A few days after Bélan’s wedding, we received a visit from Monsieur and
Madame Giraud. I divined what brought them, and in truth they were
hardly seated before Giraud exclaimed:
“You must have been greatly surprised not to see us at Bélan’s wedding?”
“In fact,” added Madame Giraud, “it made an impression on everybody. It
was so terribly vulgar! So extraordinary! Just think of it! It was at
our house that they met, and it was Giraud who took the first steps, who
sounded Madame de Beausire, and who enumerated to her the young man’s
property and good qualities; and yet we were not invited to the
breakfast, or even to the ball! It’s an outrage!”
“More than that, it was indecent!” cried Giraud; “and if my wife hadn’t
restrained me, I would have demanded satisfaction.”
“No, no; people would have thought that we cared about a wedding party;
but thank God! we have more of them than we want. By the way, they say
that that one was very dismal and tiresome!”
“Why, it was not very lively,” said Eugénie.
“Ah! yours was the lovely one, my dear Madame Blémont, and managed with
such taste and such profusion! I confess that I had thirteen ices;
salvers kept passing me, and I forgot myself.”
“Yes, that was a charming wedding,” said Giraud; “but they tell me that
at Bélan’s there weren’t enough people to form two quadrilles of twelve,
and that they were almost all outlandish creatures of the last century.
And that old Beausire woman did nothing but cry. And then that night--do
you know what happened?”
“No, we don’t know.”
“Well, I know all about it, because I have a maid who used to live in
the house where the Beausires live, and who still has friends there.
Well, that night the mother-in-law refused to leave her daughter. When
the husband arrived, Madame de Beausire sobbed so that she woke the
neighbors. Bélan lost his temper, and they had a terrible scene;
finally, in a rage, he went to bed in a little closet where they keep
coal, and the next morning he came out looking like a coal heaver! Poor
fellow! If he doesn’t look out, those two women will shut him up in a
foot-warmer, and feed him through the holes when he’s a good boy.--Ha!
ha! It is too funny!” said Madame Giraud. “However, I won’t give him a
year to be--you know what--and he will well have deserved it.”
Monsieur and Madame Giraud took leave of us, renewing the assurances of
their friendship, and they probably went about to all their
acquaintances to do the same thing.
As her pregnancy advanced, my wife felt called upon to attend to a
thousand little duties which made it necessary for her to neglect music
and painting. Moreover, her health was often poor, and she needed a
great deal of rest; the result was that I had much more time to work in
my office. Besides, the title of father, which I hoped soon to have,
made me reflect more reasonably than I had done for some months past.
Although our fortune was large enough for Eugénie and myself, it would
cease to be large enough if we should have several children, and on
their account it would be well for me to think of increasing it.
Bélan made his wedding call with his wife, who had lost none of her
stiffness and primness since her marriage. I found that the new
husband’s eyes were as red as his mother-in-law’s. Perhaps he too wept
sometimes to gratify Madame de Beausire. He was so attentive, so devoted
to his Armide, and he waited upon her with such humility, that he seemed
like his wife’s servant.
We returned their visit ceremoniously, and we did not go again; we
remembered their breakfast.
Since I had given my attention to business once more and had returned to
the practice of my profession, my mother said that we had become
reasonable and that I now had the aspect of a married man. I do not know
what aspect I may have had, but I know that I considered that we were
becoming altogether too sedate; we no longer played together or fooled
the time away, as we did in the early days of our marriage.
The longed-for moment arrived at last. Eugénie made me the father of a
daughter whom I considered a sweet little thing. My wife was
disappointed for a moment, for she had hoped for a boy and had convinced
herself that it would be a boy. For my own part, I was quite as well
satisfied with a girl. I comforted Eugénie. My daughter, to whom her
godmother, Madame Dumeillan, gave the name of Henriette, was placed in
the charge of a stout, motherly nurse, who lived only three leagues from
Paris, so that we could go often to see her. My wife soon recovered her
health, but she retained some unevenness of temper and some caprices;
what she decided to do in the morning she sometimes did not want to do
at night. I am extremely good-natured, but I like to have people do what
they have planned to do, and not act like weather vanes. My wife would
express a wish to go to walk; and when I called her for that purpose,
she would have changed her mind because it was necessary to change her
dress; thereupon I would return laughing to my office.
“If you make up your mind to go,” I would say to her; “you must come and
call me.”
As I passed through Rue du Temple one day, I heard someone call my name.
It was Ernest, who was behind me. I was overjoyed to see him again and
we shook hands warmly.
“Is it really you, my dear Ernest? Mon Dieu! How long it is since we saw
each other!”
“Yes, more than a year. I suppose that you are married now; for you were
just about to marry your dear Eugénie the last time that I saw you.”
“Yes, I am married and I am a father; I wasted no time, you see.”
“That is splendid. Do you still live in the same apartment?”
“Yes; my wife likes it very much. And you?”
“We live in this street, only a step or two from here. I gave you our
address, and you promised to come to see us; but you have forgotten your
neighbors of the attic.”
“I plead guilty; the change that has taken place in my situation is my
excuse.”
“If you want us to forgive you altogether, you must come up and bid my
wife good-morning. I say my wife, although we are not married. But for
the benefit of concierges and strangers I feel bound to call her my
wife; that is a sacrifice to the proprieties. After all, what difference
is there between us and married people? Simply a signature on a great
book! And that signature, and the oath, and all the promises made before
men, do not make people behave any better.”
“I am entirely of your opinion.”
“At all events, we are very happy; we love each other as dearly as ever,
and we snap our fingers at evil tongues.”
“You are quite right, my dear Ernest, one should live for oneself and
not for other people.”
“Now that I am prosperous, I don’t care what my parents say; I owe
nothing to anybody and I am as happy as a king, I mean, happier than a
king. But come on; Marguerite will be very glad to see you; we often
speak of you.”
I followed Ernest; he led me into a very attractive house, and we went
up three flights; he rang, and my former neighbor opened the door. She
uttered a cry of surprise when she saw me.
“Ah! it is Monsieur Blémont! What a miracle!”
“Parbleu! if he has come, my dear love, it is simply because I met him
and brought him by force; but for that, you wouldn’t have seen him yet.”
“Ah! how wicked it is to forget one’s good friends, one’s neighbors!”
“Mon Dieu! madame, you see--that----”
“Ha! ha! he is getting mixed up; he is ashamed of his wrongdoing,” said
Ernest, laughingly; “we must be generous and say nothing more to him
about it.”
They ushered me into a bedroom which served as a salon; it was not
magnificent, but there was everything that was necessary, and there was
an atmosphere of order and of neatness which did much credit to the
mistress of the house.
Madame Ernest, for I could call her by no other name, was a little
stouter than of old; she was most attractive, and her eyes and all her
features expressed a contentment, a happiness which added to her charm.
They made me sit down, and we talked of the evenings we had passed
together in the attic, long ago.
“Are you married to your Eugénie?” asked Madame Ernest.
“Yes, madame, thirteen months ago.”
“You must be very happy! for you were very much in love with her, and
she loved you dearly too.”
“Yes, madame.”
“Have you any children?”
“What a foolish creature!” said Ernest; “do you suppose that they have
had six or seven in thirteen months?”
“I mean a child.”
“Yes, I have had a little daughter for two months and a half.”
“Ah! you are luckier than we are. I should like so much to have a child;
and since my miscarriage--But this time I have hopes.”
And the little woman glanced at Ernest with a smile; he smiled back at
her, saying:
“Are such things mentioned before people?”
“Oh! never mind! What harm is there in hoping to be a mother?--Besides,
Monsieur Blémont isn’t ‘people;’ he is our friend; he proved it that
night that I was sick.--But come and see what pretty rooms we have.”
The little woman showed me over her apartments, which consisted of three
rooms and a small dressing-room. She stopped in front of the fireplace
in her bedroom and said:
“Do you see? We have a clock!”
“Hush, Marguerite!” said Ernest.
“No, no, I am going to speak. Ought I to pretend to be proud with
Monsieur Henri, who knew me when I was so poor and unhappy? I am sure
that it pleases him to see that we have all these things.”
“Indeed, you are quite right, madame; and you judge me aright in
thinking that I am happy in your happiness.”
“I was right, you see. I also have a woman who comes in in the morning,
to do the heavy work. Ernest insisted upon it, because he declares that
I am not strong enough.”
“How interesting to monsieur to know that!”
“Yes, yes, it is interesting.--He is always scolding me, because he says
that I am ignorant of the proprieties. Bless my soul! it isn’t my fault;
it seems to me that one may well talk to her friends about what
interests her; I am so happy!”
And Marguerite began to dance about the room; then she ran and threw her
arms about Ernest’s neck and kissed him. She was as much a child as
ever; but she was not yet eighteen. I prayed that she might retain that
happy disposition for a long time to come.
The time passes quickly when one is in pleasant company. I suddenly
discovered that it was long past five o’clock; and my wife would be
expecting me to dinner, and I was to take her that evening to see a new
play! I bade my young friends good-bye. I promised to go again to see
them and I urged Ernest to come upstairs when he passed my house.
It rarely happened that I was not at home some time before the dinner
hour; and that day we were to dine before five o’clock, in order to have
plenty of time to go to the theatre. I found Eugénie at the window,
anxious and impatient.
“Where on earth have you been? It is almost half-past five; you never
come home so late.”
“My dear love, I met a friend,--one of my old friends.”
“Should a man’s friends cause him to forget his wife?”
“I didn’t think about the time.”
“And you didn’t think of me, who have been waiting for you and who did
not know what to think.”
“Nonsense! come to dinner.”
“But tell me, where have you been?”
“I will tell you at the table.”
We sat down, and I told my wife the story of my acquaintance with Ernest
and Marguerite. I was obliged to begin some way back, in order to
explain to her how it happened that I went up to the attic room.
Eugénie, who listened at first with interest, became thoughtful, and her
brow darkened. I finished my story, and still she was silent for a long
time. I ate my dinner, but she did not eat. She continued to keep
silent, and it vexed me at last.
“Why don’t you eat?”
“Because I am not hungry.”
“And why are you sulky with me?”
“Sulky! I am not sulky.”
“You don’t say a word; is that the way we ordinarily act when we are
together?”
“I am thinking about your former neighbor, about your friend’s mistress,
whom you used to go to see in her room under the eaves.”
“I went to see her when Ernest was there.”
“Oh! you were always sure to find him, were you?”
“Yes, for I seldom went except in the evening, and Ernest was almost
always there then.”
“Almost always!”
“Eugénie, I have told you the truth; you would do very wrong to believe
anything else.”
“But you seem to be so infatuated with this little Marguerite. You say
that she is so pretty.”
“In the first place, I did not say that she was pretty. But even if she
were, that isn’t what I admired in her; it was her love, her deep
affection for her lover.”
“Oh, yes! that was what led you up to the eaves!”
“Yes, it was. Why do you think ill of a person whom you do not know?”
“Oh! you did so many things when you were a bachelor! You had so many
mistresses!”
“A very good reason why I did not need to turn to somebody’s else, who
would not have listened to me if I had.”
“You may very well have known Mademoiselle Marguerite before she knew
her Monsieur Ernest, as you were her neighbor.”
“If I had dreamed that you would imagine all this, I would not have
mentioned Ernest or his wife.”
“His wife! She isn’t his wife.”
“It is practically the same thing, as they live together.”
“Such people are always very queer, and that woman would not be received
in decent society.”
“Queer! What foolish prejudices! People in what is called good society
won’t receive a woman who has lived a long time with the only man whom
she ever loved; whose only care, whose only glory consists in making him
happy; who goes out with no one but him, adorns herself for no one else,
knows no pleasure without him; but they will welcome and make much of
the woman who ruins her husband by extravagance, who does not even take
the trouble to conceal her love-affairs, who goes about with no one but
her cicisbeo. And all because those women are married, forsooth! Upon my
word, it does great honor to society!”
“Mon Dieu! how you flare up, monsieur!”
“Because I cannot tolerate injustice, and because this particular
injustice is often perpetrated in society. For my own part, I tell you
that I shall always rise above such prejudices, and that I should be
very glad to welcome Ernest and his wife at my house.”
“I thank you, monsieur, but I trust that you will not do so.”
“If you knew them, I am sure that you would not talk like this.”
“I have no desire to make their acquaintance; it is quite enough for you
to be Mademoiselle Marguerite’s intimate friend.”
“Great heaven! how absurdly you talk, Eugénie!”
“And she used to live in this house?”
“To be sure.”
“I am no longer surprised that you are so attached to your apartment.”