Le Cocu Part 22

Eugenie proposed to me that we should go before the supper; but I preferred to remain, because I expected that there would be some amusing scenes at the close of the festivity. The supper was not served as mine was; the ladies alone were seated, and the men had to stand behind them.

Madame de Beausire insisted upon having it so, because it was much less jolly than sitting at small tables.

The feast lasted a very short time. Madame de Beausire gave the signal by rising, and the other ladies had no choice but to follow her example.

I heard one old aunt mutter as she rose: "This is ridiculous; I didn't have time to finish my chicken wing."

As the fatal moment drew near, Madame de Beausire's eyes became more and more full of tears. At last, when the dancing drew to a close, Belan approached his Armide and suggested that they should go; whereupon Madame de Beausire rushed between them, sobbing, and threw her arms about her daughter.

"You shall not separate us, monsieur!" she cried.

Belan stood as if turned to stone before his mother-in-law. The kinsfolk surrounded them, and I heard the uncles and cousins say to one another:

"That little fellow is behaving in the most indecent way. It makes me ill to have him come into our family."

The aunts and the old maids had led Madame de Beausire away, and she left the restaurant with her daughter, while Belan remained. He saw us and came to bid us good-night, faltering:

"I have let my wife and her mother go before, because, you know, they have to put the bride to bed; and of course I cannot be there."

"My dear Belan, I am afraid that Madame de Beausire will make another scene to-night."

"Oh, no! At all events, if she does, I will show my spirit."

We drove away, and as we returned home, Eugenie and I agreed that a man is always very foolish to enter a family which thinks that it does him much honor by allying itself with him. If chance has willed that he should be born in a lower cla.s.s, he should, by his intellect or his character, show himself superior to those who try to humiliate him.

X

A QUARREL.--THE FIRST VEXATION

A few days after Belan'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 Belan'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 G.o.d! 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 Eugenie.

"Ah! yours was the lovely one, my dear Madame Blemont, and managed with such taste and such profusion! I confess that I had thirteen ices; salvers kept pa.s.sing me, and I forgot myself."

"Yes, that was a charming wedding," said Giraud; "but they tell me that at Belan'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. Belan 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 a.s.surances of their friends.h.i.+p, 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 t.i.tle 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 Eugenie 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.

Belan 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. Eugenie 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 Eugenie. My daughter, to whom her G.o.dmother, 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 pa.s.sed 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 Eugenie 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 Blemont! What a miracle!"