"A quarter past ten already!" said Mme. Davarande. "We shall only just
have time to get to the station. Renée, tell them to bring me my hat."
Every one rose. Barousse woke up from his nap with the noise, and the
little band of guests from Paris set out for Saint-Denis.
"I'll come with you," said Denoisel. "I should like a breath of air."
Barousse was in front, arm-in-arm with Reverchon. The Davarandes
followed, and Henri Mauperin and Denoisel brought up the rear.
"Why don't you stay all night? You could go back to Paris to-morrow,"
Denoisel began.
"No," answered Henri, "I won't do that. I have some work to do to-morrow
morning. I should get to Paris late and my day would be wasted."
They were silent, and every now and then a few words from Barousse to
Reverchon in praise of Renée came to them through the silence of the
night.
"I say, Denoisel, I'm afraid it is all up with that, don't you think
so?"
"Yes, I think it is."
"Oh, dear! Will you tell me, my dear fellow, what made you humour Renée
in all the nonsense that came into her head this evening? You have a
great deal of influence over her and----"
"My dear boy," answered Denoisel, puffing at his cigar, "you must let me
give you a social, philosophical, and historical parenthesis. We have
quite finished, have we not, and when I say we, I mean the majority of
the French people, with the pretty little young ladies who used to talk
like mechanical dolls. They could say 'papa' and 'mamma,' and when they
went to a dance they never lost sight of their parents. The little
childlike young lady who was always so timid and bashful and who used to
blush and stammer, brought up to be ignorant of everything, neither
knowing how to stand up on her legs nor how to sit down on a chair--all
that sort of thing's done with, old-fashioned, worn out. That was the
marriageable young lady of the days of the Gymnase Theatre. There is
nothing of that kind nowadays. The process of culture has changed; it
used to be a case of the fruit-wall, but at present the young person
grows in the open. We ask a girl now about her impressions and we expect
her to say what she thinks naturally and originally. She is allowed to
talk, and indeed is expected to talk, about everything, as that is the
accepted thing now. She need no longer act sweet simplicity, but native
intelligence. If only she can shine in society her parents are
delighted. Her mother takes her to classes. If she should have any
talent it is encouraged and cultivated. Instead of ordinary governesses
she must have good masters, professors from the Conservatoire, or
artists whose pictures have been hung. She goes in for being an artist
and every one is delighted. Come, now, isn't that the way girls are
being educated now in middle-class society?'
"And the result?"
"Now, then," continued Denoisel without answering the question, "in the
midst of this education, which I am not criticising, remember--in the
midst of all this, let us imagine a father who is an excellent sort of
man, goodness and kindness personified, encouraging his daughter in her
new freedom by his weakness and his worship of her. Let us suppose, for
instance, that this father has countenanced all the daring and all the
mischievousness of a boy in a woman, that he has allowed his daughter
little by little to cultivate manly accomplishments, which he sees with
pride and which are after his own heart----"
"And you, my dear fellow, who know my sister so well and the way she has
been brought up, the style she has gone in for, authorized as she
considers herself (thanks to father's indulgence), you, knowing how
difficult it is to get her married, allowed her to do all kinds of
unseemly things this evening when you might have stopped her short with
just a few words such as you always find to say and which you alone can
say to her?"
* * * * *
The friend to whom Henri Mauperin was speaking, Denoisel, was the son of
a compatriot, and old school friend and brother-in-arms of M. Mauperin.
The two men had been in the same battles, they had shed their blood in
the same places, and during the retreat from Russia they had eaten the
same horse-flesh.
A year after his return to France, M. Mauperin had lost this friend, who
on his death-bed had left him guardian to his son. The boy had found a
second father in his guardian. When at college, he had spent all his
holidays at Morimond, and he looked upon the Mauperins as his own
family.
When M. Mauperin's children came it seemed to the young man that a
brother and sister had been just what he had wanted; he felt as though
he were their elder brother, and he became a child again in order to be
one with them.
His favourite was, of course, Renée, who when quite little began to
adore him. She was very lively and self-willed and he alone could make
her listen to reason and obey. As she grew up he had been the moulder of
her character, the confessor of her intellect, and the director of her
tastes. His influence over the young girl had increased day by day as
they grew more and more familiar. A room was always kept ready for
Denoisel in the house, his place was always kept for him at table, and
he came whenever he liked to spend a week with the Mauperins.
* * * * *
"There are days," continued Henri, "when Renée's nonsense does not
matter, but this evening--before that man. It will be all off with that
marriage, I'm sure! It would have been an excellent match--he has such
good prospects. He's just the man in every respect--charming, too, and
distinguished."
"Do you think so? For my part, I should have been afraid of him for your
sister. That is really the reason why I behaved as I did this evening.
That man has a sort of common distinction about him--a distinction made
up of the vulgarity of all kinds of elegancies. He's a fashion poster, a
tailor's model, morally and physically. There's nothing, absolutely
nothing, in a little fellow like that. A husband for your sister--that
man? Why, how in the world do you suppose he could ever understand her?
How is he ever to discover all the warmth of feeling and the elevation
and nobility of character hidden under her eccentricities? Can you
imagine them having a thought in common? Good heavens! if your sister
married, no matter whom, so long as the man were intelligent and had
some character and individuality, as long as there were something in him
that would either govern or appeal to a nature like hers--why, I would
say nothing. A man has often great faults which appeal to a woman's
heart. He may be a bad lot, and there is the chance that she will go on
loving him through sheer jealousy. With a busy, ambitious man like you
she would have all the thought and excitement and all the dreams about
his career to occupy her mind. But a dandy like that for life! Why, your
sister would be absolutely wretched; she would die of misery. She isn't
like other girls, you know, your sister--one must take that into
consideration. She is high-minded, untrammelled by conventionalities,
very fond of fun, and very affectionate. At bottom she is a
_mélancolique tintamarresque_."
"A _mélancolique tintamarresque_? What does that mean?"
"I'll explain. She----"
"Henri, hurry up!" called out Davarande from the platform. "They are
getting into the train. I have your ticket."
V
M. and Mme. Mauperin were in their bed-room. The clock had just struck
midnight, gravely and slowly, as though to emphasize the solemnity of
that confidential and conjugal moment which is both the _tête-à-tête_ of
wedded life and the secret council of the household--that moment of
transformation and magic which is both _bourgeois_ and diabolic, and
which reminds one of that story of the woman metamorphosed into a cat.
The shadow of the bed falls mysteriously over the wife, and as she lies
down there is a sort of charm about her. Something of the bewitchments
of a mistress come to her at this instant. Her will seems to be roused
there by the side of the marital will which is dormant. She sits up,
scolds, sulks, teases, struggles. She has caresses and scratches for the
man. The pillow confers on her its force, her strength comes to her with
the night.
Mme. Mauperin was putting her hair in papers in front of the glass,
which was lighted by a single candle. She was in her skirt and
dressing-jacket. Her stout figure, above which her little arms kept
moving as if she were crowning herself, threw on the wall a fantastic
outline of a woman of fifty in deshabille, and on the paper at the end
of the room could be seen wavering about one of those corpulent shadows
which one could imagine Hoffman and Daumier sketching from the back of
the beds of old married couples. M. Mauperin was already lying down.
"Louis!" said Mme. Mauperin.
"Well?" answered M. Mauperin, with that accent of indifference, regret,
and weariness of a man who, with his eyes still open, is beginning to
enjoy the delight of the horizontal position.
"Oh, if you are asleep----"
"I am not asleep. What is it?"
"Oh, nothing. I think Renée behaved most improperly this evening; that's
all. Did you notice?"
"No, I wasn't paying any attention."
"It's just a whim. There isn't the least reason in it. Hasn't she said
anything to you? Do you know anything? I'm nowhere--with all your
mysteries and secrets. I'm always the last to know about things. It's
quite different with you--you are told everything. It's very fortunate
that I was not born jealous, don't you think so?"