The disasters of 1814 afflict every species of existence. After
brilliant days of conquest, after the period during which obstacles
change to triumphs, and the slightest check becomes a piece of good
fortune, there comes a time when the happiest ideas turn out blunders,
when courage leads to destruction, and when your very fortifications
are a stumbling-block. Conjugal love, which, according to authors, is
a peculiar phase of love, has, more than anything else, its French
Campaign, its fatal 1814. The devil especially loves to dangle his tail
in the affairs of poor desolate women, and to this Caroline has come.
Caroline is trying to think of some means of bringing her husband
back. She spends many solitary hours at home, and during this time her
imagination works. She goes and comes, she gets up, and often stands
pensively at the window, looking at the street and seeing nothing, her
face glued to the panes, and feeling as if in a desert, in the midst of
her friends, in the bosom of her luxuriously furnished apartments.
Now, in Paris, unless a person occupy a house of his own, enclosed
between a court and a garden, all life is double. At every story, a
family sees another family in the opposite house. Everybody plunges
his gaze at will into his neighbor’s domains. There is a necessity for
mutual observation, a common right of search from which none can escape.
At a given time, in the morning, you get up early, the servant opposite
is dusting the parlor, she has left the windows open and has put the
rugs on the railing; you divine a multitude of things, and vice-versa.
Thus, in a given time, you are acquainted with the habits of the pretty,
the old, the young, the coquettish, the virtuous woman opposite, or the
caprices of the coxcomb, the inventions of the old bachelor, the
color of the furniture, and the cat of the two pair front. Everything
furnishes a hint, and becomes matter for divination. At the fourth
story, a grisette, taken by surprise, finds herself--too late, like the
chaste Susanne,--the prey of the delighted lorgnette of an aged clerk,
who earns eighteen hundred francs a year, and who becomes criminal
gratis. On the other hand, a handsome young gentleman, who, for the
present, works without wages, and is only nineteen years old, appears
before the sight of a pious old lady, in the simple apparel of a man
engaged in shaving. The watch thus kept up is never relaxed, while
prudence, on the contrary, has its moments of forgetfulness. Curtains
are not always let down in time. A woman, just before dark, approaches
the window to thread her needle, and the married man opposite may then
admire a head that Raphael might have painted, and one that he considers
worthy of himself--a National Guard truly imposing when under arms.
Oh, sacred private life, where art thou! Paris is a city ever ready to
exhibit itself half naked, a city essentially libertine and devoid
of modesty. For a person’s life to be decorous in it, the said person
should have a hundred thousand a year. Virtues are dearer than vices in
Paris.
Caroline, whose gaze sometimes steals between the protecting muslins
which hide her domestic life from the five stories opposite, at last
discovers a young couple plunged in the delights of the honey-moon, and
newly established in the first story directly in view of her window. She
spends her time in the most exciting observations. The blinds are closed
early, and opened late. One day, Caroline, who has arisen at eight
o’clock notices, by accident, of course, the maid preparing a bath or
a morning dress, a delicious deshabille. Caroline sighs. She lies in
ambush like a hunter at the cover; she surprises the young woman, her
face actually illuminated with happiness. Finally, by dint of watching
the charming couple, she sees the gentleman and lady open the window,
and lean gently one against the other, as, supported by the railing,
they breathe the evening air. Caroline gives herself a nervous headache,
by endeavoring to interpret the phantasmagorias, some of them having
an explanation and others not, made by the shadows of these two young
people on the curtains, one night when they have forgotten to close
the shutters. The young woman is often seated, melancholy and pensive,
waiting for her absent husband; she hears the tread of a horse, or the
rumble of a cab at the street corner; she starts from the sofa, and from
her movements, it is easy for Caroline to see that she exclaims: “‘Tis
he!”
“How they love each other!” says Caroline to herself.
By dint of nervous headache, Caroline conceives an exceedingly ingenious
plan: this plan consists in using the conjugal bliss of the opposite
neighbors as a tonic to stimulate Adolphe. The idea is not without
depravity, but then Caroline’s intention sanctifies the means!
“Adolphe,” she says, “we have a neighbor opposite, the loveliest woman,
a brunette--”
“Oh, yes,” returns Adolphe, “I know her. She is a friend of Madame de
Fischtaminel’s: Madame Foullepointe, the wife of a broker, a charming
man and a good fellow, very fond of his wife: he’s crazy about her. His
office and rooms are here, in the court, while those on the street are
madame’s. I know of no happier household. Foullepointe talks about his
happiness everywhere, even at the Exchange; he’s really quite tiresome.”
“Well, then, be good enough to present Monsieur and Madame Foullepointe
to me. I should be delighted to learn how she manages to make her
husband love her so much: have they been married long?”
“Five years, just like us.”
“O Adolphe, dear, I am dying to know her: make us intimately acquainted.
Am I as pretty as she?”
“Well, if I were to meet you at an opera ball, and if you weren’t my
wife, I declare, I shouldn’t know which--”
“You are real sweet to-day. Don’t forget to invite them to dinner
Saturday.”
“I’ll do it to-night. Foullepointe and I often meet on ‘Change.”
“Now,” says Caroline, “this young woman will doubtless tell me what her
method of action is.”
Caroline resumes her post of observation. At about three she looks
through the flowers which form as it were a bower at the window, and
exclaims, “Two perfect doves!”
For the Saturday in question, Caroline invites Monsieur and Madame
Deschars, the worthy Monsieur Fischtaminel, in short, the most virtuous
couples of her society. She has brought out all her resources: she has
ordered the most sumptuous dinner, she has taken the silver out of the
chest: she means to do all honor to the model of wives.
“My dear, you will see to-night,” she says to Madame Deschars, at the
moment when all the women are looking at each other in silence, “the
most admirable young couple in the world, our opposite neighbors: a
young man of fair complexion, so graceful and with _such_ manners! His
head is like Lord Byron’s, and he’s a real Don Juan, only faithful: he’s
discovered the secret of making love eternal: I shall perhaps obtain
a second crop of it from her example. Adolphe, when he sees them, will
blush at his conduct, and--”
The servant announces: “Monsieur and Madame Foullepointe.”
Madame Foullepointe, a pretty brunette, a genuine Parisian, slight
and erect in form, the brilliant light of her eye quenched by her long
lashes, charmingly dressed, sits down upon the sofa. Caroline bows to
a fat gentleman with thin gray hair, who follows this Paris Andalusian,
and who exhibits a face and paunch fit for Silenus, a butter-colored
pate, a deceitful, libertine smile upon his big, heavy lips,--in short,
a philosopher! Caroline looks upon this individual with astonishment.
“Monsieur Foullepointe, my dear,” says Adolphe, presenting the worthy
quinquagenarian.
“I am delighted, madame,” says Caroline, good-naturedly, “that you have
brought your father-in-law [profound sensation], but we shall soon see
your husband, I trust--”
“Madame--!”
Everybody listens and looks. Adolphe becomes the object of every one’s
attention; he is literally dumb with amazement: if he could, he would
whisk Caroline off through a trap, as at the theatre.
“This is Monsieur Foullepointe, my husband,” says Madame Foullepointe.
Caroline turns scarlet as she sees her ridiculous blunder, and Adolphe
scathes her with a look of thirty-six candlepower.
“You said he was young and fair,” whispers Madame Deschars. Madame
Foullepointe,--knowing lady that she is,--boldly stares at the ceiling.
A month after, Madame Foullepointe and Caroline become intimate.
Adolphe, who is taken up with Madame de Fischtaminel, pays no attention
to this dangerous friendship, a friendship which will bear its fruits,
for--pray learn this--
Axiom.--Women have corrupted more women than men have ever loved.