne.”
Who knows what torture there is for a young woman of twenty-three in
finding herself alone in the great dining-room of an old mansion, served
by silent servants, under circumstances like these?
“Order the carriage,” she said suddenly; “I shall go to the Opera.”
She dressed superbly; she wanted to exhibit herself alone and smiling
like a happy woman. In the midst of her remorse for the addition she had
made to Madame de Rochefide’s letter she had resolved to conquer, to
win back Calyste by loving kindness, by the virtues of a wife, by the
gentleness of the paschal lamb. She wished, also, to deceive all Paris.
She loved,--loved as courtesans and as angels love, with pride, with
humility. But the opera chanced to be “Otello.” When Rubini sang _Il mio
cor si divide_, she rushed away. Music is sometimes mightier than actor
or poet, the two most powerful of all natures, combined. Savinien de
Portenduere accompanied Sabine to the peristyle and put her in the
carriage without being able to understand this sudden flight.
Madame du Guenic now entered a phase of suffering which is peculiar to
the aristocracy. Envious, poor, and miserable beings,--when you see on
the arms of such women golden serpents with diamond heads, necklaces
clasped around their necks, say to yourselves that those vipers sting,
those slender bonds burn to the quick through the delicate flesh. All
such luxury is dearly bought. In situations like that of Sabine, women
curse the pleasures of wealth; they look no longer at the gilding of
their salons; the silk of the divans is jute in their eyes, exotic
flowers are nettles, perfumes poison, the choicest cookery scrapes their
throat like barley-bread, and life becomes as bitter as the Dead Sea.
Two or three examples may serve to show this reaction of luxury upon
happiness; so that all those women who have endured it may behold their
own experience.
Fully aware now of this terrible rivalry, Sabine studied her husband
when he left the house, that she might divine, if possible, the future
of his day. With what restrained fury does a woman fling herself upon
the red-hot spikes of that savage martyrdom! What delirious joy if she
could think he did not go to the rue de Chartres! Calyste returned, and
then the study of his forehead, his hair, his eyes, his countenance,
his demeanor, gave a horrible interest to mere nothings, to observations
pursued even to matters of toilet, in which a woman loses her
self-respect and dignity. These fatal investigations, concealed in the
depths of her heart, turn sour and rot the delicate roots from which
should spring to bloom the azure flowers of sacred confidence, the
golden petals of the One only love, with all the perfumes of memory.
One day Calyste looked about him discontentedly; he had stayed at home!
Sabine made herself caressing and humble, gay and sparkling.
“You are vexed with me, Calyste; am I not a good wife? What is there
here that displeases you?” she asked.
“These rooms are so cold and bare,” he replied; “you don’t understand
arranging things.”
“Tell me what is wanting.”
“Flowers.”
“Ah!” she thought to herself, “Madame de Rochefide likes flowers.”
Two days later, the rooms of the hotel du Guenic had assumed another
aspect. No one in Paris could flatter himself to have more exquisite
flowers than those that now adorned them.
Some time later Calyste, one evening after dinner, complained of the
cold. He twisted about in his chair, declaring there was a draught, and
seemed to be looking for something. Sabine could not at first imagine
what this new fancy signified, she, whose house possessed a calorifere
which heated the staircases, antechambers, and passages. At last,
after three days’ meditation, she came to the conclusion that her rival
probably sat surrounded by a screen to obtain the half-lights favorable
to faded faces; so Sabine had a screen, but hers was of glass and of
Israelitish splendor.
“From what quarter will the next storm come?” she said to herself.
These indirect comparisons with his mistress were not yet at an end.
When Calyste dined at home he ate his dinner in a way to drive Sabine
frantic; he would motion to the servants to take away his plates after
pecking at two or three mouthfuls.
“Wasn’t it good?” Sabine would ask, in despair at seeing all the pains
she had taken in conference with her cook thrown away.
“I don’t say that, my angel,” replied Calyste, without anger; “I am not
hungry, that is all.”
A woman consumed by a legitimate passion, who struggles thus, falls at
last into a fury of desire to get the better of her rival, and often
goes too far, even in the most secret regions of married life. So cruel,
burning, and incessant a combat in the obvious and, as we may call
them, exterior matters of a household must needs become more intense and
desperate in the things of the heart. Sabine studied her attitudes,
her toilets; she took heed about herself in all the infinitely little
trifles of love.
The cooking trouble lasted nearly a month. Sabine, assisted by Mariotte
and Gasselin, invented various little vaudeville schemes to ascertain
the dishes which Madame de Rochefide served to Calyste. Gasselin was
substituted for Calyste’s groom, who had fallen conveniently ill. This
enabled Gasselin to consort with Madame de Rochefide’s cook, and before
long, Sabine gave Calyste the same fare, only better; but still he made
difficulties.
“What is wanting now?” she said.
“Oh, nothing,” he answered, looking round the table for something he did
not find.
“Ah!” exclaimed Sabine, as she woke the next morning, “Calyste wanted
some of those Indian sauces they serve in England in cruets. Madame de
Rochefide accustoms him to all sorts of condiments.”
She bought the English cruets and the spiced sauces; but it soon became
impossible for her to make such discoveries in all the preparations
invented by her rival.
This period lasted some months; which is not surprising when we remember
the sort of attraction presented by such a struggle. It is life. And
that is preferable, with its wounds and its anguish, to the gloomy
darkness of disgust, to the poison of contempt, to the void of
abdication, to that death of the heart which is called indifference. But
all Sabine’s courage abandoned her one evening when she appeared in a
toilet such as women are inspired to wear in the hope of eclipsing a
rival, and about which Calyste said, laughing:--
“In spite of all you can do, Sabine, you’ll never be anything but a
handsome Andalusian.”
“Alas!” she said, dropping on a sofa, “I may never make myself a blonde,
but I know if this continues I shall soon be thirty-five years old.”
She refused to go to the Opera as she intended, and chose to stay at
home the whole evening. But once alone she pulled the flowers from her
hair and stamped upon them; she tore off the gown and scarf and trampled
them underfoot, like a goat caught in the tangle of its tether, which
struggles till death comes. Then she went to bed.