for money, she would throw herself back on her couch and hold a phial of
smelling salts to her nose, crying:
“Oh! Madame Roc, have you come to talk about money again? Leave me in
peace, I beg you. I have an attack of vapors already, and you will give
me an attack of hysteria.”
“But, madame, for dinner----”
“Don’t bother me about dinner; do what you choose; I give you _carte
blanche_!”
“_Carte blanche_ isn’t money, and they all want money; I can’t say to
the butcher: ‘I have _carte blanche_ to pay for your fillet.’”
“Mon Dieu! how you tire me! how you make my head ache!”
“But, madame, if I shouldn’t get any dinner for you, would you like
that?”
“Heavens! how you annoy me, how intolerable you are! Go away, I tell you
again, and leave me!”
This little scene, which is of frequent occurrence in Paris, will give
an idea of the sort of person that the Baronne de Grangeville was. When
the cook had been dismissed, matters arranged themselves better with the
lady’s maid; she, being accustomed to flatter her mistresses in order to
obtain a dress or a scarf, knew a thousand tricks to deceive creditors,
to put them off the scent and send them away; and that was just the sort
of lady’s maid that Madame de Grangeville needed.
However, everything has an end, the patience of creditors no less than
the confidence of dealers. Discovering a little late that she was likely
to find herself in a very critical situation, after squandering a part
of her principal, she sold what little she had left, and with the
proceeds took it into her head to gamble on the Bourse. That was as
good a way as another; it was a matter of luck, and she could still
dream of wealth; for people who are devoid of order, it is a
masterstroke to be able to rely on chance.
One morning, Madame de Grangeville, who had just risen and taken her
chocolate _à la vanille_, told Lizida, her maid, to go out and buy a
newspaper which had the quotations of railroad and manufacturing stocks.
The maid hastened to obey her mistress; the latter looked at herself in
a mirror, as she tried on a very fashionable cap which she had worn only
three times, but which did not rejuvenate her as much as she wished.
“Here is the paper, madame,” said Lizida, eyeing her mistress’s cap,
which she coveted; “I inquired about the Mouzaias; hasn’t madame some
Mouzaia stocks?”
“Yes, I have twenty shares; my last hope is in that.”
“What are the Mouzaias, madame? a sugar factory?”
“Alas! no, it isn’t sugar. I believe it’s a copper mine in Algeria; I
don’t know exactly, but it doesn’t make any difference; a friend of mine
doubled her money six months ago by buying shares in it; and I hope to
double mine; but thus far I haven’t had any luck.--Do you think my cap
is becoming, Lizida?”
“Mon Dieu, madame, it’s strange--but if you want my opinion----”
“To be sure, when I ask for it.”
“Well! madame, who is always so pretty--I don’t know how it is, but with
that cap madame has a stern, serious look.”
“Say at once that it makes me older, for that is what you don’t dare to
say.”
“Oh! it isn’t that; madame can’t look old; that is impossible; but
madame has a less animated, less coquettish air--that’s it, less
coquettish.”
Madame de Grangeville snatched off her cap and threw it on a chair,
crying:
“You are quite right, Lizida; this cap certainly does make me a
frightful object.”
“Oh! frightful! As if madame could be frightful when--when she is so
pretty!”
“Hush, child; take the cap; I give it to you, it’s yours, do what you
choose with it.”
“Madame is too good; but I wouldn’t want madame to think----”
“I tell you to take that cap, I never want to hear of it again. Go and
get me the little blue one that I wore before I bought that one.”
Mademoiselle Lizida ran from the room to fetch the cap which her
mistress asked for, and handed it to her; then she made haste to take to
her own room the cap for which the baroness had paid thirty-five francs
and which she had worn but three times, saying to herself:
“I knew very well that I should get it! Oh! it is a perfect beauty! It
makes me look like an angel, and I will wear it on Sunday to go to the
Château des Fleurs to dance.--How lovely it is!”
Then she returned to her mistress, who had put on the blue cap, and
cried:
“Oh! how lovely madame is in that! madame is only twenty-five years
old,--not a day more. Ah! if I was a man, how madly in love I should be
with madame!”
“Hush, you mad girl! It’s a fact that this cap is very becoming to me.”
“Madame, you must have another one just like it made at once.”
“Yes, that is what I intend to do, when I am in funds.--Let me look at
the newspaper, the quotations; I don’t understand them very well.”
“Madame, I was told that the Mouzaias had gone up.”
“Really? Oh! if only that were true! for I bought twenty shares at par,
and they have fallen to forty-eight francs. Let me see,--a rise of fifty
centimes! That is magnificent!”
“Then madame has not made anything?”
“If I should sell now, I shouldn’t get back a thousand francs of the two
thousand that I invested; I should lose more than half!”
“Then you mustn’t sell, madame!”
“I mustn’t sell, but I must have money. I have promised to go to Nogent,
to visit those Glumeaus, who are to have a family party, with
theatricals.”
“The Glumeaus! Who on earth are they? Retired grocers?”
“No, they are--Faith, I don’t know what they used to do, nor do I care.
If I had to inquire about such things as that, should I ever go into
society? But they are excellent people; one enjoys oneself at their
house; it is just like being at home. The company is a little mixed
there perhaps, but isn’t it so everywhere? I met at Monsieur Glumeau’s a
person whom I used to know, before I was married.”
“Ah! it must have been a long while ago then!”
Mademoiselle Lizida had no sooner made this remark than she saw that she
had put her foot in it; she made haste to add:
“When I said a long time, I said something very foolish; I spoke without
thinking, for after all, I have no idea whether madame was married long
ago, any more than I know how long madame has been a widow. Sometimes
one is widowed right away. A husband doesn’t always last a year.”
“Oh! my poor Lizida, there are many other things that you don’t know,
and that would surprise you greatly if I should tell you them!”
Mademoiselle Lizida, who was inquisitive like all lady’s maids, seeing
that her mistress was in one of those moods when one longs to disclose
one’s secrets, to confide the most private mysteries which a woman
always tires of keeping to herself, employed at first her usual tactics
to make herself agreeable to her mistress.
“Mon Dieu! how very becoming that little blue cap is to madame! It gives
her such a charming air! But then, madame always has that.”
“Oh! there are days when one looks better than on others; everybody is
like that; to-day certainly seems to be one of my good days.”
“It would seem then that madame was married very young?”
“Yes, very young; I was seventeen years old, not more.”
“What a sweet little bride madame must have been!”
“Yes, everybody admired me!”
“And madame’s husband, the Baron de Grangeville, was he young? Was he a
fine-looking man?”
“Why yes, my husband was a fine man, very good-looking, with a somewhat
serious expression.--Would you believe, my dear child, that I was mad
over that man?”
“Pray, madame, why not? There are wives who adore their husbands; it
isn’t very common, but such things are seen.”
“Yes, I adored him--the first year after our marriage.”
“Ah! only the first year?”
“Men are agreeable for such a short time!”
“Oh! how true that is!--And madame’s husband became like the others, no
doubt, surly, moody, fault-finding. There are some men who refuse their
wives everything, even a cashmere shawl; and everybody knows that a
woman who goes into good society cannot do without a cashmere shawl! The
idea of such a thing! what would she look like?”
“My husband found no fault with my taste for dress; besides, I had my
own money; I brought him twelve thousand francs a year when I married
him.”
“Well! if with that amount the wife was not the mistress, it would be
funny!”
“But he had nearly twenty thousand francs a year.”
“Then you must have lived very handsomely! Ah! your maid must have been
very lucky! madame is so noble, so generous! madame was born to be
waited upon; anyone can see that at once.”
“But my husband became jealous, so jealous that he made himself
ridiculous!”
“Ah! that is another fault of these men! to be jealous! and what good
does it do them, I ask you? None at all, except to bore their wives! and
when a woman is bored, why, bless my soul, she seeks some sort of
distraction! I say, madame, as monsieur le baron had become so jealous,
it seems to me that you should not have been very sorry to be left a
widow.--Dear me! what lovely pink cheeks madame has to-day!”
Madame de Grangeville smiled at herself in the mirror which stood before
her; then, throwing herself back in an armchair, she said with a little
sigh:
“Ah! you don’t know all, Lizida. What I am going to tell you will
surprise you tremendously! but you must be very discreet, and never
mention it to anyone!”
“Madame must know me, she knows that I am not a chatterbox; I would
rather be chopped in pieces than betray a secret.”
“Well, my dear, I am not a widow.”
“Oho! is it possible? Madame’s husband is still alive?”
“Yes, and what is more, I know from someone who has met him lately that
he is living in Paris at this moment.”
“Well, that is news indeed; the Baron de Grangeville is alive!”
“Not the Baron de Grangeville, for that isn’t his name; I did not choose
to bear his name any longer.”
“I understand; so madame is not really a baroness then?”
“I was a countess, Lizida, which is much better; for my husband is a
count!”
“Oh! excuse me, madame, excuse me! madame la comtesse! Ah! ‘madame la
comtesse’! how lovely it is to say that! will you allow me to call you
that, madame?”
“No, you would become accustomed to it; besides, I don’t want that title
any more, it would remind me of a time that I wish to forget.”
“Oh! of course, since madame was so unhappy with her husband, that she
was obliged to leave him--after many years, no doubt.”
“Why, no; we had been married hardly three years when we separated.”
“Only three years! That isn’t very long! Was he very unkind from the
beginning, that husband of yours?”
“Yes, he began to be very--very ridiculous at once!”
“Madame had no children?”
“No, I had none.”
“That is very lucky, for sometimes there is a dispute as to who shall
have the children, or who shall not have them; whereas, when there are
none, it’s: ‘Adieu, bonsoir; we can’t live together any longer, let us
part!’--Isn’t that the way it’s done, madame?”
“Not quite so easy as that when you wish to separate according to law,
and that is what we did, Monsieur de--my husband having his separate
property and I mine, we both took our own.”
“Ah! but if your husband should die, madame, would you inherit from
him?”
“No indeed, I should not get a sou.”
“How unjust that is! Just think of that! A poor little woman gives
herself to a man who makes her unhappy, and if he dies, she doesn’t
inherit! And monsieur le comte, your husband, has at least twenty
thousand francs a year, you say?”
“Oh! in more than nineteen years that have passed, it seems that he has
doubled his fortune at least, in undertakings, speculations.”
“What! nineteen years madame has left her husband?”
Madame de Grangeville made a gesture of irritation, and the maid made
haste to add:
“No, no, that is not possible; madame made a mistake; doubtless madame
meant to say nine years.”
“Yes, you are right, I did make a mistake; it is much less. However,
what does it matter? It is of no use to think about that any more.”
“I beg pardon, madame,--don’t be offended at what I am going to say; it
is an idea that came into my head, and I submit it to you.”
“Go on; you know very well that I never am angry.”
“Well, since madame’s former husband is so rich, and madame finds
herself annoyed, besieged by those demons of creditors, as we have been
for some time--suppose madame should send to monsieur le comte and ask
him to let her have a few thousand-franc notes--would he refuse them?”
“O Lizida! that is impossible!”
“Why so? Just let madame tell me her husband’s name and address, and I
will willingly undertake the errand.”
“It is impossible, Lizida, because I don’t choose to do it, because I
shall never apply to the count. No, I would prefer to be deprived of
everything, rather than let him know my position. Besides, he would
reply: ‘You had your property, madame. You should have kept it.’”
“Kept it! kept it! That is very easy to say; but madame has such a kind
heart, she is so noble, so generous--madame has too noble a mind to know
how to calculate. Pshaw! it is only the petty bourgeois who do that!”
“But they are wise, perhaps!”
“To think that madame is not a widow! I cannot get over it. So that is
the reason that madame does not marry. See how wicked it is to forbid
divorce!”
“If only those infernal Mouzaias would go back to the price I paid for
them! I absolutely must have some money; I am going to Nogent in four
days; they are going to have theatricals, there’ll be a great many
people there, and I must have another bonnet; mine is no longer fresh
enough.”
“It is true that it is beginning to be unworthy of madame; and madame is
always so well dressed that everybody always admires her costume!”
“Yes, I used to be one of the women who were famous for their taste in
dress; I set the fashion.”
“Madame might set the fashion again if she would.”
“Say rather if I could, my dear Lizida! But listen--someone rang; if it
is Monsieur de Merval, you will let him come in; he is the person whom I
met at the Glumeaus’.”
“But if it’s an _Englishman_----”
“A creditor! Mon Dieu! you know well enough what you must say to them,
for you are used to receiving those fellows.”
“Oh yes, madame, I will get around him.”
XVII
AN OLD FRIEND
The lady’s maid went to the door. Madame de Grangeville took her place
anew before her dressing-table, and arranged her cap and her hair. To
try to attract, to appear young, was in her a desire so identified with
her nature, that she would go to look at herself in her mirror before
allowing a chimney sweep to enter her room.
But no one appeared; she heard only the sound of voices in the reception
room. It lasted some time, and Madame de Grangeville, who divined what
was happening, threw herself back in her chair and began to look over
the newspaper as if what were going on in her reception room did not
concern her.
After some little time the outer door closed and Mademoiselle Lizida
reappeared, crying:
“Heavens! how unendurable those people are getting to be! They have no
manners at all; I thought that it would never end.”
“Who was it?”
“Mon Dieu! it was that idiot of a grocer opposite, who has taken it into
his head to come himself now.”
“The grocer! what on earth can I owe to a grocer? I don’t eat here, that
is to say, I send out for everything.”
“To be sure, no cooking is done in madame’s apartment, but I make her
chocolate; and then candles,--madame uses a great many of them; and I
have to have oil for the lamps, and then sugar--we can’t get along
without sugar--and tea, and coffee--I take coffee in the morning. And
then soap, and matches, and I don’t know what; there’s no end to the
things, although we seem not to need anything.--In fact, he demands a
total of ninety-six francs!”
“As much as that for trifles?”
“Yes, madame. I tell you the sugar goes fast, when one drinks tea!”
“Well, I will pay him when I have money.”
“That’s what I told him; but would you believe, madame, that he had the
face to reply: ‘Your mistress has money enough to hire cabs, for she
goes out in them often enough; she ought to have some to pay her
grocer!’”
“What a shocking thing! Why, it is disgusting! The idea! I must stop to
think before taking a cab, because of a miserable creditor!”
“Yes, madame, things have got to that point. That is the result of our
revolutions.”
“Lizida, you will get nothing more at that man’s shop, I forbid you!”
“Oh! madame has no need to forbid me, there’s no danger of my going
there again; besides, he wouldn’t let me have anything more on credit!
He says that if he doesn’t get his money in two days he’ll go before the
justice of the peace.”
“All right! let him go before his justice of the peace! I won’t go
myself, that’s all.--How unfortunate it is to have to do with such
people!--Heavens!--someone else is ringing; can it be that that clown
has come back?”
“This time I will take my broom, and if it’s the grocer again, I will
sweep his legs out from under him!”
Mademoiselle Lizida went out in a rage. Madame de Grangeville listened,
this time with some little emotion; but she heard no voices, it was
evidently not a creditor. The maid reappeared with a very different
expression.
“Monsieur de Merval asks if he may present his respects to madame la
baronne?”
“Yes, to be sure; show him in.”
And the baroness made haste to cast another glance at the mirror, to
arrange her hair and to assume a gracious attitude in her easy-chair.
Monsieur de Merval was ushered into the room; he entered with the
exquisite courtesy which distinguished him, and took a chair near Madame
de Grangeville, who said to him with her most engaging smile:
“I am very glad that you remembered the promise that you gave me at
Monsieur Glumeau’s. I did not rely very much upon it.”
“Why so, madame? Do you think that I also was not delighted to meet
again, to see once more, a person who carried me back to the pleasant
days of my youth--in memory, to be sure; but those memories are too
agreeable ever to be effaced entirely.”
“Dear Armand!--I beg pardon, will you permit me still to call you so?”
“It is a token of friendship for which I thank you.”
“I was unmarried when I knew you; we used to meet often at parties; then
you came to my uncle’s house.”
“Yes, madame, yes, the evenings at your uncle’s were delightful; you did
the honors with such grace; so that we rated ourselves as very fortunate
when we were on the list of your guests.”
“Yes, we used to have music and singing. Do you remember little
Dumesnil, how false she sang?”
“I remember especially that you sang like an angel. We used to dance,
too, quite often.”
“Yes, while the sober people played whist or bouillotte. You waltzed
divinely, Armand; you were our best waltzer.”
“True, the waltz was my specialty.”
“And you never were able to make tall Adèle Brillange dance in time; do
you remember her--rather a pretty blonde?”
“Really, I hardly remember her. Just remember that that was fully
twenty-three or twenty-four years ago!”
Madame de Grangeville bit her lips, not at all pleased to find that her
old acquaintance remembered dates so well.
“Do you still waltz, Monsieur de Merval?”
“Oh! that is all over, madame; I have had my day.”
“Bless my soul! to hear you, one would think that we belonged to the age
of Louis XV!”
“No one would think so to look at you, madame; time has stood still for
you.”
This compliment restored the serenity of Madame de Grangeville’s
expression, and she replied, simpering a little:
“Ah! you are always agreeable; would that I were back in those happy
days! Tell me, Armand, if I remember aright, you used to pay court to me
then,--yes, you were very attentive to me.”
Monsieur de Merval seemed decidedly embarrassed; he glanced about the
salon and replied at last:
“I don’t deny it, madame, but I remember also that as soon as the Comte
de Brévanne was introduced to you, discovering that his love was
welcomed with enthusiasm, I thought only of making an honorable retreat;
and I was wise, as the count became your husband.”
“Yes, he became my husband.”
“It was a love match, was it not, madame?”
“Oh! mon Dieu! is it possible to say, when one is so young? One always
imagines that one is in love, but one does not even know what love is.
You must have been very much surprised to learn that I was no longer
living with Monsieur de Brévanne?”
“Yes, madame; and yet such things happen rather often.”
“Look you, Armand, I am sorry that I didn’t marry you; we should never
have parted.”
Monsieur de Merval shook his head slightly and answered with a smile:
“No one knows, no one knows!”
Madame de Grangeville blushed, then assumed a serious air.
“You may perhaps believe all the slanders that Monsieur de Brévanne no
doubt spread about me?”
“I knew nothing, heard nothing, madame. Monsieur de Brévanne is too
well-bred a man to say anything which could possibly injure your
reputation.”
“Oh! when a man is jealous, monsieur, when he fancies himself betrayed,
he is sometimes so absurd!”
Monsieur de Merval made no reply, but continued to look about the salon,
and seemed painfully affected by the lack of harmony in the furniture.
“Yes,” said Madame de Grangeville after a long pause, “women are always
the victims; that is their fate; the men make the laws for us, and we
are the weaker party in every respect; we must needs endure the harsh
treatment, the violent scenes, the sarcasms of those gentlemen. I tell
you, Armand, that all the fault is on the men’s part; I know it, poor
abandoned wife that I am!”
Monsieur de Merval, who seemed far from convinced by the lamentations of
his old acquaintance, rejoined:
“And Monsieur de Roncherolle, what have you done with him, madame? He
was a very amiable, very gallant gentleman, who had great success with
the ladies. A good-looking fellow, a hard drinker, and of a courage
proof against any test; he had everything that a man needs to succeed.”
The face of the abandoned wife had undergone a complete transformation;
her lips were compressed, her brow was wrinkled, her eyes assumed a
vague expression, and she retorted in a decidedly curt tone:
“Why do you apply to me for news of Monsieur de Roncherolle? What reason
have you to think that I can tell you anything about him?”
“Really, madame, I had no idea of offending you by asking you that
question; but a good friend of mine who met you thirteen or fourteen
years ago in the Pyrenees, at the Baths of Bagnères, I believe, told me
then that you were travelling with Roncherolle; that was what made me
think that perhaps you still kept up some relations with him.”
Madame de Grangeville was disconcerted.
“Oh! yes,” she stammered, “that is true; I did meet Monsieur de
Roncherolle when I was travelling in the Pyrenees, and we travelled
together for some little time. Well, Monsieur de Merval, do you see any
harm in that? After all, wasn’t I at liberty to travel with whomever I
pleased, since I had already been separated from my husband for several
years?”
“I have already had the honor to tell you, madame, that I see no harm
anywhere; I simply repeated what I have heard, as we were talking of our
old acquaintances, that is all.--And in your financial affairs, I most
sincerely hope that you have not suffered, madame? You had an
independent fortune, I believe?”
“Yes, that is true, I had a fortune--I had one.”
“What! have you had the misfortune to suffer from somebody’s
bankruptcy?”
“Why, yes, I think so; and then, you know, women are so stupid about
managing their property.”
“But when it is simply a matter of receiving income, one does not need a
business agent for that.”
The bell rang again. The baroness started, and Monsieur de Merval took
his hat, saying:
“Somebody has come to visit you, madame, and I will take my leave.”
“Why no, don’t go yet, I beg you; it is no visitor, I expect no one; no
one ever comes to see me now!”
The poor woman said this in such a melancholy tone that Monsieur de
Merval was touched; he replaced his hat on the chair, and his eyes
rested again on various parts of the furniture, which clearly betrayed
the lamentable plight of their owner. As he passed these objects in
review, in order to conceal what was in his mind, he began to talk about
the Glumeau family; but soon a hoarse voice arose in the reception room
and dominated Lizida’s, although she did her utmost to drown it.
Thereupon Madame de Grangeville also tried to talk very loud, so that
her visitor should not hear the altercation which was taking place in
her reception room. She even tried to laugh.
“Oh, yes! ha! ha! ha! that party that those good people gave was very
comical; there were such amusing faces there! They put me at the table
beside an old gentleman who looked like an owl. Ha! ha! ha!”