“I don't care what she was. I tell you that I see down there a city of
the Odyssey. The coast of Asia and the coast of Europe resemble each
other in their shores, and there is no city on the other coast of the
Mediterranean which awakens in me the memories of the heroic age as this
one does.”
A footstep caused me to turn my head; a woman, a large, dark woman, was
walking along the road which skirts the sea in going to the cape.
“That is Madame Parisse, you know,” muttered Monsieur Martini, dwelling
on the final syllable.
No, I did not know, but that name, mentioned carelessly, that name of
the Trojan shepherd, confirmed me in my dream.
However, I asked: “Who is this Madame Parisse?”
He seemed astonished that I did not know the story.
I assured him that I did not know it, and I looked after the woman,
who passed by without seeing us, dreaming, walking with steady and slow
step, as doubtless the ladies of old walked.
She was perhaps thirty-five years old and still very beautiful, though a
trifle stout.
And Monsieur Martini told me the following story:
Mademoiselle Combelombe was married, one year before the war of 1870, to
Monsieur Parisse, a government official. She was then a handsome young
girl, as slender and lively as she has now become stout and sad.
Unwillingly she had accepted Monsieur Parisse, one of those little fat
men with short legs, who trip along, with trousers that are always too
large.
After the war Antibes was garrisoned by a single battalion commanded by
Monsieur Jean de Carmelin, a young officer decorated during the war, and
who had just received his four stripes.
As he found life exceedingly tedious in this fortress this stuffy
mole-hole enclosed by its enormous double walls, he often strolled out
to the cape, a kind of park or pine wood shaken by all the winds from
the sea.
There he met Madame Parisse, who also came out in the summer evenings to
get the fresh air under the trees. How did they come to love each other?
Who knows? They met, they looked at each other, and when out of sight
they doubtless thought of each other. The image of the young woman with
the brown eyes, the black hair, the pale skin, this fresh, handsome
Southerner, who displayed her teeth in smiling, floated before the eyes
of the officer as he continued his promenade, chewing his cigar
instead of smoking it; and the image of the commanding officer, in his
close-fitting coat, covered with gold lace, and his red trousers, and
a little blond mustache, would pass before the eyes of Madame
Parisse, when her husband, half shaven and ill-clad, short-legged and
big-bellied, came home to supper in the evening.
As they met so often, they perhaps smiled at the next meeting; then,
seeing each other again and again, they felt as if they knew each other.
He certainly bowed to her. And she, surprised, bowed in return, but
very, very slightly, just enough not to appear impolite. But after two
weeks she returned his salutation from a distance, even before they were
side by side.
He spoke to her. Of what? Doubtless of the setting sun. They admired
it together, looking for it in each other's eyes more often than on the
horizon. And every evening for two weeks this was the commonplace and
persistent pretext for a few minutes' chat.
Then they ventured to take a few steps together, talking of anything
that came into their minds, but their eyes were already saying to each
other a thousand more intimate things, those secret, charming things
that are reflected in the gentle emotion of the glance, and that cause
the heart to beat, for they are a better revelation of the soul than the
spoken ward.
And then he would take her hand, murmuring those words which the woman
divines, without seeming to hear them.
And it was agreed between them that they would love each other without
evidencing it by anything sensual or brutal.
She would have remained indefinitely at this stage of intimacy, but he
wanted more. And every day he urged her more hotly to give in to his
ardent desire.
She resisted, would not hear of it, seemed determined not to give way.
But one evening she said to him casually: “My husband has just gone to
Marseilles. He will be away four days.”
Jean de Carmelin threw himself at her feet, imploring her to open her
door to him that very night at eleven o'clock. But she would not listen
to him, and went home, appearing to be annoyed.
The commandant was in a bad humor all the evening, and the next morning
at dawn he went out on the ramparts in a rage, going from one exercise
field to the other, dealing out punishment to the officers and men as
one might fling stones into a crowd.
On going in to breakfast he found an envelope under his napkin with
these four words: “To-night at ten.” And he gave one hundred sous
without any reason to the waiter.
The day seemed endless to him. He passed part of it in curling his hair
and perfuming himself.
As he was sitting down to the dinner-table another envelope was handed
to him, and in it he found the following telegram:
“My Love: Business completed. I return this evening on the nine
o'clock train.
PARISSE.”
The commandant let loose such a vehement oath that the waiter dropped
the soup-tureen on the floor.
What should he do? He certainly wanted her, that very, evening at
whatever cost; and he would have her. He would resort to any means, even
to arresting and imprisoning the husband. Then a mad thought struck him.
Calling for paper, he wrote the following note:
MADAME: He will not come back this evening, I swear it to
you,--and I shall be, you know where, at ten o'clock. Fear nothing.
I will answer for everything, on my honor as an officer.
JEAN DE CARMELIN.
And having sent off this letter, he quietly ate his dinner.
Toward eight o'clock he sent for Captain Gribois, the second in command,
and said, rolling between his fingers the crumpled telegram of Monsieur
Parisse:
“Captain, I have just received a telegram of a very singular nature,
which it is impossible for me to communicate to you. You will
immediately have all the gates of the city closed and guarded, so that
no one, mind me, no one, will either enter or leave before six in the
morning. You will also have men patrol the streets, who will compel the
inhabitants to retire to their houses at nine o'clock. Any one found
outside beyond that time will be conducted to his home 'manu militari'.
If your men meet me this night they will at once go out of my way,
appearing not to know me. You understand me?”
“Yes, commandant.”
“I hold you responsible for the execution of my orders, my dear
captain.”
“Yes, commandant.”
“Would you like to have a glass of chartreuse?”
“With great pleasure, commandant.”
They clinked glasses drank down the brown liquor and Captain Gribois
left the room.
The train from Marseilles arrived at the station at nine o'clock sharp,
left two passengers on the platform and went on toward Nice.
One of them, tall and thin, was Monsieur Saribe, the oil merchant, and
the other, short and fat, was Monsieur Parisse.
Together they set out, with their valises, to reach the city, one
kilometer distant.
But on arriving at the gate of the port the guards crossed their
bayonets, commanding them to retire.
Frightened, surprised, cowed with astonishment, they retired to
deliberate; then, after having taken counsel one with the other, they
came back cautiously to parley, giving their names.
But the soldiers evidently had strict orders, for they threatened
to shoot; and the two scared travellers ran off, throwing away their
valises, which impeded their flight.
Making the tour of the ramparts, they presented themselves at the
gate on the route to Cannes. This likewise was closed and guarded by a
menacing sentinel. Messrs. Saribe and Parisse, like the prudent men
they were, desisted from their efforts and went back to the station
for shelter, since it was not safe to be near the fortifications after
sundown.
The station agent, surprised and sleepy, permitted them to stay till
morning in the waiting-room.
And they sat there side by side, in the dark, on the green velvet sofa,
too scared to think of sleeping.
It was a long and weary night for them.
At half-past six in the morning they were informed that the gates were
open and that people could now enter Antibes.
They set out for the city, but failed to find their abandoned valises on
the road.
When they passed through the gates of the city, still somewhat anxious,
the Commandant de Carmelin, with sly glance and mustache curled up, came
himself to look at them and question them.
Then he bowed to them politely, excusing himself for having caused them
a bad night. But he had to carry out orders.
The people of Antibes were scared to death. Some spoke of a surprise
planned by the Italians, others of the landing of the prince imperial
and others again believed that there was an Orleanist conspiracy. The
truth was suspected only later, when it became known that the battalion
of the commandant had been sent away, to a distance and that Monsieur de
Carmelin had been severely punished.
Monsieur Martini had finished his story. Madame Parisse returned, her
promenade being ended. She passed gravely near me, with her eyes fixed
on the Alps, whose summits now gleamed rosy in the last rays of the
setting sun.
I longed to speak to her, this poor, sad woman, who would ever be
thinking of that night of love, now long past, and of the bold man who
for the sake of a kiss from her had dared to put a city into a state of
siege and to compromise his whole future.
And to-day he had probably forgotten her, if he did not relate this
audacious, comical and tender farce to his comrades over their cups.
Had she seen him again? Did she still love him? And I thought: Here
is an instance of modern love, grotesque and yet heroic. The Homer who
should sing of this new Helen and the adventure of her Menelaus must
be gifted with the soul of a Paul de Kock. And yet the hero of this
deserted woman was brave, daring, handsome, strong as Achilles and more
cunning than Ulysses.