THE COLOR OF MARRIAGE
"The dotal husband owes his wife three
nights each month."
_Attic Laws._
"Good," Entragues said, as he heard the bell ring. "It is the Russian
angel... Ah! I have written a fine blasphemy! '... in his arms.' And to
think that for want of understanding, people will tax me with impiety,
I who make the Roman breviary my daily reading no less than a clergyman
who holds the name of Voltaire as an infamous word."
"My dear Moscowitch, I made you wait. The reason was that I was
finishing a phrase and that this phrase ended a chapter."
The Russian angel drank tea while Entragues breakfasted. He spoke
little, seeming to hold himself in reserve.
"Have you your manuscripts, your plans, your theories?" asked Entragues.
"My theory," said Moscowitch, "is to make a school of pity out of the
theater."
"Orphans, bastards, picked up children, widows, persons condemned to
death, serfs of capital, girl mothers, invalids of labor, vagabonds
and victims of duty. Well! by dressing them in Russian smocks, by
giving the men names ending in itch and the women names ending in ia,
with some troikas thrown in, snow, Siberia, a priest or two, policemen
in flat caps, some angelic street-walkers, and a studied selection of
Darwinian assassins, one can write masterpieces, true masterpieces,
while--and here you see what fortune hangs on--were these same tatters
passed under a French dye, the most respectable manufacturers and the
most influential tradesmen, men wearing the ribbon, people who have
country homes at Ville-d'Avray, would not dare to place them in their
shop-windows."
"Why?" Moscowitch asked.
"Because it would not be profitable."
"I believe," said Moscowitch, "that you are laughing at me now."
"Aren't you rich? Then raillery cannot touch you. In France it is
impossible to laugh at riches, this impiety is forbidden by our
adulatory customs. Yet, if you had talent, the common law would get
possession of you: until then, be content and walk with a high head."
They entered the _Revue spéculative_. The presentation of Moscowitch
caused no curiosity. Fortier was amiable and Van Baël, absent-minded.
Yet when, prompted by Entragues, he declared: "I wish to regenerate
the theater through pity," eyes were uplifted and Renaudeau, diverted,
dragged him to the stake. It was one of the most amusing courses
of dramatic history ever given for the instruction of a beginner.
Renaudeau cited names that no one had ever heard of, and Moscowitch
took notes, promised to read, and thanked him.
This facile irony irritated Van Baël, who with a tone of superiority
took the Russian under his protection, gave him some good advice, and
finally two or three quite useless letters of introduction to directors
who never opened, naturally, their doors to strangers.
"Ah! here is the Marquise!" said Fortier, as a woman with an
extravagant dress entered. Her temples confessed that she had passed
the fortieth year. She was strapped in a black bodice studded by way of
buttons with authentic old silver coins; a collar with similar medals
on her neck, her curled hair, dyed a rose-colored blond, falling on her
shoulders; a hat _à la Longueville_ bristling with rebellious plumes;
bracelets as far as her elbows under her large sleeves; a heavy furred
gown, opened and thrown back, behind which the two plates of a clasp as
large as two shields were suspended as far as the neck. She raised her
curving nose and fixed on Fortier her impudent eyes of a woman who has
thumbed, without omitting one single page, the album of lust. She spoke
affectedly:
"My dear Fortier, and my _Lauzun_?"
"Madame, I should love to be yours," Fortier said.
Her eyes responded with lightning rapidity:
"I accept."
She said:
"Now, you have promised me proofs for this week."
While Fortier was trying to convince her that the _Revue spéculative_
was unworthy of her qualities, that money, rare everywhere, had a sort
of dread of his till, Moscowitch asked:
"Who is this woman?"
"They call her the Marquise, why I do not know. Her coins have earned
her better names: the Medal Cabinet, and this one, the Reliquary,
most cruel of all. Then, as she signs herself 'Françoise' to kitchen
recipes, Renaudeau has nicknamed her Françoise the Blue-Stocking. She
probably has a real name; it is either ordinary or insignificant."
"To think that at my age," Renaudeau said, "I have never seen any blue
stockings. The _modistes_ wear them red most often, and it is among
them I have my loves."
"Red? I, too," the Marquise said.
She camped her foot on a chair, lifting her petticoat as far as the
garter.
The leg was still pretty and her repartee clever.
Renaudeau, confessing himself outflanked by the movement, bowed and
assumed the air of one wishing to say, "I regret I can do no more."
"And I, too," the eyes of the Marquise answered.
Having bowed, not without a certain ironic charm, she departed, certain
now that her article would be accepted.
Fortier chided his secretary. She had paid with her person, payment
signed and received. Her prose could no longer be refused; but she
should get no money.
"Renaudeau, you must sacrifice yourself."
"Well," said Renaudeau, "this jade is full of surprises. I accept."
Moscowitch, very much astonished, found these customs singular. He
asked Entragues:
"And will this woman's article, even if wretched, appear in the _Revue_
simply because she has shown her leg?"
"Yes," Entragues answered distractedly, for he reflected, while
listening to Moscowitch's question, how dangerous such a profoundly
naive man might be. "He must be full of spontaneity, like a concealed
spring which the blow of a pickax puts in motion. Some day Sixtine
will wound his heart and violent effusions of love will burst forth
from the wound. It would be well to watch him, to infuse him with
literary distraction. This would be a way: have him understand that
he has genius, that he owes it to himself, to his two fatherlands, to
humanity, not to put the marvelous plant in jeopardy, the plant which
... which ... God, Nature, Glory and other entities ... I am not at
all jealous ... my chapter cured me of jealousy this morning. I have
tortured Delia Preda and the tormentor has let fall the pincers which
tortured my flesh ... not jealous, but uneasy. In short, it is a
question of myself, I have incorporated Sixtine into my life. If she is
taken away, I am mutilated."
"Indeed," he told Moscowitch, as there entered a lean, insipid-looking
person, whose eyes were terrified by apocalyptic visions, "here is a
type worth observing. It is in vain for you to have talent, and even
more than talent (_good_), my dear friend (_these familiar words give
value to the compliment, by clothing it with sincerity_), yes, despite
my inclination to irony I must end by confessing the impression you
have made on me (_his eyes light up_), yes, more than talent (_the
flower expands: open, precious flower of vanity, exhale thy heady odor,
intoxicate him!_) ... well, nothing must be neglected ... observation
... the little characteristic facts ... these nothings which,
capitalized, give a drama, just as a novel, an inimitable air of real
Truth (_apostate_) ... Truth ... my dear ... the truth (_a ladder would
be needed to paint on the curtain of nothingness the capital belonging
to this word_....
TRUTH
_He commences to understand that I wish him well_) ... Listen to him,
he is called Blondin and was as fine as his name, as pretty as a heart,
but women have left only the shell."
"Ah! my poor friends," Blondin lamented, after having remained huddled
in his chair, "there is another one this week. This makes the seventh
this year, without counting all those which pass unnoticed ... Ah!"
"What is it?" Moscowitch, inquired.
"A premature burial."
"Ah! my poor friends," sighed Blondin, stretching his contracted hands
towards a vision of horror, "to be buried alive, to twist in the coffin
with anguish and suffocation ... and first of all the calvary of
cataleptics condemned to torment ... the hypocritical tears ... the
stirrings in the chamber ... the ominous carpenter ... the church ...
the _Dies irae_ ... the stones and the wet ground, and the rain falling,
falling, falling on the oak ... then silence, silence, silence...."
"My dear Blondin," Fortier said, "you should get married. That will
divert you."
"Poor woman!" Renaudeau exclaimed. "Let him rather take light o' loves."
"But I believe," Entragues said, "that his principles...."
"Yes, this unfortunate creature is truly mal-treated by life. What a
specimen. And not one of us is assured against such a disorder! When
one thinks of this possible end, it is best to follow Fortier's advice,
marry, become bourgeois, procreate and only read the first page of the
papers, the _feuilleton_, the exchange, and deny oneself all other
sundry facts as too exciting."
"More than one of us will end," Entragues said, "with marriage,
corporeal progeniture."
"Do you not find it odd, Entragues, that to marry, one is forced to
submit to ceremonies and to the assent of one's contemporaries?"
"I imagine," Entragues said, "that a religious marriage, in a tiny
solitary chapel, by an affected priest, in the presence of two or three
dear friends, with no discourse other than the admirable words of the
missal, without celebrations, without dances, without any consequent
dinner--I believe that in such forms marriage is an interesting act
which one would pleasurably recall, especially if a red lamp hung from
the vault, if the priest had a fine, well-accentuated voice, and if
one loved one's bride. As practiced, marriage is the most repugnant of
the ceremonies imposed on men by tradition. It is, what? the official
authorization given by society to a man and woman to live together.
There! Ah! analysis goes to the bottom of everything, even to the most
sacred customs."
Entragues was almost applauded for his phrases, spoken with a very
noble conviction. It was the thought of every one present, expressed in
splendid language.
David Dazin alone seemed sad. He was a lean and tall Belgian with
curled hair, blond as the moon and as disquieting. His vanity was
pleased by the hoaxes of the papers who jeered, from time to time, at
his theory of colored vowels. Although he had taken this from Rimbaud,
he imagined that he had invented it and he prided himself on being a
revolutionary genius. Rimbaud was a madman with gleams which often
touched on talent; Dazin was a sane man in quest of madness: it had
frustrated him, for his unaccountable amputations only formed, on the
clown's arena, poses that were neither new nor pleasant.
He feigned a deep grief of feelings wounded in their delicacy, and
addressed Entragues:
"What, you associate with red, that is with bright coppers, such an
image as a religious marriage! The organs prevail there: the tone is
black."
"But," Entragues answered, "I do not fix any obligatory association. I
see my sanctuary illuminated by feeble red lamp, a quite occasional and
personal association. As for marriage, it is, doubtless, white, blue,
rose, usually; for me it is black with a red speck and some beams of
dull gold."
"That would be better," Dazin returned, "but red alone, as I understood
it, would pain me."
"Ah! how sensitive this poor Dazin is?"
"Entragues," interrupted Fortier, "do you wish a box for the Odéon,
tomorrow?"
"Oh! no, thanks."
"Be careful, there is a surprise. They will play...."
"What?"
"You will see! You will see!"
"Very well," said Entragues.