M. Chantal stopped. He was sitting on the edge of the billiard table,
his feet hanging, and was playing with a ball with his left hand, while
with his right he crumpled a rag which served to rub the chalk marks
from the slate. A little red in the face, his voice thick, he was
talking away to himself now, lost in his memories, gently drifting
through the old scenes and events which awoke in his mind, just as we
walk through old family gardens where we were brought up and where each
tree, each walk, each hedge reminds us of some occurrence.
I stood opposite him leaning against the wall, my hands resting on my
idle cue.
After a slight pause he continued:
“By Jove! She was pretty at eighteen--and graceful--and perfect. Ah!
She was so sweet--and good and true--and charming! She had such
eyes--blue-transparent--clear--such eyes as I have never seen since!”
He was once more silent. I asked: “Why did she never marry?”
He answered, not to me, but to the word “marry” which had caught his
ear: “Why? why? She never would--she never would! She had a dowry of
thirty thousand francs, and she received several offers--but she never
would! She seemed sad at that time. That was when I married my cousin,
little Charlotte, my wife, to whom I had been engaged for six years.”
I looked at M. Chantal, and it seemed to me that I was looking into his
very soul, and I was suddenly witnessing one of those humble and cruel
tragedies of honest, straightforward, blameless hearts, one of those
secret tragedies known to no one, not even the silent and resigned
victims. A rash curiosity suddenly impelled me to exclaim:
“You should have married her, Monsieur Chantal!”
He started, looked at me, and said:
“I? Marry whom?”
“Mademoiselle Pearl.”
“Why?”
“Because you loved her more than your cousin.”
He stared at me with strange, round, bewildered eyes and stammered:
“I loved her--I? How? Who told you that?”
“Why, anyone can see that--and it's even on account of her that you
delayed for so long your marriage to your cousin who had been waiting
for you for six years.”
He dropped the ball which he was holding in his left hand, and, seizing
the chalk rag in both hands, he buried his face in it and began to sob.
He was weeping with his eyes, nose and mouth in a heartbreaking yet
ridiculous manner, like a sponge which one squeezes. He was coughing,
spitting and blowing his nose in the chalk rag, wiping his eyes and
sneezing; then the tears would again begin to flow down the wrinkles
on his face and he would make a strange gurgling noise in his throat.
I felt bewildered, ashamed; I wanted to run away, and I no longer knew
what to say, do, or attempt.
Suddenly Madame Chantal's voice sounded on the stairs. “Haven't you men
almost finished smoking your cigars?”