‘UN CADEAU’
The next morning—the morning of _the_ day—Madeleine woke up with the same
feeling of purification; she seemed to be holding the day’s culmination
in her hands, and it was made of solid white marble, that cooled her
palms as she held it.
Berthe, with mysterious winks, brought her a sealed letter. It was from
Jacques:—
‘DEAR CHOP,—I am moving to the lodgings of a friend for a few
days, and then I go off to join the Army in Spain. Take no
blame to yourself for this, for I have always desired strangely
to travel and have my share in manly adventures, and would,
’tis likely, have gone anyhow. I would never have made a good
Procureur. I have written to Aunt Marie to acquaint her with my
sudden decision, in such manner that she cannot suspect what
has really taken place.
‘Oh, dear! I had meant to rail against you and I think this
is nothing toward it! ’Tis a strange and provoking thing that
one cannot—try as one will—be moved by _real_ anger towards
those one cares about! Not that I have any real cause to be
angry upon your score—bear in mind, Chop, that I know this full
well—but in spite of this I would dearly like to be!
‘JACQUES.’
As she read it, she realised that she had made a big sacrifice. Surely it
would be rewarded!
She dressed in a sort of trance. Her excitement was so overwhelming, so
vibrantly acute, that she was almost unconscious.
Then the Chevalier, with little Mademoiselle Boquet, drove up to the
door, and Madeleine got in, smiling vaguely in reply to the Chevalier’s
compliments, and they drove off, her mother and Berthe standing waving
at the door. On rolled the _carrosse_ past La Porte Sainte-Antoine,
through which were pouring carts full of vegetables and fruit for the
Halles, and out into the white road beyond; and on rolled the smooth
cadences of the Chevalier’s voice—‘To my mind the highest proof that one
is possessed of wit and that one knows how to wield it, is to lead a
well-ordered life and to behave always in society in a seemly fashion.
And to do that consists in all circumstances following the most _honnête_
line and that which seems most in keeping with the condition of life to
which one belongs. Some rôles in life are more advantageous than others;
it is Fortune that casts them and we cannot choose the one we wish; but
whatever that rôle may be, one is a good actor if one plays it well ...’
and so on. Fortunately, sympathetic monosyllables were all that the
Chevalier demanded from his audience, and these he got from Mademoiselle
Boquet and Madeleine.
And so the journey went on, and at last they were drawing up before a
small, comfortable white house with neatly-clipped hedges, shrubberies,
and the play of a sedate fountain. Madame Conrart, kind and flustered,
was at the door to meet them, and led them into a large room in which
Conrart in an arm-chair and Mademoiselle de Scudéry busy with her
embroidery in another arm-chair sat chatting together. Conrart’s greeting
to Madeleine was kindness itself, and Mademoiselle de Scudéry also said
something polite and friendly. She pretended not to hear her, and moved
towards Madame Conrart, for as soon as her eyes had caught sight of
Sappho, she had been seized by the same terrible self-consciousness, the
same feeling of ‘nothing matters so long as I am seen and heard as little
as may be.’
Then came some twenty minutes of respite, for Mademoiselle Boquet with
her budget of news of the Court and the Town acted as a rampart between
Madeleine and Mademoiselle de Scudéry. But at dinner-time her terror once
more returned, for general conversation was expected at meals. ‘Simple
country fare,’ said Conrart modestly, but although the dishes were not
numerous, and consisted mainly of home-reared poultry, there were forced
peaches and grapes and the table was fragrant with flowers.
‘Flora and Pomona joining hands have never had a fairer temple than this
table,’ said the Chevalier, and all the company, save Madeleine, added
their tribute to their host’s bounty. But Madeleine sat awkward and
tongue-tied, too nervous to eat. The precious moments of her last chance
were slipping by; even if she thought of a thousand witty things she
would not be able to say them, for her tongue felt swollen and impotent.
Descartes on the Will was just an old pedant, talking of what he did not
understand.
At last dinner was over, and Conrart suggested they should go for a
little walk in the grounds. He offered his arm to Mademoiselle de
Scudéry, the Chevalier followed with Madame Conrart, so Madeleine and
Mademoiselle Boquet found themselves partners. But even then Madeleine
was at first unable to break the spell of heavy silence hanging over her.
‘Blessed Saint Magdalene, help me! help me! help me!’ she muttered, and
then reminded herself that being neither half-witted nor dumb, it did not
demand any gigantic effort of will to _force_ herself to behave like an
_honnête femme_ ... and to-day it was a matter of life or death.
She felt like a naked, shivering creature, standing at the top of a
gigantic rock, and miles below her lay an icy black pool, but she must
take the plunge; and she did.
She began to reinforce her self-confidence by being affected and
pretentious with Mademoiselle Boquet, but the little lady’s gentle
reserve made her vaguely uncomfortable. She was evidently one of those
annoying little nonentities with strong likes and dislikes, and a whole
bundle of sharp little judgments of their own, who are always vaguely
irritating to their more triumphant sisters. Then she tried hard to
realise _emotionally_ that the gray female back in front of her belonged
to Mademoiselle de Scudéry—to the _Reine de Tendre_; to Sappho—but
somehow her imagination was inadequate. The focus of all her tenderness
was not this complacent lady, but the Sappho of her dances.
As, for example, I find in myself two divers Ideas of the Sun,
one as received by my senses by which it appears to me very
small, another as taken from the arguments of Astronomers by
which ’tis rendered something bigger than the Globe of the
Earth. Certainly both of these cannot be like that sun which
is without me, and my reason persuades that that Idea is most
unlike the Sun, which seems to proceed immediately from itself.
She remembered these words of Descartes’ Third Meditation ... two suns
and two Sapphos, and the one perceived by the senses, not the real one
... and yet, and yet she could _never_ be satisfied with merely the
Sappho of the dances, even though metaphysically she were more real than
the other. Her happiness depended in merging the two Sapphos into one ...
she must remember, reality is colourless and silent and malleable ... a
white, still Sappho like the Grecian statues in the Louvre ... to the
Sappho of her dances she gave what qualities she chose, so could she
to the Sappho who was walking a few paces in front of her ... forward
la Madeleine! Then the Chevalier came and walked on her other side. She
told herself that this was a good opportunity of working herself into
a vivacious mood, which would bridge over the next awful chasm. So she
burst into hectic persiflage, and to Hell with Mademoiselle Boquet’s
little enigmatical smile!
They were walking in a little wood. Suddenly from somewhere among the
trees came the sound of violins. A _cadeau_ for one of the ladies!
Madeleine felt that she would die with embarrassment if it were not
for her—yes, _die_—humiliated for ever in the eyes of Mademoiselle
de Scudéry, in relationship to whom she always pictured herself as a
triumphant beauty, with every inch of the stage to herself.
There was a little buzz of expectation among the ladies, and Madame
Conrart, looking flustered and pleased, said: ‘I am sure it is none of
our doing.’ Madeleine stretched her lips in a forced smile, in a fever of
anxiety.
Then suddenly they came to an open clearing in the wood, and there was a
table heaped with preserved fruits and jams and sweetmeats and liqueurs,
all of them rose-coloured. The napkins were of rose-coloured silk and
folded into the shape of hearts, the knives were tiny darts of silver.
Behind stood the four fiddlers scratching away merrily at a _pot pourré_
of airs from the latest _ballet de cour._ The ladies gave little ‘ohs!’
of delight, and Conrart looked pleased and important, but that did not
mean anything, for he was continually taking a possessive pride in
matters in which he had had no finger. The Chevalier looked enigmatic.
Conrart turned to him with a knowing look and said,—
‘Chevalier, you are a professor of the _philosophie de galanterie_,
can you tell us whether rose pink is the colour of _Estime_ or of _le
Tendre_?’
‘Descartes is dumb on the relation of colours to the Passions, so it
is not for me to decide,’ the Chevalier answered calmly, ‘all _I_ know
is that the Grecian rose was pink.’ Madeleine’s heart gave a bound of
triumph.
The fiddles started a languorous saraband, and from the trees a shower of
artificial rose-petals fell on the ladies. Mademoiselle de Scudéry looked
very gracious.
‘Our unknown benefactor has a very fragrant invention,’ she said in a
tone which seemed to Madeleine to intimate that _she_ was the queen of
the occasion. Vain, foolish, ugly creature, how dare she think so, when
she, Madeleine, was there! Had she not heard what the Chevalier had said
about the ‘Grecian rose’?—(though why she should know that the Chevalier
called Madeleine ‘Rhodanthos,’ I fail to perceive!)—she would put her in
her place. She gave a little affected laugh, and, looking straight at the
Chevalier, she said,—
‘It is furiously gallant. I thank you a thousand times.’
The Chevalier looked nonplussed, and stammered out that ‘Cupid must have
known that a bevy of Belles had planned to visit that wood.’
Madeleine had committed the unpardonable crime—she had openly
acknowledged a _cadeau_, whereas _Galanterie_ demanded that the
particular lady it was intended to honour should be veiled in a piquant
mystery. Why, it was enough to send all the ladies of _Cyrus_ shuddering
back for ever to their Persian seraglios! But she had as well broken the
spell of silence woven by Mademoiselle de Scudéry’s presence. That lady
exchanged a little look with Mademoiselle Boquet which somehow glinted
right off from Madeleine’s shining new armour. She gulped off a liqueur
and gave herself tooth and nail to the business of shining. She began to
flirt outrageously with the Chevalier, and though he quite enjoyed it,
the _pédagogue galant_ in him made a mental note to give Madeleine a hint
that this excessive _galanterie_ smacked of the previous reign, while
the present fashion was a witty prudishness. Certainly, Mademoiselle de
Scudéry was not looking impressed, but, somehow, Madeleine did not care;
the one thing that mattered was that she should be brilliantly in the
foreground, and be very witty, and then Mademoiselle de Scudéry _must_
admire her.
Mademoiselle de Scudéry soon started a quiet little chat with Conrart,
which caused Madeleine’s vivacity to flag; how could she sparkle when her
sun was hidden?
‘Yes, _la belle Indienne_ would doubtless have found her native America
less barbarous than the _milieu_ in which she has been placed by an
exceeding ironical fortune,’ Mademoiselle de Scudéry was saying.
Madeleine, deeply read in _La Gazette Burlesque_, knew that she was
speaking of the beautiful and ultra-refined Madame Scarron, forced to be
hostess of the most licentious _salon_ in Paris.
‘’Tis my opinion she falls far short of Monsieur Scarron in learning,
wit, and galanterie!’ burst in Madeleine. She did not think so really; it
was just a desire to make herself felt. Mademoiselle de Scudéry raised
her eyebrows.
‘Is Mademoiselle acquainted with Madame Scarron?’ she inquired in a voice
that implied she was certain that she was not. In ordinary circumstances,
such a snub, even from some one for whose good opinion she did not care a
rap, would have reduced her to complete silence, but to-day she seemed to
have risen invulnerable from the Styx.
‘No, I haven’t been presented to her—although I have seen her,’ she said.
‘And yet you speak of her as though you had much frequented her? You put
me in mind, Mademoiselle, of the troupe of players in my brother’s comedy
who called themselves _Comédiens du Roi_, although they had played before
His Majesty but once,’ said Mademoiselle de Scudéry coldly.
‘In earnest, I have no wish to pass as Madame Scarron’s comedian.
Rumour has it she was born in a prison,’ Madeleine rejoined insolently.
‘Moreover, I gather from her friends, the only merit in her prudishness
is that it acts as a foil to her husband’s wit.’
Mademoiselle de Scudéry merely raised her eyebrows, and Conrart,
attempting to make things more comfortable, said with a good-natured
smile,—
‘Ah! Sappho, the young people have their own ideas about things, I dare
swear, and take pleasure in the _genre burlesque_!’
(Jacques would have smiled to hear Madeleine turned into the champion
of the burlesque!) ‘Well, all said, the burlesque, were it to go to our
friend Ménage (whom one might call the Hozier[4] of literary forms)
might get a fine family tree for itself, going back to the Grecian
Aristophanes—is that not so, Chevalier?’ went on Conrart. The Chevalier
smiled non-committally.
‘No, no,’ interrupted Madeleine; ‘certainly not Aristophanes. I should
say that the Grecian Anthology is the founder of the family; a highly
respectable ancestor, though _de robe_ rather than _d’épée_, for I am
told Alexandrian Greek is not as noble as that of Athens. It contains
several epigrams, quite in the manner of Saint-Amant.’ She was quoting
Jacques, from whom, without knowing a word of Greek, she had gleaned
certain facts about Greek construction and literature.
Though Conrart never tried to conceal his ignorance of Greek, he could
scarcely relish a reminder of it, while to be flatly contradicted by
a fair damsel was not in his Chinese picture of Ladies and Sages.
Mademoiselle de Scudéry came to his rescue,—
‘For myself, I have always held that all an _honnête homme_ need know
is Italian and Spanish’—(here she smiled at Conrart, who was noted
for his finished knowledge of these two tongues)—‘the nature of the
passions, _l’usage de monde_, and above all, Mythology, but that can
be studied in a translation quite as well as in the original Greek or
Latin. This is the _necessary_ knowledge for an _honnête homme_, but
as the word _honnête_ covers a quantity of agreeable qualities, such
as a swift imagination, an exquisite judgment, an excellent memory,
and a lively humour naturally inclined to learning about everything it
sees that is curious and that it hears mentioned as worthy of praise,
the possessor of these qualities will naturally add a further store of
agreeable information to the accomplishments I have already mentioned.
These accomplishments are necessary also to an _honnête femme_, but as
well as being able to _speak_ Italian and Spanish, she must be able to
_write_ her native French; I must confess that the orthography of various
distinguished ladies of my acquaintance is barely decent! As well as
knowing the nature and movements of the Passions she must know the causes
and effects of maladies, and a quantity of receipts for the making of
medicaments and perfumes and cordials ... in fact of both useful and
gallant distillations, as necessity or pleasure may demand. As well as
being versed in Mythology, that is to say, in the _amours_ and exploits
of ancient gods and heroes, she must know what I will call the modern
Mythology, that is to say the doings of her King and the _historiettes_
of the various Belles and Gallants of the Court and Town.’
All the company had sat in rapt attention during this discourse, except
Madeleine, who had fidgeted and wriggled and several times had attempted
to break in with some remark of her own. Now she took advantage of the
slight pause that followed to cry out aggressively: ‘Italian and Spanish
_may_ be the language of _les honnêtes gens_, but Greek is certainly that
of _les gens gallants_, if only for this reason, that it alone possesses
the lover’s Mood.’ Madeleine waited to be asked what that was, and the
faithful Chevalier came to her rescue.
‘And what may the lover’s mood be, Mademoiselle?’ he asked with a smile.
‘What they call the Optative—the Mood of wishing,’ said Madeleine. The
Chevalier clapped delightedly, and Conrart, now quite restored to good
humour, also congratulated her on the sally; but Mademoiselle de Scudéry
looked supremely bored.
The violins started a light, melancholy dance, and from behind the trees
ran a troop of little girls, dressed as nymphs, and presented to each of
the ladies a bouquet, showing in its arrangement the inimitable touch
of the famous florist, La Cardeau. Madeleine’s was the biggest. Then
they got up and moved on to a little Italian grotto, where they seated
themselves on the grass, Madame Conrart insisting that her husband should
sit on a cloak she had been carting about with her for the purpose all
the afternoon. He grumbled a little, but sat down on it all the same.
‘And now will the wise Agilaste make music for us?’ he asked. All looked
invitingly towards Mademoiselle Boquet. She expressed hesitation at
performing in a garden where such formidable rivals were to be found
as Conrart’s famous linnets, but she finally yielded to persuasion, and
taking her lute, began to play. It was exquisite. First she played some
airs by Couperin, then some pavanes by a young Italian, as yet known only
to the elect and quite daring in his modernity, by name Lulli, and last
a frail, poignant melody of the time of Henri IV., in which, as in the
little poem of the same period praised by Alceste, ‘_la passion parlait
toute pure_.’
Madame Conrart listened with more emotion than any of them, beating time
with her foot, her eyes filling with tears. When Mademoiselle Boquet
laid down her lute, she drew a deep sigh. ‘Ah! Now that’s what _I_ call
agreeable!’ Conrart frowned at her severely, but Mademoiselle de Scudéry
and the Chevalier were evidently much amused. The poor lady, realising
that she had made a _faux pas_, looked very unhappy.
‘Oh! I did not mean to say ... I am sure ... I hope you will understand!’
she said to the company, but looking at Conrart the while.
‘We will understand, and indeed we would be very dull if we failed to,
that you are ever the kindest and most hospitable of hostesses,’ said
Mademoiselle de Scudéry. Madame Conrart looked relieved and said,—
‘I am sure you are very obliging, Mademoiselle.’ Then she turned to
Madeleine, ‘And you, Mademoiselle, do you sing or play?’ Madeleine said
in a superior tone that she did not, and the Chevalier, invariably
adequate, said: ‘Mademoiselle is a _merciful_ Siren.’
And so the afternoon passed, until it was time to take their leave. The
Conrarts were very kind and friendly and hoped Madeleine would come
again, but Mademoiselle de Scudéry had so many messages to send by
Mademoiselle Boquet to friends in Paris, that she forgot even to say
good-bye to her.
On the drive home the Chevalier and Mademoiselle Boquet had a learned
discussion about music, and Madeleine sat silent and wide-eyed. It
was eight o’clock when they reached the petite rue du Paon. Madeleine
rushed in to her mother, who was waiting for her, and launched into
a long excited account of the day’s doings, which fulfilled the same
psychological need that a dance would have done, and then she went to her
room, for her mother wished to discuss the violent decision come to so
suddenly by Jacques.
She went straight to bed and fell asleep to the cry of the _Oublieux_—‘La
joie! la joie! Voilà des oublies!’