You will understand at once that I began to gnaw the head of my cane,
to consult the ceiling, to gaze at the fire, to examine Caroline's
foot, and I thus held out till the marriageable young lady was gone.
"You must excuse me," I said, "if I have remained behind, perhaps in
spite of you: but your vengeance would lose by being recounted by and
by, and if it constituted a petty trouble for your husband, I have the
greatest interest in hearing it, and you shall know why."
"Ah," she returned, "that expression, '_it's altogether moral,_' which
he gave as an excuse, shocked me to the last degree. It was a great
consolation, truly, to me, to know that I held the place, in his
household, of a piece of furniture, a block; that my kingdom lay among
the kitchen utensils, the accessories of my toilet, and the
physicians' prescriptions; that our conjugal love had been assimilated
to dinner pills, to veal soup and white mustard; that Madame de
Fischtaminel possessed my husband's soul, his admiration, and that she
charmed and satisfied his intellect, while I was a kind of purely
physical necessity! What do you think of a woman's being degraded to
the situation of a soup or a plate of boiled beef, and without
parsley, at that! Oh, I composed a catilinic, that evening--"
"Philippic is better."
"Well, either. I'll say anything you like, for I was perfectly
furious, and I don't remember what I screamed in the desert of my
bedroom. Do you suppose that this opinion that husbands have of their
wives, the parts they give them, is not a singular vexation for us?
Our petty troubles are always pregnant with greater ones. My Adolphe
needed a lesson. You know the Vicomte de Lustrac, a desperate amateur
of women and music, an epicure, one of those ex-beaux of the Empire,
who live upon their earlier successes, and who cultivate themselves
with excessive care, in order to secure a second crop?"
"Yes," I said, "one of those laced, braced, corseted old fellows of
sixty, who work such wonders by the grace of their forms, and who
might give a lesson to the youngest dandies among us."
"Monsieur de Lustrac is as selfish as a king, but gallant and
pretentious, spite of his jet black wig."
"As to his whiskers, he dyes them."
"He goes to ten parties in an evening: he's a butterfly."
"He gives capital dinners and concerts, and patronizes inexperienced
songstresses."
"He takes bustle for pleasure."
"Yes, but he makes off with incredible celerity whenever a misfortune
occurs. Are you in mourning, he avoids you. Are you confined, he
awaits your churching before he visits you. He possesses a mundane
frankness and a social intrepidity which challenge admiration."
"But does it not require courage to appear to be what one really is?"
I asked.
"Well," she resumed, after we had exchanged our observations on this
point, "this young old man, this universal Amadis, whom we call among
ourselves Chevalier _Petit-Bon-Homme-vil-encore_, became the object of
my admiration. I made him a few of those advances which never
compromise a woman; I spoke of the good taste exhibited in his latest
waistcoats and in his canes, and he thought me a lady of extreme
amiability. I thought him a chevalier of extreme youth; he called upon
me; I put on a number of little airs, and pretended to be unhappy at
home, and to have deep sorrows. You know what a woman means when she
talks of her sorrows, and complains that she is not understood. The
old ape replied much better than a young man would, and I had the
greatest difficulty in keeping a straight face while I listened to
him.
"'Ah, that's the way with husbands, they pursue the very worst polity,
they respect their wives, and, sooner or later, every woman is enraged
at finding herself respected, and divines the secret education to
which she is entitled. Once married, you ought not to live like a
little school-girl, etc.'
"As he spoke, he leaned over me, he squirmed, he was horrible to see.
He looked like a wooden Nuremberg doll, he stuck out his chin, he
stuck out his chair, he stuck out his hand--in short, after a variety
of marches and countermarches, of declarations that were perfectly
angelic--"
"No!"
"Yes. _Petit-Bon-Homme-vil-encore_ had abandoned the classicism of his
youth for the romanticism now in fashion: he spoke of the soul, of
angels, of adoration, of submission, he became ethereal, and of the
darkest blue. He took me to the opera, and handed me to my carriage.
This old young man went when I went, his waistcoats multiplied, he
compressed his waist, he excited his horse to a gallop in order to
catch and accompany my carriage to the promenade: he compromised me
with the grace of a young collegian, and was considered madly in love
with me. I was steadfastly cruel, but accepted his arm and his
bouquets. We were talked about. I was delighted, and managed before
long to be surprised by my husband, with the viscount on the sofa in
my boudoir, holding my hands in his, while I listened in a sort of
external ecstasy. It is incredible how much a desire for vengeance
will induce us to put up with! I appeared vexed at the entrance of my
husband, who made a scene on the viscount's departure: 'I assure you,
sir,' said I, after having listened to his reproaches, 'that _it's
altogether moral_.' My husband saw the point and went no more to
Madame de Fischtaminel's. I received Monsieur de Lustrac no more,
either."
"But," I interrupted, "this Lustrac that you, like many others, take
for a bachelor, is a widower, and childless."
"Really!"
"No man ever buried his wife deeper than he buried his: she will
hardly be found at the day of judgment. He married before the
Revolution, and your _altogether moral_ reminds me of a speech of his
that I shall have to repeat for your benefit. Napoleon appointed
Lustrac to an important office, in a conquered province. Madame de
Lustrac, abandoned for governmental duties, took a private secretary
for her private affairs, though it was altogether moral: but she was
wrong in selecting him without informing her husband. Lustrac met this
secretary in a state of some excitement, in consequence of a lively
discussion in his wife's chamber, and at an exceedingly early hour in
the morning. The city desired nothing better than to laugh at its
governor, and this adventure made such a sensation that Lustrac
himself begged the Emperor to recall him. Napoleon desired his
representatives to be men of morality, and he held that such disasters
as this must inevitably take from a man's consideration. You know that
among the Emperor's unhappy passions, was that of reforming his court
and his government. Lustrac's request was granted, therefore, but
without compensation. When he returned to Paris, he reappeared at his
mansion, with his wife; he took her into society--a step which is
certainly conformable to the most refined habits of the aristocracy
--but then there are always people who want to find out about it.
They inquired the reason of this chivalrous championship. 'So you are
reconciled, you and Madame de Lustrac,' some one said to him in the
lobby of the Emperor's theatre, 'you have pardoned her, have you? So
much the better.' 'Oh,' replied he, with a satisfied air, 'I became
convinced--' 'Ah, that she was innocent, very good.' 'No, I became
convinced that it was altogether physical.'"
Caroline smiled.
"The opinion of your admirer reduced this weighty trouble to what is,
in this case as in yours, a very petty one."
"A petty trouble!" she exclaimed, "and pray for what do you take the
fatigue of coquetting with a de Lustrac, of whom I have made an enemy!
Ah, women often pay dearly enough for the bouquets they receive and
the attentions they accept. Monsieur de Lustrac said of me to Monsieur
de Bourgarel, 'I would not advise you to pay court to that woman; she
is too dear.'"