“I had been married about two years,” continues Caroline, “and I loved
my husband. I have got over it since and acted differently for his
happiness and mine. I can boast of having one of the happiest homes in
Paris. In short, my dear, I loved the monster, and, even when out in
society, saw no one but him. My husband had already said to me several
times, ‘My dear, young women never dress well; your mother liked to
have you look like a stick,—she had her reasons for it. If you care for
my advice, take Madame de Fischtaminel for a model: she is a lady of
taste.’ I, unsuspecting creature that I was, saw no perfidy in the
recommendation.
“One evening as we returned from a party, he said, ‘Did you notice how
Madame de Fischtaminel was dressed!’ ‘Yes, very neatly.’ And I said to
myself, ‘He’s always talking about Madame de Fischtaminel; I must
really dress just like her.’ I had noticed the stuff and the make of
the dress, and the style of the trimmings. I was as happy as could be,
as I went trotting about town, doing everything I could to obtain the
same articles. I sent for the very same dressmaker.
“‘You work for Madame de Fischtaminel,’ I said.
“‘Yes, madame.’
“‘Well, I will employ you as my dressmaker, but on one condition: you
see I have procured the stuff of which her gown is made, and I want you
to make me one exactly like it.’
“I confess that I did not at first pay any attention to a rather shrewd
smile of the dressmaker, though I saw it and afterwards accounted for
it. ‘So like it,’ I added, ‘that you can’t tell them apart.’
“Oh,” says Caroline, interrupting herself and looking at me, “you men
teach us to live like spiders in the depths of their webs, to see
everything without seeming to look at it, to investigate the meaning
and spirit of words, movements, looks. You say, ‘How cunning women
are!’ But you should say, ‘How deceitful men are!’
“I can’t tell you how much care, how many days, how many manoeuvres, it
cost me to become Madame de Fischtaminel’s duplicate! But these are our
battles, child,” she adds, returning to Josephine. “I could not find a
certain little embroidered neckerchief, a very marvel! I finally
learned that it was made to order. I unearthed the embroideress, and
ordered a kerchief like Madame de Fischtaminel’s. The price was a mere
trifle, one hundred and fifty francs! It had been ordered by a
gentleman who had made a present of it to Madame de Fischtaminel. All
my savings were absorbed by it. Now we women of Paris are all of us
very much restricted in the article of dress. There is not a man worth
a hundred thousand francs a year, that loses ten thousand a winter at
whist, who does not consider his wife extravagant, and is not alarmed
at her bills for what he calls ‘rags’! ‘Let my savings go,’ I said. And
they went. I had the modest pride of a woman in love: I would not speak
a word to Adolphe of my dress; I wanted it to be a surprise, goose that
I was! Oh, how brutally you men take away our blessed ignorance!”
This remark is meant for me, for me who had taken nothing from the
lady, neither tooth, nor anything whatever of the things with a name
and without a name that may be taken from a woman.
“I must tell you that my husband took me to Madame de Fischtaminel’s,
where I dined quite often. I heard her say to him, ‘Why, your wife
looks very well!’ She had a patronizing way with me that I put up with:
Adolphe wished that I could have her wit and preponderance in society.
In short, this phoenix of women was my model. I studied and copied her,
I took immense pains not to be myself—oh!—it was a poem that no one but
us women can understand! Finally, the day of my triumph dawned. My
heart beat for joy, as if I were a child, as if I were what we all are
at twenty-two. My husband was going to call for me for a walk in the
Tuileries: he came in, I looked at him radiant with joy, but he took no
notice. Well, I can confess it now, it was one of those frightful
disasters—but I will say nothing about it —this gentleman here would
make fun of me.”