MR. PETITBRY, Chamber Counsel.
_To Madame Nina de B., at her Aunt's house, in Moulins_.
Madame, conformably to the wishes of Madame your aunt, I have looked
into the matter in question. I have noted down one by one all the
different points and submitted your grievances to the most scrupulous
investigation. Well, on my soul and conscience, I do not find the
fruit ripe enough, or to speak plainly, I do not consider that you have
sufficient grounds to justify your petition for a judicial separation.
Let us not forget that the French law is a very downright kind of thing,
totally devoid of delicate feeling for nice distinctions. It recognizes
only acts, serious, brutal acts, and unfortunately it is these acts
we lack. Most assuredly I have been deeply touched while reading the
account of the first year of your married life, so very painful to you.
You have paid dearly for the glory of marrying a famous artist, one of
those men in whom fame and adulation develop monstrous egotism, and who
under penalty of shattering the frail and timid life that would attach
itself to theirs, must live alone. Ah! madame, since the commencement of
my career, how many wretched wives have I not beheld in the same cruel
position as yourself! Artists who live only by and for the public, carry
nothing home to their hearth but fatigue from glory, or the melancholy
of their disappointments. An ill-regulated existence, without compass
or rudder, subversive ideas contrary to all social conventionality,
contempt of family life and its happiness, cerebral excitement sought
for in the abuse of tobacco and strong drink, without mentioning
anything else, this constitutes the terrible artistic element from which
your dear Aunt is desirous of withdrawing you; but I must repeat, that
while I fully comprehend her anxiety, nay her remorse even at having
consented to such a marriage, I cannot see that matters have reached a
point calculated to warrant your petition.
I have, however, set down the outlines of a judicial memorandum, in
which your principal grievances are grouped and skilfully brought into
prominence. Here are the principal divisions of the work:
1°. _Insulting conduct of Monsieur towards Madame's family_.--Refusal
to receive our Aunt from Moulins, who brought us up, and is tenderly
attached to us.--Nicknames such as _Tata Bobosse_, Fairy Carabossa,
and others, bestowed on that venerable old maid, whose back is slightly
bent.--Jests and quips, drawings in pen and pencil of the aforesaid and
her infirmity.
2°. _Unsociableness_.--Refusal to see Ma-dame's friends, to make wedding
calls, to send cards, to answer invitations, etc.
3°. _Wanton extravagance_.--Money lent without acknowledgment to all
kinds of Bohemians.--Open house and free quarters, turning the house
into an inn.--Constant subscriptions for statues, tombs, and productions
of unfortunate fellow artists.--Starting an artistic and literary
magazine!!!
4°. _Insulting conduct to Madame_.--Having said out loud when alluding
to us: "What a fool!"
5°. _Cruelty and violence_.--Excessive brutality on the part of
Monsieur.--Rage on the slightest pretext.--Breakage of china and
furniture.--Scandalous rows, offensive expressions.
All this, as you see, dear Madame, constitutes a somewhat respectable
amount of evidence, but is not however sufficient. We lack assault with
violence. Ah! if we had only an assault with violence, a tiny little
assault before witnesses, our case would be grand! But now that you have
put a hundred and fifty miles between your husband and yourself we can
scarcely hope for an incident of this kind. I say "hope" because in the
present state of affairs, a brutal act on the part of this man would be
the most fortunate thing that could befall you.
I remain, Madame, awaiting your commands, your devoted and obedient
servant,
Petitbry.
PS.--Violence before witnesses, of course!
[Illustration: p115-126]
_To Monsieur Petitbry, in Paris_.
What, Sir! have we come to such a pass as this! Is this what your laws
have made of antique French chivalry! So then, when a misunderstanding
is often sufficient to separate two hearts for ever, your law courts
require acts of violence to justify such a separation. Is it not
scandalous, unjust, barbarous, outrageous? To think that in order to
regain her freedom, my poor darling will be obliged to run her neck
into the halter, to abandon herself to all the fury of that monster,
to excite it even. But no matter, our mind is made up. An assault with
personal violence is necessary. Well! we will have it. No later than
to-morrow, Nina will return to Paris, How will she be received? What
will take place there? I cannot think of it without a shudder. At this
idea my hand trembles, my eyes become dimmed. Ah! Monsieur. Ah! Monsieur
Petitbry. Ah!
Nina's unhappy Aunt.
MR. MARESTANG, ATTORNEY At the Law Court of the Seine.
_To Monsieur Henri de B., Literary man in Paris_.
Be calm, be calm, be calm! I forbid your going to Moulins or rushing off
in pursuit of the fugitive. It is more judicious and safer to await her
return in your own house, by your fireside. In point of fact, what has
taken place? You refused to receive that ridiculous and ill-natured old
maid; your wife has gone to join her. You should have expected as much.
Family ties are very strong in the heart of such an extremely youthful
bride. You were in too great a hurry. Remember that this Aunt brought
her up, that she has no other relations in the world. She has her
husband, you will say. Ah! my dear fellow, between ourselves we may
admit that husbands are not always amiable. I know one more especially
who in spite of his good heart is so nervous, so violent! I am well
aware that hard work and artistic preoccupations have a good deal to do
with it. Be that as it may, the bird has been scared, and has flown back
to its former cage. Don't be alarmed, it won't stay there long. Either
I am very much mistaken or the Parisian of yesterday will soon weary of
the antiquated surroundings, and ere long regret the vivacities of her
poet. Above all don't stir.
Your old friend,
Marestang.
_To Monsieur Marestang, attorney in Paris_.
At the same moment with your rational and friendly letter, I received a
telegram from Moulins, announcing Nina's return. Ah! what a true prophet
you were! She is coming back this evening, all alone, just as she left
me, without the slightest advance on my part. The thing now will be to
arrange so easy and agreeable a life for her, that she shall never
again be tempted to leave me. I have laid in a stock of tenderness and
patience during her week's absence. There is only one point on which
I remain inflexible: I will not again receive that horrible _Tata
Bobosse_, that blue stocking of 1820, who gave me her niece only in the
hopes that my modest fame would serve to heighten hers. Remember, my
dear Marestang, that ever since my marriage this wicked little old woman
has always come between my wife and me, pushing her hump into all our
amusements at the theatres, the exhibitions, in society, in the country,
everywhere in fact. And you wonder after that, at my having displayed
a certain haste in getting rid of her, and packing her off to her good
town of Moulins. Indeed, my dear fellow, you have no idea of all the
harm those old maids, suspicious and ignorant of life, are capable of
doing in a young household. This one had stuffed my wife's pretty
little head full of false, old fashioned, preposterous ideas, trumpery
sentimentality of the time of Ipsiboé or young Florange: "Ah! if my
lady love saw me!" For her, I was a poâte, the poâte one sees on the
frontispieces of Renduel or Ladvocat, crowned with laurels, a lyre
on his hips, and his short velvet-collared cloak blown aside by a
Parnassian gust of wind. That was the husband she had promised her
niece, and you may fancy how terribly my poor Nina must have been
disappointed. Nevertheless I admit that I was very bungling with the
dear child. As you say, I wanted to go ahead too rapidly, I frightened
her. It was my part gently to modify all that the rather narrowing and
false education of the convent and the sentimental dreams of the Aunt
had effected, leaving the provincial perfume time to evaporate. However
all this can be repaired since she is returning. She is returning, my
dear friend! This evening, I shall go and meet her at the station and we
shall walk home arm in arm, reconciled and happy.
Henri de B.
_Nina de B. to her Aunt in Moulins_.
He was waiting for me at the station and greeted me with a smile and
open arms, as though I were returning from some ordinary journey. You
can imagine that I put on my iciest appearance. Directly I reached home,
I shut myself up in my room, where I dined alone, pleading fatigue.
After which, I locked myself in. He came to bid me good-night through
the key-hole, and to my great surprise, went away on tiptoe without
anger or importunity. This morning, I called on Monsieur Petitbry, who
gave me detailed instructions as to the way I was to act, the hour,
place, witnesses. Ah! my dear Aunt, if you knew how frightened I am as
the hour draws near.
[Illustration: p121-132]
His violence is so dreadful. Even when he is gentle like yesterday, his
eyes have flashes of lightning. However, I will try and be courageous in
thinking of you, my darling Aunt. Besides, as Monsieur Petitbry said to
me, it is only a short painful moment to get over, and then we will both
resume our former quiet life, so calm and happy.
Nina de B.
[Illustration: p122-134]
[Illustration: p123-134]
_From the same to the same_.
Dear Aunt, I am writing to you from my bed, torn by the emotions of
that terrible scene. Who could have supposed that things would take this
turn? Nevertheless I had taken every precaution. I had warned Marthe and
her sister, who were to come at one o'clock, and I had chosen for the
great scene the moment when on leaving the table, the servants are
clearing away in the dining-room next to the study. From early morn
my plans were laid; an hour of scales and exercises on the piano, the
_Cloches du Monastère_, the _Rêveries de Rosellen_, all the pieces
he hates. This did not prevent his working away without betraying the
slightest irritability. At breakfast, the same patience. A detestable
breakfast, scraps, and the sweet dishes he loathes. And if you had seen
my costume! A dress with a cape some five years out of date, a little
black silk apron, and uncurled hair! In vain I sought for some signs
of irritation, that well-known straight line that Monsieur hollows out
between his eyebrows at the least annoyance. Well no! nothing! Really I
might have thought they had changed my husband. He said to me in a calm
and rather sad tone:
"Ah, you have done your hair in the old way."
I hardly answered, not wishing to hurry on matters before my witnesses
had arrived, and then, strangely enough, I felt somewhat moved and upset
beforehand by the scene I was trying to get up. At last, after a few
still shorter replies on my part, he rose from the table and went into
his own room. I followed him trembling. I heard my friends stationing
themselves in the little drawing-room, and Pierre who came and went,
arranging the glasses and silver. The decisive moment had arrived. He
must now be brought to the needful point of violence, and it seemed
to me this would be easy, after all I had done since the morning to
irritate him.
When I entered his study I must have been very pale. I felt myself in
the lion's cage. The thought flashed across me: "Suppose he killed me!"
He did not present a very terrible appearance, however, leaning back on
his divan, a cigar in his mouth.
"Do I disturb you?" I asked in my most ironical voice.
He replied gently:
"No. You see. I am not working."
Myself, viciously:
"Ah! indeed you don't work then at all, now?"
He still very mild.
"You are mistaken, my dear. On the contrary, I work a great deal. Only
our craft is one in which a great deal of work can be done without
having a tool in hand."
"And what may you be doing at this moment? Ah! yes, I know, your play
in verse; always the same thing for the last two years. It is certainly
lucky that your wife had a fortune! That allows you to idle at your
ease."
I thought he would have sprung upon me at this. Not a bit of it. He came
up to me and took hold of my hands gently:
"Come, is it to be always the same thing? Are we to begin our life of
warfare again? If so, why did you come back?"
I confess I felt rather moved by his sad and affectionate tone; but
I thought of you, my poor Aunt, of your exile, of his harsh conduct
towards us, and that gave me courage. I said to him the bitterest, most
wounding things I could think of--I know not what--that I wished to
heaven I had never married an artist; that at Moulins, every one pitied
me; that I found my friends married to magistrates, serious, influential
men, in good positions, while he--If even he made money--But no,
Monsieur would work for fame only! and what fame!
[Illustration: p127-138]
At Moulins no one knew him; at Paris, his pieces were hissed. His books
did not sell. And so on, and so on. My brain seemed to whirl round as
all the malicious words came from me one after the other. He looked
at me without replying, in chilly anger. Of course this coldness
exasperated me still more. I was so much excited, that I no longer
recognized my own voice, raised to an extraordinary pitch, and the last
words I screamed at him--I can't remember what unjust and mad remark
it was--seemed to buzz indistinctly in my ears. For a moment, I thought
Monsieur Petitbry's assault with violence was an accomplished fact.
Pallid, with set teeth Henri made two steps towards me:
"Madame!"
Then suddenly, his anger fell, his face became impassive again, and
he looked at me with so scornful, insolent and calm a glance, that my
patience came to an end. I raised my hand, and gave him the best box on
the ear I ever gave in my life. At the noise, the door opened, and my
witnesses appeared solemn and indignant.
"Monsieur! this is infamous!"
"Yes, isn't it?" said the poor fellow, showing his red cheek.
You can imagine my confusion. Happily, I took the line of fainting, and
melting into torrents of tears, which relieved me greatly. At present,
Henri is in my room. He watches by me, nurses me, and is really
most kind. What can I do? What a checkmate! This will not prove very
satisfactory to Monsieur Petitbry.
Nina de B.
[Illustration: p129-140]
[Illustration: p130-141]
[Illustration: p133-144]