Before being able to raise fruit for oneself, from a Swiss meadow measuring two square yards, surrounded by a few green trees which look as if they were borrowed from the scenic illusions of a theatre, the most rural authorities, being consulted on the point, declare that you must spend a great deal of money, and--wait five years! Vegetables dash out of the husbandman"s garden to reappear at the city market.
Madame Deschars, who possesses a gate-keeper that is at the same time a gardener, confesses that the vegetables raised on her land, beneath her gla.s.s frames, by dint of compost and top-soil, cost her twice as much as those she used to buy at Paris, of a woman who had rent and taxes to pay, and whose husband was an elector. Despite the efforts and pledges of the gate-keeper-gardener, early peas and things at Paris are a month in advance of those in the country.
From eight in the evening to eleven our couple don"t know what to do, on account of the insipidity of the neighbors, their small ideas, and the questions of self-love which arise out of the merest trifles.
Monsieur Deschars remarks, with that profound knowledge of figures which distinguishes the ex-notary, that the cost of going to Paris and back, added to the interest of the cost of his villa, to the taxes, wages of the gate-keeper and his wife, are equal to a rent of three thousand francs a year. He does not see how he, an ex-notary, allowed himself to be so caught! For he has often drawn up leases of chateaux with parks and out-houses, for three thousand a year.
It is agreed by everybody in the parlor of Madame Deschars, that a country house, so far from being a pleasure, is an unmitigated nuisance.
"I don"t see how they sell a cabbage for one sou at market, which has to be watered every day from its birth to the time you eat it," says Caroline.
"The way to get along in the country," replies a little retired grocer, "is to stay there, to live there, to become country-folks, and then everything changes."
On going home, Caroline says to her poor Adolphe, "What an idea that was of yours, to buy a country house! The best way to do about the country is to go there on visits to other people."
Adolphe remembers an English proverb, which says, "Don"t have a newspaper or a country seat of your own: there are plenty of idiots who will have them for you."
"Bah!" returns Adolph, who was enlightened once for all upon women"s logic by the Matrimonial Gadfly, "you are right: but then you know the baby is in splendid health, here."
Though Adolphe has become prudent, this reply awakens Caroline"s susceptibilities. A mother is very willing to think exclusively of her child, but she does not want him to be preferred to herself. She is silent; the next day, she is tired to death of the country. Adolphe being absent on business, she waits for him from five o"clock to seven, and goes alone with little Charles to the coach office. She talks for three-quarters of an hour of her anxieties. She was afraid to go from the house to the office. Is it proper for a young woman to be left alone, so? She cannot support such an existence.
The country house now creates a very peculiar phase; one which deserves a chapter to itself.
TROUBLE WITHIN TROUBLE.
Axiom.--There are parentheses in worry.
EXAMPLE--A great deal of evil has been said of the st.i.tch in the side; but it is nothing to the st.i.tch to which we now refer, which the pleasures of the matrimonial second crop are everlastingly reviving, like the hammer of a note in the piano. This const.i.tutes an irritant, which never flourishes except at the period when the young wife"s timidity gives place to that fatal equality of rights which is at once devastating France and the conjugal relation. Every season has its peculiar vexation.
Caroline, after a week spent in taking note of her husband"s absences, perceives that he pa.s.ses seven hours a day away from her. At last, Adolphe, who comes home as gay as an actor who has been applauded, observes a slight coating of h.o.a.r frost upon Caroline"s visage. After making sure that the coldness of her manner has been observed, Caroline puts on a counterfeit air of interest,--the well-known expression of which possesses the gift of making a man inwardly swear,--and says: "You must have had a good deal of business to-day, dear?"
"Oh, lots!"
"Did you take many cabs?"
"I took seven francs" worth."
"Did you find everybody in?"
"Yes, those with whom I had appointments."
"When did you make appointments with them? The ink in your inkstand is dried up; it"s like glue; I wanted to write, and spent a whole hour in moistening it, and even then only produced a thick mud fit to mark bundles with for the East Indies."
Here any and every husband looks suspiciously at his better half.
"It is probable that I wrote them at Paris--"
"What business was it, Adolphe?"
"Why, I thought you knew. Shall I run over the list? First, there"s Chaumontel"s affair--"
"I thought Monsieur Chaumontel was in Switzerland--"
"Yes, but he has representatives, a lawyer--"
"Didn"t you do anything else but business?" asks Caroline, interrupting Adolphe.
Here she gives him a direct, piercing look, by which she plunges into her husband"s eyes when he least expects it: a sword in a heart.
"What could I have done? Made a little counterfeit money, run into debt, or embroidered a sampler?"
"Oh, dear, I don"t know. And I can"t even guess. I am too dull, you"ve told me so a hundred times."
"There you go, and take an expression of endearment in bad part. How like a woman that is!"
"Have you concluded anything?" she asks, pretending to take an interest in business.
"No, nothing,"
"How many persons have you seen?"
"Eleven, without counting those who were walking in the streets."
"How you answer me!"
"Yes, and how you question me! As if you"d been following the trade of an examining judge for the last ten years!"
"Come, tell me all you"ve done to-day, it will amuse me. You ought to try to please me while you are here! I"m dull enough when you leave me alone all day long."
"You want me to amuse you by telling you about business?"
"Formerly, you told me everything--"
This friendly little reproach disguises the cert.i.tude that Caroline wishes to enjoy respecting the serious matters which Adolphe wishes to conceal. Adolphe then undertakes to narrate how he has spent the day.
Caroline affects a sort of distraction sufficiently well played to induce the belief that she is not listening.
"But you said just now," she exclaims, at the moment when Adolphe is getting into a snarl, "that you had paid seven francs for cabs, and you now talk of a hack! You took it by the hour, I suppose? Did you do your business in a hack?" she asks, railingly.
"Why should hacks be interdicted?" inquires Adolphe, resuming his narrative.
"Haven"t you been to Madame de Fischtaminel"s?" she asks in the middle of an exceedingly involved explanation, insolently taking the words out of your mouth.
"Why should I have been there?"
"It would have given me pleasure: I wanted to know whether her parlor is done."