WHICH SPEAKS OF LOVE, A SUBJECT WHICH ALWAYS GIVES PLEASURE,
FOR A TALE WITHOUT LOVE IS LIKE BEEF WITHOUT MUSTARD: AN
INSIPID DISH
Nothing ever astonished Maurice. He never sought to know the causes of
things and dwelt tranquilly in the world of appearances. Not denying the
eternal truth, he nevertheless followed vain things as his fancy led
him.
Less addicted to sport and violent exercise than most young people of
his generation, he followed unconsciously the old erotic traditions of
his race. The French were ever the most gallant of men, and it were a
pity they should lose this advantage. Maurice preserved it. He was in
love with no woman, but, as St. Augustine said, he loved to love. After
paying the tribute that was rightly due to the imperishable beauty and
secret arts of Madame de la Berthelière, he had enjoyed the impetuous
caresses of a young singer called Luciole. At present he was joylessly
experiencing the primitive perversity of Odile, his mother's
lady's-maid, and the tearful adoration of the beautiful Madame
Boittier. And he felt a great void in his heart.
It chanced that one Wednesday, on entering the drawing-room where his
mother entertained her friends--who were, generally speaking,
unattractive and austere ladies, with a sprinkling of old men and very
young people--he noticed, in this intimate circle, Madame des Aubels,
the wife of the magistrate at the Law Courts, whom Monsieur d'Esparvieu
had vainly consulted on the mysterious ransacking of his library. She
was young, he found her pretty, and not without cause. Gilberte had been
modelled by the Genius of the Race, and no other genius had had a part
in the work.
Thus all her attributes inspired desire, and nothing in her shape or her
being aroused any other sentiment.
The law of attraction which draws world to world moved young Maurice to
approach this delicious creature, and under its influence he offered to
escort her to the tea-table. And when Gilberte was served with tea, he
said:
"We should hit it off quite well together, you and I, don't you think?"
He spoke in this way, according to modern usage, so as to avoid inane
compliments and to spare a woman the boredom of listening to one of
those old declarations of love which, containing nothing but what is
vague and undefined, require neither a truthful nor an exact reply.
And profiting by the fact that he had an opportunity of conversing
secretly with Madame des Aubels for a few minutes, he spoke urgently and
to the point. Gilberte, so far as one could judge, was made rather to
awaken desire than to feel it. Nevertheless, she well knew that her fate
was to love, and she followed it willingly and with pleasure. Maurice
did not particularly displease her. She would have preferred him to be
an orphan, for experience had taught her how disappointing it sometimes
is to love the son of the house.
"Will you?" he said by way of conclusion.
She pretended not to understand, and with her little _foie-gras_
sandwich raised half-way to her mouth she looked at Maurice with
wondering eyes.
"Will I _what_?" she asked.
"You know quite well."
Madame des Aubels lowered her eyes, and sipped her tea, for her
prudishness was not quite vanquished. Meanwhile Maurice, taking her
empty cup from her hand, murmured:
"Saturday, five o'clock, 126 Rue de Rome, on the ground-floor, the door
on the right, under the arch. Knock three times."
Madame des Aubels glanced severely and imperturbably at the son of the
house, and with a self-possessed air rejoined the circle of highly
respectable women to whom the Senator Monsieur Le Fol was explaining
how artificial incubators were employed at the agricultural colony at
St. Julienne.
The following Saturday, Maurice, in his ground-floor flat, awaited
Madame des Aubels. He waited her in vain. No light hand came to knock
three times on the door under the arch. And Maurice gave way to
imprecation, inwardly calling the absent one a jade and a hussy. His
fruitless wait, his frustrated desires, rendered him unjust. For Madame
des Aubels in not coming where she had never promised to go hardly
deserved these names; but we judge human actions by the pleasure or pain
they cause us.
Maurice did not put in an appearance in his mother's drawing-room until
a fortnight after the conversation at the tea-table. He came late.
Madame des Aubels had been there for half an hour. He bowed coldly to
her, took a seat some way off, and affected to be listening to the talk.
"Worthily matched," a rich male voice was saying; "the two antagonists
were well calculated to render the struggle a terrible and uncertain
one. General Bol, with unprecedented tenacity, maintained his position
as though he were rooted in the very soil. General Milpertuis, with an
agility truly superhuman, kept carrying out movements of the most
dazzling rapidity around his immovable adversary. The battle continued
to be waged with terrible stubbornness. We were all in an agony of
suspense...."
It was General d'Esparvieu describing the autumn manoeuvres to a company
of breathlessly interested ladies. He was talking well and his audience
were delighted. Proceeding to draw a comparison between the French and
German methods, he defined their distinguishing characteristics and
brought out the conspicuous merits of both with a lofty impartiality. He
did not hesitate to affirm that each system had its advantages, and at
first made it appear to his circle of wondering, disappointed, and
anxious dames, whose countenances were growing increasingly gloomy, that
France and Germany were practically in a position of equality. But
little by little, as the strategist went on to give a clearer definition
of the two methods, that of the French began to appear flexible,
elegant, vigorous, full of grace, cleverness, and verve; that of the
Germans heavy, clumsy, and undecided. And slowly and surely the faces of
the ladies began to clear and to light up with joyous smiles. In order
to dissipate any lingering shadows of misgiving from the minds of these
wives, sisters, and sweethearts, the General gave them to understand
that we were in a position to make use of the German method when it
suited us, but that the Germans could not avail themselves of the French
method. No sooner had he delivered himself of these sentiments than he
was button-holed by Monsieur le Truc de Ruffec, who was engaged in
founding a patriotic society known as "Swordsmen All," of which the
object was to regenerate France and ensure her superiority over all her
adversaries. Even children in the cradle were to be enrolled, and
Monsieur le Truc de Ruffec offered the honorary presidency to General
d'Esparvieu.
Meanwhile Maurice was appearing to be interested in a conversation that
was taking place between a very gentle old lady and the Abbé Lapetite,
Chaplain to the Dames du Saint Sang. The old lady, severely tried of
late by illness and the loss of friends, wanted to know how it was that
people were unhappy in this world.
"How," she asked Abbé Lapetite, "do you explain the scourges that
afflict mankind? Why are there plagues, famines, floods, and
earthquakes?"
"It is surely necessary that God should sometimes remind us of his
existence," replied Abbé Lapetite, with a heavenly smile.
Maurice appeared keenly interested in this conversation. Then he seemed
fascinated by Madame Fillot-Grandin, quite a personable young woman,
whose simple innocence, however, detracted all piquancy from her beauty,
all savour from her bodily charms. A very sour, shrill-voiced old lady,
who, affecting the dowdy, woollen weeds of poverty, displayed the pride
of a great lady in the world of Christian finance, exclaimed in a
squeaky voice:
"Well, my dear Madame d'Esparvieu, so you have had trouble here. The
papers speak darkly of robbery, of thefts committed in Monsieur
d'Esparvieu's valuable library, of stolen letters...."
"Oh," said Madame d'Esparvieu, "if we are to believe all the newspapers
say...."
"Oh, so, dear Madame, you have got your treasures back. All's well that
ends well."
"The library is in perfect order," asserted Madame d'Esparvieu. "There
is nothing missing."
"The library is on the floor above this, is it not?" asked young Madame
des Aubels, showing an unexpected interest in the books.
Madame d'Esparvieu replied that the library occupied the whole of the
second floor, and that they had put the least valuable books in the
attics.
"Could I not go and look at it?"
The mistress of the house declared that nothing could be easier. She
called to her son:
"Maurice, go and do the honours of the library to Madame des Aubels."
Maurice rose, and without uttering a word, mounted to the second floor
in the wake of Madame des Aubels.
He appeared indifferent, but inwardly he rejoiced, for he had no doubt
that Gilberte had feigned her ardent desire to inspect the library
simply to see him in secret. And, while affecting indifference, he
promised himself to renew those offers which, this time, would not be
refused.
Under the romantic bust of Alexandre d'Esparvieu, they were met by the
silent shadow of a little wan, hollow-eyed old man, who wore a settled
expression of mute terror.
"Do not let us disturb you, Monsieur Sariette," said Maurice. "I am
showing Madame des Aubels round the library."
Maurice and Madame des Aubels passed on into the great room where
against the four walls rose presses filled with books and surmounted by
bronze busts of poets, philosophers, and orators of antiquity. All was
in perfect order, an order which seemed never to have been disturbed
from the beginning of things.
Only, a black void was to be seen in the place which, only the evening
before, had been filled by an unpublished manuscript of Richard Simon.
Meanwhile, by the side of the young couple walked Monsieur Sariette,
pale, faded, and silent.
"Really and truly, you have not been nice," said Maurice, with a look of
reproach at Madame des Aubels.
She signed to him that the librarian might over-hear. But he reassured
her.
"Take no notice. It is old Sariette. He has become a complete idiot."
And he repeated: "No, you have not been at all nice. I awaited you. You
did not come. You have made me unhappy."
After a moment's silence, while one heard the low melancholy whistling
of asthma in poor Sariette's bronchial tubes, young Maurice continued
insistently:
"You are wrong."
"Why wrong?"
"Wrong not to do as I ask you."
"Do you still think so?"
"Certainly."
"You meant it seriously?"
"As seriously as can be."
Touched by his assurance of sincere and constant feeling, and thinking
she had resisted sufficiently, Gilberte granted to Maurice what she had
refused him a fortnight ago.
They slipped into an embrasure of the window, behind an enormous
celestial globe whereon were graven the Signs of the Zodiac and the
figures of the stars, and there, their gaze fixed on the Lion, the
Virgin, and the Scales, in the presence of a multitude of Bibles, before
the works of the Fathers, both Greek and Latin, beneath the casts of
Homer, Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Herodotus, Thucydides, Socrates,
Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes, Cicero, Virgil, Horace, Seneca, and
Epictetus, they exchanged vows of love and a long kiss on the mouth.
Almost immediately Madame des Aubels bethought herself that she still
had some calls to pay, and that she must make her escape quickly, for
love had not made her lose all sense of her own importance. But she had
barely crossed the landing with Maurice when they heard a hoarse cry and
saw Monsieur Sariette plunge madly downstairs, exclaiming as he went:
"Stop it, stop it; I saw it fly away! It escaped from the shelf by
itself. It crossed the room ... there it is--there! It's going
downstairs. Stop it! It has gone out of the door on the ground floor!"
"What?" asked Maurice.
Monsieur Sariette looked out of the landing window, murmuring
horror-struck:
"It's crossing the garden! It's going into the summer-house. Stop it,
stop it!"
"But what is it?" repeated Maurice--"in God's name, what is it?"
"My Flavius Josephus," exclaimed Monsieur Sariette. "Stop it!"
And he fell down unconscious.
"You see he is quite mad," said Maurice to Madame des Aubels, as he
lifted up the unfortunate librarian.
Gilberte, a little pale, said she also thought she had seen something in
the direction indicated by the unhappy man, something flying.
Maurice had seen nothing, but he had felt what seemed like a gust of
wind.
He left Monsieur Sariette in the arms of Hippolyte and the housekeeper,
who had both hastened to the spot on hearing the noise.
The old gentleman had a wound in his head.
"All the better," said the housekeeper; "this wound may save him from
having a fit."
Madame des Aubels gave her handkerchief to stop the blood, and
recommended an arnica compress.