You will understand at once that I began to gnaw the head of my cane,
to consult the ceiling, to gaze at the fire, to examine Caroline’s
foot, and I thus held out till the marriageable young lady was gone.
“You must excuse me,” I said, “if I have remained behind, perhaps in
spite of you: but your vengeance would lose by being recounted by and
by, and if it constituted a petty trouble for your husband, I have the
greatest interest in hearing it, and you shall know why.”
“Ah,” she returned, “that expression, ‘_it’s altogether moral,_’ which
he gave as an excuse, shocked me to the last degree. It was a great
consolation, truly, to me, to know that I held the place, in his
household, of a piece of furniture, a block; that my kingdom lay among
the kitchen utensils, the accessories of my toilet, and the physicians’
prescriptions; that our conjugal love had been assimilated to dinner
pills, to veal soup and white mustard; that Madame de Fischtaminel
possessed my husband’s soul, his admiration, and that she charmed and
satisfied his intellect, while I was a kind of purely physical
necessity! What do you think of a woman’s being degraded to the
situation of a soup or a plate of boiled beef, and without parsley, at
that! Oh, I composed a catilinic, that evening—”
“Philippic is better.”
“Well, either. I’ll say anything you like, for I was perfectly furious,
and I don’t remember what I screamed in the desert of my bedroom. Do
you suppose that this opinion that husbands have of their wives, the
parts they give them, is not a singular vexation for us? Our petty
troubles are always pregnant with greater ones. My Adolphe needed a
lesson. You know the Vicomte de Lustrac, a desperate amateur of women
and music, an epicure, one of those ex-beaux of the Empire, who live
upon their earlier successes, and who cultivate themselves with
excessive care, in order to secure a second crop?”
“Yes,” I said, “one of those laced, braced, corseted old fellows of
sixty, who work such wonders by the grace of their forms, and who might
give a lesson to the youngest dandies among us.”
“Monsieur de Lustrac is as selfish as a king, but gallant and
pretentious, spite of his jet black wig.”
“As to his whiskers, he dyes them.”
“He goes to ten parties in an evening: he’s a butterfly.”
“He gives capital dinners and concerts, and patronizes inexperienced
songstresses.”
“He takes bustle for pleasure.”
“Yes, but he makes off with incredible celerity whenever a misfortune
occurs. Are you in mourning, he avoids you. Are you confined, he awaits
your churching before he visits you. He possesses a mundane frankness
and a social intrepidity which challenge admiration.”
“But does it not require courage to appear to be what one really is?” I
asked.
“Well,” she resumed, after we had exchanged our observations on this
point, “this young old man, this universal Amadis, whom we call among
ourselves Chevalier _Petit-Bon-Homme-vil-encore_, became the object of
my admiration. I made him a few of those advances which never
compromise a woman; I spoke of the good taste exhibited in his latest
waistcoats and in his canes, and he thought me a lady of extreme
amiability. I thought him a chevalier of extreme youth; he called upon
me; I put on a number of little airs, and pretended to be unhappy at
home, and to have deep sorrows. You know what a woman means when she
talks of her sorrows, and complains that she is not understood. The old
ape replied much better than a young man would, and I had the greatest
difficulty in keeping a straight face while I listened to him.
“‘Ah, that’s the way with husbands, they pursue the very worst polity,
they respect their wives, and, sooner or later, every woman is enraged
at finding herself respected, and divines the secret education to which
she is entitled. Once married, you ought not to live like a little
school-girl, etc.’
“As he spoke, he leaned over me, he squirmed, he was horrible to see.
He looked like a wooden Nuremberg doll, he stuck out his chin, he stuck
out his chair, he stuck out his hand—in short, after a variety of
marches and countermarches, of declarations that were perfectly
angelic—”
“No!”
“Yes. _Petit-Bon-Homme-vil-encore_ had abandoned the classicism of his
youth for the romanticism now in fashion: he spoke of the soul, of
angels, of adoration, of submission, he became ethereal, and of the
darkest blue. He took me to the opera, and handed me to my carriage.
This old young man went when I went, his waistcoats multiplied, he
compressed his waist, he excited his horse to a gallop in order to
catch and accompany my carriage to the promenade: he compromised me
with the grace of a young collegian, and was considered madly in love
with me. I was steadfastly cruel, but accepted his arm and his
bouquets. We were talked about. I was delighted, and managed before
long to be surprised by my husband, with the viscount on the sofa in my
boudoir, holding my hands in his, while I listened in a sort of
external ecstasy. It is incredible how much a desire for vengeance will
induce us to put up with! I appeared vexed at the entrance of my
husband, who made a scene on the viscount’s departure: ‘I assure you,
sir,’ said I, after having listened to his reproaches, ‘that _it’s
altogether moral_.’ My husband saw the point and went no more to Madame
de Fischtaminel’s. I received Monsieur de Lustrac no more, either.”
“But,” I interrupted, “this Lustrac that you, like many others, take
for a bachelor, is a widower, and childless.”
“Really!”
“No man ever buried his wife deeper than he buried his: she will hardly
be found at the day of judgment. He married before the Revolution, and
your _altogether moral_ reminds me of a speech of his that I shall have
to repeat for your benefit. Napoleon appointed Lustrac to an important
office, in a conquered province. Madame de Lustrac, abandoned for
governmental duties, took a private secretary for her private affairs,
though it was altogether moral: but she was wrong in selecting him
without informing her husband. Lustrac met this secretary in a state of
some excitement, in consequence of a lively discussion in his wife’s
chamber, and at an exceedingly early hour in the morning. The city
desired nothing better than to laugh at its governor, and this
adventure made such a sensation that Lustrac himself begged the Emperor
to recall him. Napoleon desired his representatives to be men of
morality, and he held that such disasters as this must inevitably take
from a man’s consideration. You know that among the Emperor’s unhappy
passions, was that of reforming his court and his government. Lustrac’s
request was granted, therefore, but without compensation. When he
returned to Paris, he reappeared at his mansion, with his wife; he took
her into society—a step which is certainly conformable to the most
refined habits of the aristocracy —but then there are always people who
want to find out about it. They inquired the reason of this chivalrous
championship. ‘So you are reconciled, you and Madame de Lustrac,’ some
one said to him in the lobby of the Emperor’s theatre, ‘you have
pardoned her, have you? So much the better.’ ‘Oh,’ replied he, with a
satisfied air, ‘I became convinced—’ ‘Ah, that she was innocent, very
good.’ ‘No, I became convinced that it was altogether physical.’”
Caroline smiled.
“The opinion of your admirer reduced this weighty trouble to what is,
in this case as in yours, a very petty one.”
“A petty trouble!” she exclaimed, “and pray for what do you take the
fatigue of coquetting with a de Lustrac, of whom I have made an enemy!
Ah, women often pay dearly enough for the bouquets they receive and the
attentions they accept. Monsieur de Lustrac said of me to Monsieur de
Bourgarel, ‘I would not advise you to pay court to that woman; she is
too dear.’”