WHEREIN WE SEE HOW THE ANGEL, HAVING BECOME A MAN, BEHAVES
LIKE A MAN, COVETING ANOTHER'S WIFE AND BETRAYING HIS
FRIEND. IN THIS CHAPTER THE CORRECTNESS OF YOUNG
D'ESPARVIEU'S CONDUCT WILL BE MADE MANIFEST
The angel was pleased with his lodging. He worked of a morning, went out
in the afternoon, heedless of detectives, and came home to sleep. As in
days gone by, Maurice received Madame des Aubels twice or thrice a week
in the room in which they had seen the apparition.
All went very well until one morning Gilberte, having, the night before,
left her little velvet bag on the table in the blue room, came to find
it, and discovered Arcade stretched on the couch in his pyjamas, smoking
a cigarette, and dreaming of the conquest of Heaven. She gave a loud
scream.
"You, Monsieur! Had I thought to find you here, you may be quite sure I
should not ... I came to fetch my little bag, which is in the next
room. Allow me...." And she slipped past the angel, cautiously and
quickly, as if he were a brazier.
Madame des Aubels that morning, in her pale green tailor-made costume,
was deliciously attractive. Her tight skirt displayed her movements, and
her every step was one of those miracles of Nature which fill men's
hearts with amazement.
She reappeared, bag in hand.
"Once more--I ask your pardon.... I never dreamt that...."
Arcade begged her to sit down and to stay a moment.
"I never expected, Monsieur," said she, "that you would be doing the
honours of this flat. I knew how dearly Monsieur d'Esparvieu loved
you.... Nevertheless, I had no idea that...."
The sky had suddenly grown overcast. A brownish glare began to steal
into the room. Madame des Aubels told him she had walked for her
health's sake, but a storm was brewing, and she asked if a carriage
could be called for her.
Arcade flung himself at Gilberte's feet, took her in his arms as one
takes a precious piece of china, and murmured words which, being
meaningless in themselves, expressed desire.
She put her hands over his eyes and on his lips, and exclaimed, "I hate
you!"
And shaking with sobs, she asked for a drink of water. She was choking.
The angel went to her assistance. In this moment of extreme peril she
defended herself courageously. She kept saying: "No!... No!... I will
not love you. I should love you too well...." Nevertheless she
succumbed.
In the sweet familiarity which followed their mutual astonishment she
said to him:
"I have often asked after you. I knew that you were an assiduous
frequenter of the playhouses at Montmartre,--that you were often seen
with Mademoiselle Bouchotte, who, nevertheless, is not at all pretty. I
knew that you had become very smart, and that you were making a good
deal of money. I was not surprised. You were born to succeed. The day of
your"--and she pointed at the spot between the window and the wardrobe
with the mirror--"apparition, I was vexed with Maurice for having given
you a suicide's rags to wear. You pleased me.... Oh, it was not your
good looks! Don't think that women are as sensitive as people say to
outward attractions. We consider other things in love. There is a sort
of---- Well, anyhow I loved you as soon as I saw you."
The shadows grew deeper.
She asked:
"You are not an angel, are you? Maurice believes you are; but he
believes so many things, Maurice." She questioned Arcade with her eyes
and smiled maliciously. "Confess that you have been fooling him, and
that you are no angel?"
Arcade replied:
"I only aspire to please you; I will always be what you want me to be."
Gilberte decided that he was no angel; first, because one never is an
angel; secondly, for more detailed reasons which drew her thoughts to
the question of love. He did not argue the matter with her, and once
again words were found inadequate to express their feelings.
Outside, the rain was falling thick and fast, the windows were
streaming, lightning lit up the muslin curtains, and thunder shook the
panes. Gilberte made the sign of the Cross and remained with her head
hidden in her lover's bosom.
At this moment Maurice entered the room. He came in wet and smiling,
confident, tranquil, happy, to announce to Arcade the good news that
with his half-share in the previous day's race at Longchamps the angel
had won twelve times his stake. Surprising the lady and the angel in
their embrace, he became furious; anger gripped the muscles of his
throat, his face grew red with blood, and the veins stood out on his
forehead. He sprang with clenched fists towards Gilberte, and then
suddenly stopped.
Interrupted motion was transformed into heat. Maurice fumed. His anger
did not arm him, like Archilochus, with lyrical vengeance. He merely
applied an offensive epithet to his unfaithful one.
Meanwhile she had recovered her dignified bearing. She rose, full of
modesty and grace, and gave her accuser a look which expressed both
offended virtue and loving forgiveness.
But as young d'Esparvieu continued to shower coarse and monotonous
insults on her, she grew angry in her turn.
"You are a pretty sort of person, are you not?" she said. "Did I run
after this Arcade of yours? It was you who brought him here, and in what
a state, too! You had only one idea: to give me up to your friend. Well,
Monsieur, you can do as you like--I am not going to oblige you."
Maurice d'Esparvieu replied simply, "Get out of it, you trollop!" And he
made a motion as if to push her out. It pained Arcade to see his
mistress treated so disrespectfully, but he thought he lacked the
necessary authority to interfere with Maurice. Madame des Aubels, who
had lost none of her dignity, fixed young d'Esparvieu with her imperious
gaze, and said:
"Go and get me a carriage."
And so great is the power of woman over a well-bred soul, in a gallant
nation, that the young Frenchman went immediately and told the concierge
to call a taxi. Madame des Aubels, with a studied exhibition of charm in
every movement, took leave of them, throwing Maurice the contemptuous
look that a woman owes to him whom she has deceived. Maurice witnessed
her departure with an outward expression of indifference he was far from
feeling. Then he turned to the angel clad in the flowered pyjamas which
Maurice himself had worn the day of the apparition; and this
circumstance, trifling in itself, added fuel to the anger of the host
who had been thus shamefully deceived.
"Well," he said, "you may pride yourself on being a despicable
individual. You have behaved basely, and all for nothing. If the woman
took your fancy, you had but to tell me. I was tired of her. I had had
enough of her. I would have willingly left her to you."
He spoke thus to hide his pain, for he loved Gilberte more than ever,
and the creature's treachery caused him great suffering. He pursued:
"I was about to ask you to take her off my hands. But you have followed
your lower nature--you have behaved like a sweep."
If at this solemn moment Arcade had but spoken one word from his heart,
Maurice would have burst into tears, and forgiven his friend and his
mistress, and all three would have become content and happy once again.
But Arcade had not been nourished on the milk of human kindness. He had
never suffered, and did not know how to sympathise with suffering. He
replied with frigid wisdom:
"My dear Maurice, that same necessity which orders and constrains the
actions of living beings, produces effects that are often unexpected,
and sometimes absurd. Thus it is that I have been led to displease you.
You would not reproach me if you had a good philosophical understanding
of nature; for you would then know that free-will is but an illusion,
and that physiological affinities are as exactly determined as are
chemical combinations, and, like them, may be summed up in a formula. I
think that, in your case, it might be possible to inculcate these
truths, but it would be a difficult task, and maybe they would not bring
you the serenity which eludes you. It is fitting, therefore, that I
should leave this spot, and----"
"Stay," said Maurice.
Maurice had a very clear sense of social obligations. He put honour,
when he thought about it, above everything. So now he told himself very
forcibly that the outrage he had suffered could only be wiped out with
blood. This traditional idea instantly lent an unexpected nobility to
his speech and bearing.
"It is I, Monsieur," said he, "who will quit this place, never to
return. You will remain here, since you are a refugee. My seconds will
wait upon you."
The angel smiled.
"I will receive them, if it gives you pleasure, but, bethink you, my
dear Maurice, I am invulnerable. Celestial spirits even when they are
materialised cannot be touched by point of sword or pistol shot.
Consider, my dear Maurice, the awkward situation in which this fatal
inequality puts me, and realise that in refusing to appoint seconds I
cannot give as a reason my celestial nature,--it would be
unprecedented."
"Monsieur," replied the heir of the Bussart d'Esparvieu, "you should
have thought of that before you insulted me."
Out he marched haughtily; but no sooner was he in the street than he
staggered like a drunken man. The rain was still falling. He walked
unseeing, unhearing, at haphazard, dragging his feet in the gutters
through pools of water, through heaps of mud. He followed the outer
boulevards for a long time, and at length, fordone with weariness, lay
down on the edge of a piece of waste land. He was muddied up to the
eyes, mud and tears smeared his face, the brim of his hat was dripping
with rain. A passer-by, taking him for a beggar, tossed him a copper. He
picked it up, put it carefully in his waistcoat pocket, and set off to
find his seconds.