On the return of old Sauviat Graslin paid his first evening visit at
half-past nine o’clock. Veronique was expecting him, dressed in her blue
silk gown and muslin guimpe, over which fell a collaret made of lawn
with a deep hem. Her hair was simply worn in two smooth bandeaus,
gathered into a Grecian knot at the back of her head. She was seated on
a tapestried chair beside her mother, who occupied a fine armchair with
a carved back, covered with red velvet (evidently the relic of some old
chateau), which stood beside the fireplace. A bright fire blazed on the
hearth. On the chimney-piece, at either side of an antique clock, the
value of which was wholly unknown to the Sauviats, six wax candles in
two brass sconces twisted like vine-shoots, lighted the dark room and
Veronique in all her budding prime. The old mother was wearing her best
gown.
From the silent street, at that tranquil hour, through the soft shadows
of the ancient stairway, Graslin appeared to the modest, artless
Veronique, her mind still dwelling on the sweet ideas which Bernadin de
Saint-Pierre had given her of love.
Graslin, who was short and thin, had thick black hair like the bristles
of a brush, which brought into vigorous relief a face as red as that
of a drunkard emeritus, and covered with suppurating pimples, either
bleeding or about to burst. Without being caused by eczema or scrofula,
these signs of a blood overheated by continual toil, anxiety, and the
lust of business, by wakeful nights, poor food, and a sober life,
seemed to partake of both these diseases. In spite of the advice of his
partners, his clerks, and his physician, the banker would never compel
himself to take the healthful precautions which might have prevented, or
would at least modify, this malady, which was slight at first, but had
greatly increased from year to year. He wanted to cure it, and would
sometimes take baths or drink some prescribed potion; but, hurried
along on the current of his business, he soon neglected the care of his
person. Sometimes he thought of suspending work for a time, travelling
about, and visiting the noted baths for such diseases; but where is the
hunter after millions who is willing to stop short?
In that blazing furnace shone two gray eyes rayed with green lines
starting from the pupils, and speckled with brown spots,--two implacable
eyes, full of resolution, rectitude, and shrewd calculation. Graslin’s
nose was short and turned up; he had a mouth with thick lips, a
prominent forehead, and high cheek-bones, coarse ears with large edges
discolored by the condition of his blood,--in short, he was an ancient
satyr in a black satin waistcoat, brown frock-coat, and white cravat.
His strong and vigorous shoulders, which began life by bearing heavy
burdens, were now rather bent; and beneath this torso, unduly developed,
came a pair of weak legs, rather badly affixed to the short thighs. His
thin and hairy hands had the crooked fingers of those whose business it
is to handle money. The habit of quick decision could be seen in the
way the eyebrows rose into a point over each arch of the eye. Though
the mouth was grave and pinched, its expression was that of inward
kindliness; it told of an excellent nature, sunk in business, smothered
possibly, though it might revive by contact with a woman.
At this apparition Veronique’s heart was violently agitated; blackness
came before her eyes; she thought she cried aloud; but she really sat
there mute, with fixed and staring gaze.
“Veronique, this is Monsieur Graslin,” said old Sauviat.
Veronique rose, curtsied, dropped back into her chair, and looked at her
mother, who was smiling at the millionaire, seeming, as her father
did, so happy,--so happy that the poor girl found strength to hide her
surprise and her violent repulsion. During the conversation which then
took place something was said of Graslin’s health. The banker looked
naively into the mirror, with bevelled edges in an ebony frame.
“Mademoiselle,” he said, “I am not good-looking.”
Thereupon he proceeded to explain the blotches on his face as the result
of his overworked life. He related how he had constantly disobeyed his
physician’s advice; and remarked that he hoped to change his appearance
altogether when he had a wife to rule his household, and take better
care of him than he took of himself.
“Is a man married for his face, compatriot?” said Sauviat, giving the
other a hearty slap on the thigh.
Graslin’s speech went straight to those natural feelings which, more or
less, fill the heart of every woman. The thought came into Veronique’s
mind that her face, too, had been destroyed by a horrible disease, and
her Christian modesty rebuked her first impression.
Hearing a whistle in the street, Graslin went downstairs, followed by
Sauviat. They speedily returned. The office-boy had brought the first
bouquet, which was a little late in coming. When the banker exhibited
this mound of exotic flowers, the fragrance of which completely filled
the room, and offered it to his future wife, Veronique felt a rush
of conflicting emotions; she was suddenly plunged into the ideal and
fantastic world of tropical nature. Never before had she seen white
camelias, never had she smelt the fragrance of the Alpine cistus, the
Cape jessamine, the cedronella, the volcameria, the moss-rose, or any of
the divine perfumes which woo to love, and sing to the heart their hymns
of fragrance. Graslin left Veronique that night in the grasp of such
emotions.
From this time forth, as soon as all Limoges was sleeping, the banker
would slip along the walls to the Sauviats’ house. There he would tap
gently on the window-shutter; the dog did not bark; old Sauviat came
down and let him in, and Graslin would then spend an hour or two with
Veronique in the brown room, where Madame Sauviat always served him a
true Auvergnat supper. Never did this singular lover arrive without
a bouquet made of the rarest flowers from the greenhouse of his old
partner, Monsieur Grossetete, the only person who as yet knew of the
approaching marriage. The man-of-all-work went every evening to fetch
the bunch, which Monsieur Grossetete made himself.
Graslin made about fifty such visits in two months; each time, besides
the flowers, he brought with him some rich present,--rings, a watch, a
gold chain, a work-box, etc. These inconceivable extravagances must
be explained, and a word suffices. Veronique’s dowry, promised by her
father, consisted of nearly the whole of old Sauviat’s property, namely,
seven hundred and fifty thousand francs. The old man retained an
income of eight thousand francs derived from the Funds, bought for him
originally for sixty thousand francs in assignats by his correspondent
Brezac, to whom, at the time of his imprisonment, he had confided that
sum, and who kept it for him safely. These sixty thousand francs in
assignats were the half of Sauviat’s fortune at the time he came so
near being guillotined. Brezac was also, at the same time, the faithful
repository of the rest, namely, seven hundred louis d’or (an enormous
sum at that time in gold), with which old Sauviat began his business
once more as soon as he recovered his liberty. In thirty years each of
those louis d’or had been transformed into a bank-note for a thousand
francs, by means of the income from the Funds, of Madame Sauviat’s
inheritance from her father, old Champagnac, and of the profits accruing
from the business and the accumulated interest thereon in the hands of
the Brezac firm. Brezac himself had a loyal and honest friendship for
Sauviat,--such as all Auvergnats are apt to feel for one another.
So, whenever Sauviat passed the front of the Graslin mansion he had said
to himself, “Veronique shall live in that fine palace.” He knew very
well that no girl in all the department would have seven hundred and
fifty thousand francs as a marriage portion, besides the expectation
of two hundred and fifty thousand more. Graslin, his chosen son-in-law,
would therefore infallibly marry Veronique; and so, as we have seen, it
came about.
Every evening Veronique had her fresh bunch of flowers, which on the
morrow decked her little salon and was carefully concealed from the
neighbors. She admired the beautiful jewels, the pearls and diamonds,
the bracelets, the rubies, gifts which assuredly gratify all the
daughters of Eve. She thought herself less plain when she wore them. She
saw her mother happy in the marriage, and she had no other point of view
from which to make comparisons. She was, moreover, totally ignorant of
the duties or the purpose of marriage. She heard the solemn voice of the
vicar of Saint-Etienne praising Graslin to her as a man of honor,
with whom she would lead an honorable life. Thus it was that Veronique
consented to receive Monsieur Graslin as her future husband.
When it happens that in a life so withdrawn from the world, so solitary
as that of Veronique, a single person enters it every day, that person
cannot long remain indifferent; either he is hated, and the aversion,
justified by a deepening knowledge of his character, renders him
intolerable, or the habit of seeing bodily defects dims the eye to
them. The mind looks about for compensations; his countenance awakens
curiosity; its features brighten; fleeting beauties appear in it. At
last the inner, hidden beneath the outer, shows itself. Then, when the
first impressions are fairly overcome, the attachment felt is all the
stronger, because the soul clings to it as its own creation. That is
love. And here lies the reason of those passions conceived by beautiful
things for other beings apparently ugly. The outward aspect, forgotten
by affection, is no longer seen in a creature whose soul is deeply
valued. Besides this, beauty, so necessary to a woman, takes many
strange aspects in man; and there is as much diversity of feeling among
women about the beauty of men as there is among men about the beauty
of women. So, after deep reflection and much debating with herself,
Veronique gave her consent to the publication of the banns.
From that moment all Limoges rang with this inexplicable
affair,--inexplicable because no one knew the secret of it, namely, the
immensity of the dowry. Had that dowry been known Veronique could have
chosen a husband where she pleased; but even so, she might have made a
mistake.
Graslin was thought to be much in love. Upholsterers came from Paris
to fit up the house. Nothing was talked of in Limoges but the profuse
expenditures of the banker. The value of the chandeliers was calculated;
the gilding of the walls, the figures on the clocks, all were discussed;
the jardinieres, the caloriferes, the objects of luxury and novelty,
nothing was left unnoticed. In the garden of the hotel Graslin, above
the icehouse, was an aviary, and all the inhabitants of the town were
presently surprised by the sight of rare birds,--Chinese pheasants,
mysterious breeds of ducks. Every one flocked to see them. Monsieur and
Madame Grossetete, an old couple who were highly respected in Limoges,
made several visits to the Sauviats, accompanied by Graslin. Madame
Grossetete, a most excellent woman, congratulated Veronique on her happy
marriage. Thus the Church, the family, society, and all material things
down to the most trivial, made themselves accomplices to bring about
this marriage.
In the month of April the formal invitations to the wedding were issued
to all Graslin’s friends and acquaintance. On a fine spring morning
a caleche and a coupe, drawn by Limousin horses chosen by Monsieur
Grossetete, drew up at eleven o’clock before the shop of the
iron-dealer, bringing, to the great excitement of the neighborhood,
the former partners of the bridegroom and the latter’s two clerks.
The street was lined with spectators, all anxious to see the Sauviats’
daughter, on whose beautiful hair the most renowned hairdresser in
Limoges had placed the bridal wreath and a costly veil of English
lace. Veronique wore a gown of simple white muslin. A rather imposing
assemblage of the most distinguished women in the society of the town
attended the wedding in the cathedral, where the bishop, knowing the
religious fervor of the Sauviats, deigned to marry Veronique himself.
The bride was very generally voted plain.
She entered her new house, and went from one surprise to another. A
grand dinner was to precede the ball, to which Graslin had invited
nearly all Limoges. The dinner, given to the bishop, the prefect, the
judge of the court, the attorney-general, the mayor, the general, and
Graslin’s former partners with their wives, was a triumph for the bride,
who, like all other persons who are simple and natural, showed charms
that were not expected in her. Neither of the bridal pair could dance;
Veronique continued therefore to do the honors to her guests, and to win
the esteem and good graces of nearly all the persons who were presented
to her, asking Grossetete, who took an honest liking to her, for
information about the company. She made no mistakes and committed no
blunders. It was during this evening that the two former partners of the
banker announced the amount of the dowry (immense for Limousin) given
by the Sauviats to their daughter. At nine o’clock the old iron-dealer
returned home and went to bed, leaving his wife to preside over the
bride’s retiring. It was said by everyone throughout the town that
Madame Graslin was very plain, though well made.
Old Sauviat now wound up his business and sold his house in town. He
bought a little country-place on the left bank of the Vienne between
Limoges and Cluzeau, ten minutes’ walk from the suburb of Saint-Martial,
where he intended to finish his days tranquilly with his wife. The old
couple had an apartment in the hotel Graslin and always dined once or
twice a week with their daughter, who, as often, made their house in the
country the object of her walks.
This enforced rest almost killed old Sauviat. Happily, Graslin found a
means of occupying his father-in-law. In 1823 the banker was forced to
take possession of a porcelain manufactory, to the proprietors of which
he had advanced large sums, which they found themselves unable to repay
except by the sale of their factory, which they made to him. By the help
of his business connections and by investing a large amount of property
in the concern, Graslin made it one of the finest manufactories of
Limoges ware in the town. Afterwards he resold it at a fine profit;
meantime he placed it under the superintendence of his father-in-law,
who, in spite of his seventy-two years, counted for much in the return
of prosperity to the establishment, who himself renewed his youth in the
employment. Graslin was then able to attend to his legitimate business
of banking without anxiety as to the manufactory.
Sauviat died in 1827 from an accident. While taking account of stock he
fell into a _charasse_,--a sort of crate with an open grating in which
the china was packed; his leg was slightly injured, so slightly that
he paid no attention to it; gangrene set in; he would not consent to
amputation, and therefore died. The widow gave up about two hundred and
fifty thousand francs which came to her from Sauviat’s estate, reserving
only a stipend of two hundred francs a month, which amply sufficed for
her wants. Graslin bound himself to pay her that sum duly. She kept her
little house in the country, and lived there alone without a servant and
against the remonstrances of her daughter, who could not induce her to
alter this determination, to which she clung with the obstinacy peculiar
to old persons. Madame Sauviat came nearly every day into Limoges to see
her daughter, and the latter still continued to make her mother’s house,
from which was a charming view of the river, the object of her walks.
From the road leading to it could be seen that island long loved by
Veronique and called by her the Ile de France.
In order not to complicate our history of the Graslin household with the
foregoing incidents, we have thought it best to end that of the Sauviats
by anticipating events, which are moreover useful as explaining the
private and hidden life which Madame Graslin now led. The old mother,
noticing that Graslin’s miserliness, which returned upon him, might
hamper her daughter, was for some time unwilling to resign the property
left to her by her husband. But Veronique, unable to imagine a case in
which a woman might desire the use of her own property, urged it upon
her mother with reasons of great generosity, and out of gratitude to
Graslin for restoring to her the liberty and freedom of a young girl.
But this is anticipating.
The unusual splendor which accompanied Graslin’s marriage had disturbed
all his habits and constantly annoyed him. The mind of the great
financier was a very small one. Veronique had had no means of judging
the man with whom she was to pass her life. During his fifty-five visits
he had let her see nothing but the business man, the indefatigable
worker, who conceived and sustained great enterprises, and analyzed
public affairs, bringing them always to the crucial test of the Bank.
Fascinated by the million offered to him by Sauviat, he showed himself
generous by calculation. Carried away by the interests of his marriage
and by what he called his “folly,” namely, the house which still goes
by the name of the hotel Graslin, he did things on a large scale. Having
bought horses, a caleche, and a coupe, he naturally used them to
return the wedding visits and go to those dinners and balls, called the
“retours de noces,” which the heads of the administration and the
rich families of Limoges gave to the newly married pair. Under this
impulsion, which carried him entirely out of his natural sphere, Graslin
sent to Paris for a man-cook and took a reception day. For a year
he kept the pace of a man who possesses a fortune of sixteen hundred
thousand francs, and he became of course the most noted personage in
Limoges. During this year he generously put into his wife’s purse every
month twenty-five gold pieces of twenty francs each.
Society concerned itself much about Veronique from the day of her
marriage, for she was a boon to its curiosity, which has little to feed
on in the provinces. Veronique was all the more studied because she
had appeared in the social world like a phenomenon; but once there, she
remained always simple and modest, in the attitude of a person who
is observing habits, customs, manners, things unknown to her, and
endeavoring to conform to them. Already voted ugly but well-shaped, she
was now declared kindly but stupid. She was learning so many things, she
had so much to hear and to see that her looks and speech did certainly
give some reason for this judgment. She showed a sort of torpor which
resembled lack of mind. Marriage, that hard calling, as she said, for
which the Church, the Code, and her mother exhorted her to resignation
and obedience, under pain of transgressing all human laws and causing
irreparable evil, threw her into a dazed and dizzy condition, which
amounted sometimes to a species of inward delirium.
Silent and self-contained, she listened as much to herself as she did to
others. Feeling within her the most violent “difficulty of existing,” to
use an expression of Fontenelle’s, which was constantly increasing, she
became terrified at herself. Nature resisted the commands of the mind,
the body denied the will. The poor creature, caught in the net, wept on
the breast of that great Mother of the poor and the afflicted,--she
went for comfort to the Church; her piety redoubled, she confided the
assaults of the demon to her confessor; she prayed to heaven for succor.
Never, at any period of her life, did she fulfil her religious duties
with such fervor. The despair of not loving her husband flung her
violently at the foot of the altar, where divine and consolatory
voices urged her to patience. She was patient, she was gentle, and she
continued to live on, hoping always for the happiness of maternity.
“Did you notice Madame Graslin this morning?” the women would say to
each other. “Marriage doesn’t agree with her; she is actually green.”
“Yes,” some of them would reply; “but would you give your daughter to a
man like Graslin? No woman could marry him with impunity.”
Now that Graslin was married, all the mothers who had courted him for
ten years past pursued him with sarcasms.
Veronique grew visibly thinner and really ugly; her eyes looked weary,
her features coarsened, her manner was shy and awkward; she acquired
that air of cold and melancholy rigidity for which the ultra-pious are
so often blamed. Her skin took on a grayish tone; she dragged herself
languidly about during this first year of married life, ordinarily so
brilliant for a young wife. She tried to divert her mind by reading,
profiting by the liberty of married women to read what they please. She
read the novels of Walter Scott, the poems of Lord Byron, the works
of Schiller and of Goethe, and much else of modern and also ancient
literature. She learned to ride a horse, and to dance and to draw. She
painted water-colors and made sepia sketches, turning ardently to
all those resources which women employ to bear the weariness of their
solitude. She gave herself that second education which most women derive
from a man, but which she derived from herself only.
The natural superiority of a free, sincere spirit, brought up, as it
were in a desert and strengthened by religion, had given her a sort of
untrammelled grandeur and certain needs, to which the provincial world
she lived in offered no sustenance. All books pictured Love to her, and
she sought for the evidence of its existence, but nowhere could she see
the passion of which she read. Love was in her heart, like seeds in the
earth, awaiting the action of the sun. Her deep melancholy, caused by
constant meditation on herself, brought her back by hidden by-ways to
the brilliant dreams of her girlish days. Many a time she must have
lived again that old romantic poem, making herself both the actor and
the subject of it. Again she saw that island bathed in light, flowery,
fragrant, caressing to her soul. Often her pallid eyes wandered around
a salon with piercing curiosity. The men were all like Graslin. She
studied them, and then she seemed to question their wives; but nothing
on the faces of those women revealed an inward anguish like to hers,
and she returned home sad and gloomy and distressed about herself. The
authors she had read in the morning answered to the feelings in her
soul; their thoughts pleased her; but at night she heard only empty
words, not even presented in a lively way,--dull, empty, foolish
conversations in petty local matters, or personalities of no interest to
her. She was often surprised at the heat displayed in discussions which
concerned no feeling or sentiment--to her the essence of existence, the
soul of life.
Often she was seen with fixed eyes, mentally absorbed, thinking no doubt
of the days of her youthful ignorance spent in that chamber full of
harmonies now forever passed away. She felt a horrible repugnance
against dropping into the gulf of pettiness in which the women among
whom she lived were floundering. This repugnance, stamped on her
forehead, on her lips, and ill-disguised, was taken for the insolence
of a parvenue. Madame Graslin began to observe on all faces a certain
coldness; she felt in all remarks an acrimony, the causes of which were
unknown to her, for she had no intimate friend to enlighten or advise
her. Injustice, which angers little minds, brings loftier souls to
question themselves, and communicates a species of humility to them.
Veronique condemned herself, endeavoring to see her own faults. She
tried to be affable; they called her false. She grew more gentle still;
they said she was a hypocrite, and her pious devotion helped on the
calumny. She spent money, gave dinners and balls, and they taxed her
with pride.
Unsuccessful in all these attempts, unjustly judged, rebuffed by the
petty and tormenting pride which characterizes provincial society,
where each individual is armed with pretensions and their attendant
uneasiness, Madame Graslin fell back into utter solitude. She returned
with eagerness to the arms of the Church. Her great soul, clothed with
so weak a flesh, showed her the multiplied commandments of Catholicism
as so many stones placed for protection along the precipices of life, so
many props brought by charitable hands to sustain human weakness on
its weary way; and she followed, with greater rigor than ever, even the
smallest religious practices.
On this the liberals of the town classed Madame Graslin among the
_devotes_, the ultras. To the different animosities Veronique had
innocently acquired, the virulence of party feeling now added its
periodical exasperation. But as this ostracism took nothing really from
her, she quietly left society and lived in books which offered her
such infinite resources. She meditated on what she read, she compared
systems, she widened immeasurably the horizons of her intellect and the
extent of her education; in this way she opened the gates of her soul to
curiosity.
During this period of resolute study, in which religion supported and
maintained her mind, she obtained the friendship of Monsieur Grossetete,
one of those old men whose mental superiority grows rusty in provincial
life, but who, when they come in contact with an eager mind, recover
something of their former brilliancy. The good man took an earnest
interest in Veronique, who, to reward him for the flattering warmth of
heart which old men show to those they like, displayed before him,
and for the first time in her life, the treasures of her soul and
the acquirements of her mind, cultivated so secretly, and now full of
blossom. An extract from a letter written by her about this time to
Monsieur Grossetete will show the condition of the mind of a woman who
was later to give signal proofs of a firm and lofty nature:--
“The flowers you sent me for the ball were charming, but they
suggested harsh reflections. Those pretty creatures gathered by
you, and doomed to wilt upon my bosom to adorn a fete, made me
think of others that live and die unseen in the depths of your
woods, their fragrance never inhaled by any one. I asked myself
why I was dancing there, why I was decked with flowers, just as I
ask God why he has placed me to live in this world.
“You see, my friend, all is a snare to the unhappy; the smallest
matter brings the sick mind back to its woes; but the greatest
evil of certain woes is the persistency which makes them a fixed
idea pervading our lives. A constant sorrow ought rather to be a
divine inspiration. You love flowers for themselves, whereas I
love them as I love to listen to fine music. So, as I was saying,
the secret of a mass of things escapes me. You, my old friend, you
have a passion,--that of the horticulturist. When you return to
town inspire me with that taste, so that I may rush to my
greenhouse with eager feet, as you go to yours to watch the
development of your plants, to bud and bloom with them, to admire
what you create,--the new colors, the unexpected varieties, which
expand and grow beneath your eyes by the virtue of your care.
“My greenhouse, the one I watch, is filled with suffering souls.
The miseries I try to lessen sadden my heart; and when I take them
upon myself, when, after finding some young woman without clothing
for her babe, some old man wanting bread, I have supplied their
needs, the emotions their distress and its relief have caused me
do not suffice my soul. Ah, friend, I feel within me untold powers
--for evil, possibly,--which nothing can lower, which the sternest
commands of our religion are unable to abase! Sometimes, when I go
to see my mother, walking alone among the fields, I want to cry
aloud, and I do so. It seems to me that my body is a prison in
which some evil genius is holding a shuddering creature while
awaiting the mysterious words which are to burst its obstructive
form.
“But that comparison is not a just one. In me it seems to be the
body that seeks escape, if I may say so. Religion fills my soul,
books and their riches occupy my mind. Why, then, do I desire some
anguish which shall destroy the enervating peace of my existence?
“Oh, if some sentiment, some mania that I could cultivate, does
not come into my life, I feel I shall sink at last into the gulf
where all ideas are dulled, where character deteriorates, motives
slacken, virtues lose their backbone, and all the forces of the
soul are scattered,--a gulf in which I shall no longer be the
being Nature meant me to be!
“This is what my bitter complainings mean. But do not let them
hinder you from sending me those flowers. Your friendship is so
soothing and so full of loving kindness that it has for the last
few months almost reconciled me to myself. Yes, it makes me happy
to have you cast a glance upon my soul, at once so barren and so
full of bloom; and I am thankful for every gentle word you say to
one who rides the phantom steed of dreams, and returns worn-out.”
At the end of the third year of his married life, Graslin, observing
that his wife no longer used her horses, and finding a good market for
them, sold them. He also sold the carriages, sent away the coachman, let
the bishop have his man-cook, and contented himself with a woman. He no
longer gave the monthly sum to his wife, telling her that he would pay
all bills. He thought himself the most fortunate of husbands in meeting
no opposition whatever to these proceedings from the woman who had
brought him a million of francs as a dowry. Madame Graslin, brought up
from childhood without ever seeing money, or being made to feel that it
was an indispensable element in life, deserved no praise whatever
for this apparent generosity. Graslin even noticed in a corner of the
secretary all the sums he had ever given her, less the money she had
bestowed in charity or spent upon her dress, the cost of which was much
lessened by the profusion of her wedding trousseau.
Graslin boasted of Veronique to all Limoges as being a model wife.
He next regretted the money spent on the house, and he ordered the
furniture to be all packed away or covered up. His wife’s bedroom,
dressing-room, and boudoir were alone spared from these protective
measures; which protect nothing, for furniture is injured just as much
by being covered up as by being left uncovered. Graslin himself lived
almost entirely on the ground-floor of the house, where he had his
office, and resumed his old business habits with avidity. He thought
himself an excellent husband because he went upstairs to breakfast and
dined with his wife; but his unpunctuality was so great that it was
not more than ten times a month that he began a meal with he; he had
exacted, out of courtesy, that she should never wait for him. Veronique
did, however, always remain in the room while her husband took his
meals, serving him herself, that she might at least perform voluntarily
some of the visible obligations of a wife.
The banker, to whom the things of marriage were very indifferent, and
who had seen nothing in his wife but seven hundred and fifty thousand
francs, had never once perceived Veronique’s repugnance to him. Little
by little he now abandoned Madame Graslin for his business. When
he wished to put a bed in the room adjoining his office on the
ground-floor, Veronique hastened to comply with the request. So that
three years after their marriage these two ill-assorted beings returned
to their original estate, each equally pleased and happy to do so. The
moneyed man, possessing eighteen hundred thousand francs, returned
with all the more eagerness to his old avaricious habits because he had
momentarily quitted them. His two clerks and the office-boy were better
lodged and rather better fed, and that was the only difference
between the present and the past. His wife had a cook and maid (two
indispensable servants); but except for the actual necessities of life,
not a penny left his coffers for his household.
Happy in the turn which things were now taking, Veronique saw in the
evident satisfaction of the banker the absolution for this separation
which she would never have asked for herself. She had no conception that
she was as disagreeable to Graslin as Graslin was repulsive to her. This
secret divorce made her both sad and joyful. She had always looked
to motherhood for an interest in life; but up to this time (1828) the
couple had had no prospect of a family.