Le Cocu Part 31

After shattering my portrait, Eugenie dropped into a chair as if exhausted by the transport of pa.s.sion to which she had yielded. I fancied even that I could detect in her eyes some feeling of shame for what she had done. Thereupon I rose and gazed sadly at the shattered fragments of my portrait; then, glancing at my wife, I left the room without saying a word to her. I left the house. I have no idea where I went. I had not dined, but it was my turn not to be hungry. I could still see Eugenie trampling upon my portrait, and it seemed to me that she could no longer love me, that her love and her fidelity were attached to that image for which she no longer cared.

I realized that I must be a man rather than a lover, for love does not last forever, but manliness sustains us throughout our whole life. While reasoning thus with myself, I sighed profoundly, for I still adored Eugenie; after all, jealousy is a proof of love, they say: my wife would come to herself and I would forgive her. But the breaking of my portrait, my work, which should have reminded her of the delicious sittings, when she was beside me--Ah! that was very wicked! and I should have difficulty in forgiving her for that.

I walked a long while; at last I found myself in my old street; I believe that our legs have an instinct of their own, and that they lead us toward the places which they have often traversed.

Suppose I should go to see Ernest and his wife, I thought, to divert my mind from my troubles? They were my only friends, and would gladly share my sorrows. However, I would not tell them of my woes, but I would forget them in their company. So I betook myself to Rue du Temple.

The concierge told me that they were at home. I went up. Madame Ernest admitted me and ushered me into her room, saying:

"By what miracle have you come in the evening, monsieur? It is seldom enough that we see you even in the morning. Ernest is at the theatre, but he promised to return early."

The little woman gave me a seat and then resumed her work. We talked, or rather she talked; she talked of Ernest, of his work, of his success, of their mode of life. I enjoyed listening to her. While she was speaking, I looked at her, and it seemed like one of the evenings which I used to pa.s.s in her attic room. Marguerite was still the same, and in my thoughts I loved to call her by that name still.

Suddenly she stopped and said to me:

"I am doing all the talking. I must be wearying you, am I not?"

"Oh, no!"

"But you don't say anything."

"I am listening to you."

"Never mind, you are not usually silent like this. Are you unhappy?"

"Perhaps so."

"A little falling out with your wife? I will wager that I have guessed it!"

"That is true; we have had a little dispute."

"And that makes you unhappy. Ah! you are like me; when I have a dispute with Ernest, it makes me very sad! Luckily it seldom happens, and it doesn't last long. I should die if it did!"

And the little woman told me about some petty discussions between Ernest and herself, the merest child's play, which could not interrupt the current of their love for an instant. I had been listening to my little neighbor for an hour, without being bored for an instant; however, I was anxious to know what was going on at home, so I rose.

"I won't try to detain you," said Madame Ernest; "your wife is waiting for you, no doubt, and you mustn't let her get impatient. Ernest will be sorry to have missed you."

I took leave of my former neighbor and left the house. As I stepped into the street, a woman who was leaning against a post near the porte cochere, seized my arm convulsively, and said:

"You have been alone with her for an hour and a half; her Ernest wasn't there. I know, for the concierge told me so."

It was Eugenie. Eugenie, who had followed me, no doubt, and had seen me go into that house, and had remained at the door all the time that I had been with Marguerite.

I was so surprised, so thunderstruck, that I could not answer. After saying these few words, my wife left me and ran swiftly before me. I called her, I tried to overtake her, and succeeded at last. But she would not answer me, she persisted in refusing to take my arm.

And thus we returned home. I tried to have an explanation with my wife, but she locked herself into her bedroom and refused to admit me. A bed was made for me in my study.

So I was obliged to pa.s.s the night alone, and separate like that after the scenes of the evening! Ah! that was a very gloomy housewarming in our new apartment.

XIII

EUGeNIE AND MARGUERITE

After pa.s.sing several weeks without speaking to each other, my wife and I came together again and became reconciled; but it seemed to me that the reconciliation was not very sincere, that it was simply a sort of smoothing over. Had these frequent scenes diminished our love? No, I still loved my wife; but when often repeated, disputes sour the temper and change the disposition. The words that people say to each other in pa.s.sion, although forgotten afterward, deal a fatal blow to our illusions, and they never grow again.

We went again to Livry, to our daughter's nurse, on a superb day in June. How little that excursion resembled the other! we had no dispute, but the tranquillity which reigned between us was like that which ordinarily follows twenty years of married life; and we returned home without driving our horse to the edge of a ditch.

A very sad event marked the first months of our life in our new home: Eugenie lost her mother. Dear Madame Dumeillan was taken from us after a short illness, when we had every reason to hope that we might long enjoy her presence and her affection. I felt the loss almost as keenly as my wife, for Madame Dumeillan was our best friend. Careful not to take part in our disputes, pretending not to notice them, Madame Dumeillan, without blaming either of us, had the art of bringing us together again, and of reviving the most affectionate sentiments in our hearts. Whenever Eugenie had been to see her mother, I knew it at once, because she was more amiable with me. Ah! how seldom do we see parents who long for our happiness without trying to govern our conduct, our actions; and without fatiguing us with their advice! The loss we had sustained was irreparable; one does not meet twice in one's life people who love us for ourselves alone and who do not impose a thousand obligations on us as the price of their affection.

Eugenie's sorrow was very deep and very keen. To divert her, I took her into society. We went to evening parties, to the theatre, to concerts; we received company at our house more frequently. The commotion of society does not altogether enable one to forget one's loss, but it gives one employment and distraction. There are sorrows with which one loves to withdraw into oneself; there are others which compel us to shun ourselves, and in which reflection is deadly.

We brought our daughter home. Her presence helped to divert my wife's thoughts from her grief. The sight of her Henriette, her caresses, her first words, unintelligible to anybody but ourselves, enabled Eugenie at last to endure the loss she had sustained. A woman is a daughter before she is a mother, but she is a mother much longer than she has been a daughter; and in our hearts affection does not look backward, it inclines rather toward the later generation.

Madame Dumeillan's death made my wife richer than I by four thousand francs a year. I did not envy her her wealth, but I regretted that my children should owe more to their mother than to me. That thought led me to work much harder; I pa.s.sed a large part of my time in my study and at the Palais. We saw each other less frequently; was that the reason that we agreed better? I hoped that that circ.u.mstance was not accountable for it. I was always glad to return to Eugenie and I was very happy when I held my daughter in my arms. My little Henriette was so pretty! she seemed already very bright and intelligent to me, and I was disposed to spoil her, to do whatever she wished; but my wife was more strict than I.

We saw my mother, but only very seldom; she considered that we played whist badly at our house. The Girauds came sometimes to see us; they were still busily engaged in negotiating marriages. I gave myself the pleasure of having them, with Belan and his wife, at my house. There was a rattling discharge of epigrams on the part of Giraud. The superb Armide did not seem to notice them, and as for Belan, he entrenched himself behind his wife, whose servant he seemed to be, and to whom he never spoke without bowing.

In the large parties, the boisterous entertainments which we frequently attended, there were some pretty married women, and some exceedingly pretty unmarried ones. I will frankly confess that I sometimes surprised myself, oblivious of the fact that I was married, making eyes at the ladies and paying court to the young women; the latter did not respond to my glances; the fact that I was a married man prevented them from taking any notice of me; but it was not always the same with the others.

Those periods of forgetfulness, however, lasted only for an instant; then I was greatly surprised to find that I had been behaving like a bachelor. There is no great harm in casting a soft glance at another woman than one's wife; but if Eugenie had done as much, if she had cast such a glance at a man, I should have considered it very wrong. Surely I did not regret that I was married; why then did I behave sometimes in society as if I were not? But that apparent frivolity was due to my disposition and not to my heart. I do not consider that because a man is married he must necessarily behave like an owl, and never dare to laugh and jest except with his wife; in that case marriage would be too heavy a chain.

I went sometimes to see Ernest; he too, was a father, the father of a little boy. He and Marguerite were happy beyond words. Fortune smiled upon them; Ernest was earning money, and, if he had chosen, there were plenty of people who would gladly have come to his table to congratulate him upon his success and to flatter his wife, closing their eyes to what was lacking in their union. But Marguerite did not choose to go into society; she insisted that a few real friends are much to be preferred to parties where women tear one another to pieces and men deceive one another. She spoke of the world as if she were familiar with it.

"This society in which you wish me to mingle," she said to Ernest, "would think that it did me much honor by receiving me; indeed many women would blush to speak to me. 'She is not married,' they would say to one another as they eyed me contemptuously. And I, my dear, do not feel disposed to put up with such a greeting. In the bottom of my heart I feel quite as worthy of esteem as any of those ladies; for I would give my blood and my life for you; and there is more than one of them who would not do as much for her husband."

I considered that my old neighbor was right. Ernest himself had no answer to make; and yet he would have been glad to have her go sometimes into the world, in order to acquire the habits of society and to avoid awkwardness if she should ever receive company. He wished to make his little Marguerite a lady. It seemed to me that she was very well as she was.

For some time my wife had been less jealous; perhaps she felt that she had always been wrong to be jealous; perhaps she had striven to correct herself. But suppose that that were not the reason? Suppose that she cared less for me? Mon Dieu! how ingenious we are in inventing tortures for ourselves! I was unhappy because of my wife's jealousy; and lo and behold, I had begun to worry because she left me in peace!

Sometimes, however, I saw that her eyes followed me as of old when I was speaking to a pretty woman; but if, after playing the gallant, I approached Eugenie, as if to set her heart at rest, she would look away with an indifferent air, and pretend that she had not been noticing me.

Was that her new way of loving me, and was there no mean between that frigid manner and the transports of jealousy?

Among the people who came to my house, there were many men of letters and artists. Their company was agreeable; they were at least witty in their malice, and unceremonious in their manners. A very pleasant painter, whom we had met at many functions, insisted, although a bachelor, upon giving a ball for the ladies at whose houses he often danced. Monsieur Leberger issued his invitations, and everybody accepted. We looked forward to having much sport and merriment at a party given by a bachelor painter. For my part, I was careful to obtain invitations for the Belans and the Girauds; I love to bring enemies face to face. Leberger invited everybody who was suggested to him, his most earnest wish being to have a large number of guests; indeed, the ballroom was to be his studio, and there would be plenty of room.

My wife made some objections to going to the ball; she thought that it would not be enjoyable, she declared that she no longer cared about dancing. No longer cared about dancing, and she was but twenty years old! I insisted that she should go, and she yielded at last. But we did not start until our little Henriette was asleep; I wished that she were old enough to go and dance with us.

Two torches at Leberger's door pointed out his abode when we were still far away. Our artist was determined that nothing should be lacking at his ball; the staircase was lighted by candelabra at frequent intervals; there were no flowers on the stairs, but there were rugs. The strains of the orchestra guided us, for the ball was already under way. An obliging neighbor, who lived on the same floor as the artist, had lent him his apartment, which served both as dressing room and laboratory; for the punch was concocted and the refreshments prepared in the neighbor's apartment.

The studio, transformed into a ballroom, presented a striking appearance. It was s.p.a.cious, but well-lighted. Finished pictures, sketches and studies adorned the walls. Busts, statues, and torsos served as candelabra; the musicians were perched upon a broad flight of steps, above which ancient Roman costumes were draped. The orchestra was made up of amateurs; but those amateurs had the self-a.s.surance and almost the talent of Tolbecque. Behind them stood a manikin, which held a serpent to its mouth, as if it were playing on it; and a small flute was placed in the mouth of an Ajax, and a trombone in the hand of Belisarius.

There was a great crowd; Leberger had invited a great many of his fellow-painters, and poets, musicians, and sculptors. The ball was already well in train. I saw Giraud dancing with his daughter, while his wife had accepted the invitation of her oldest son, who was beginning to administer some very graceful kicks to his neighbors. I saw Madame Belan, who had deigned to accept the hand of a poet, while her husband remained with his mother-in-law, Madame de Beausire, who was seated in a corner of the studio, where she seemed to be posing as the _Mother of the Maccabees_.

My wife joined some ladies of her acquaintance, and I went to watch a quadrille. My eyes fell upon a young lady who was dancing very timidly but who was by no means without grace. I knew that face, yes, I certainly knew it; but where had I seen it? Was it possible? Yes, it was Marguerite, it was Madame Ernest. That dress, so different from the simple one in which I had always seen her, had prevented me from recognizing her. I was far from expecting to see her at that ball. By what chance had she come? Probably her husband had insisted. But then he must be there--yes, there he was, watching his wife dance and gazing at her with evident pleasure. He was right; she was one of the loveliest women in the room.

I could see nothing surprising in the fact that Ernest had brought his wife there; I could see no harm in his taking her everywhere with him; but there were, in that a.s.semblage, absurd people who did not agree with me. Luckily a person's station is not written on his forehead.