"Monsieur Dauberny stopped in front of a hovel that was styled a cafe, and looked through the window. It must have been hard to distinguish anything, for the gla.s.s was covered with a coating of smoke; and Monsieur Dauberny, who probably had not succeeded in looking in, seemed to hesitate, when a man entered the street at the other end and tapped my husband on the shoulder. I recognized the new-comer as one Faisande, who was very intimate with Monsieur Dauberny, and sometimes came to the house; but the fellow, who was a clerk at the Treasury, had always seemed to me so reserved in his language, he professed to entertain such rigid principles and displayed so little indulgence for the most trivial peccadilloes, that I believed him to be a perfect Cato!"
"Faisande!" cried I; "a clerk at the Treasury! Hypocrite, tartuffe, and debauchee! Ah! that"s the very man!"
"Do you know him?"
"He was at the dinner at Deffieux"s, the night that I made bold to attend Mademoiselle Guillardin"s ball. He was very much shocked because we were a little free in our talk; he preached morality to us."
"Oh! that"s the man to the life! Let me finish my story:
"When Monsieur Faisande appeared, I stretched myself out on a stone bench in front of the hovel. I turned my face to the wall, and listened to their talk.
""I was waiting for you," my husband said.
""Why didn"t you go in?"
""I am not so well known here as you are. I was not sure that they"d give me the little secret room."
""You must say: "I am Saint-Germain"s friend,"--that"s the name I go by here,--and they"d have taken you there at once."
""It seems that you"re a regular habitue?"
""I sometimes pa.s.s a whole week here, without putting my nose outside the door."
""A week! What about your place?"
""I let it go to the devil!"
""And your wife?"
""The same with her. I have never put myself out for her. A week after my wedding, I slept away from home three nights in succession. A man should always put his wife on the proper footing at the outset. You ought to have done the same with yours."
""Oh! my wife pays very little attention to what I do. I can stay away all night if I choose; she won"t say anything."
""That"s all right! But let"s go in; the women must be here, waiting for us."
""How many are there?"
""Two each, or rather four each, as there are four of them.--Ha! ha!"
""Pardieu! that"s true. By the way, remember not to call me anything but Bouqueton."
""And I am Saint-Germain."
""It"s a good idea to change our names."
""All the better, when you have a grudge against someone: you take his name in some risky affair, and if there"s any trouble about it, why, it all comes back on the man whose name you took."
""What a devil of a fellow! He thinks of everything; he"s far-sighted.
Let"s go in."
"My husband and his worthy friend entered the vile resort. A few moments later, three or four urchins of fourteen or fifteen years went in, and I slipped in with them. I was anxious to get a glimpse of the interior of the place. It was very bold, was it not, my dear Charles? But there are days when I would brave the greatest dangers; apparently that was one of the days.
"I found myself in a very large room, but no higher than the ordinary entresol. The atmosphere was so dense with smoke that when I went in I could not see a billiard table at one end of the room. Not for some little time did my eyes become so far accustomed to the mist that I could distinguish anything. There were tables on all sides. A large number of men, of all ages, stood about the billiard table, which was dimly lighted by two lamps hanging from the ceiling. A common kitchen lamp stood on a desk near the outer door. There were no other lights in the room, so that in places it was quite dark. There were, as I say, many people about the billiard table; very few women, but many youths, or rather children, barely fourteen years old, whose worn faces, hollow eyes, and leaden complexions denoted premature debauchery. As for the women! I need not tell you to what cla.s.s they belonged. There was no noise such as had deafened me at the ball at La Courtille; on the contrary, everybody spoke in undertones, and, except for a few energetic oaths from the billiard players, a forbidding silence reigned. My heart sank when I found myself in that den of iniquity. The dance hall at La Courtille was a veritable Chateau of Flowers compared with that ghastly cafe. I stood inside the door, and was about to go out again, when four women entered together. They were all young and shapely, and dressed like the wretched creatures who roam the streets in that quarter; b.r.e.a.s.t.s uncovered, eyes inflamed, heads thrown back, and faces upon which all the vices were engraved. Several men in blouses ran to meet them, crying:
""Ah! here"s the _siroteuses_! We"re going to have some sport to-night."
""Bonsoir, _la fourmi_!"
""Bonsoir, _la mouche_!"
"But the four women forced their way through the men who surrounded them, saying almost disdainfully:
""We ain"t for you to-night. There ain"t no show! We"re engaged! Have Messieurs Bouqueton and Saint-Germain got here?"
""To be sure!" said a woman at the desk, who had been darting fiery glances at me for some minutes. "They"re waiting for you, and the table"s set."
""The devil! there"s going to be a treat, it seems!" cried one of the men.
""Yes, yes," said the girls. "We"re going to earn some shiners. And if you behave yourselves, there"ll be something for you. Get out of the way! Let us go to work."
"And the four women hurried to the other end of the room and disappeared through a little door, which closed behind them. I made haste to escape from that horrible place. I believe that it was high time, for the woman at the desk had pointed me out to some men, who were scrutinizing me closely.
"As soon as I was in the street, I ran at the top of my speed. I thought then, and I still believe that I was not mistaken, that I was chased by some men who came out of the cafe behind me. But some soldiers came along, and I walked beside them until I reached a more frequented quarter. Then I took a cab and went home.
"I cannot tell you what took place in my heart when I was able to reflect calmly on my plight--that I was the wife of a man of honorable birth and breeding, the bearer of an honorable name, who was at liberty to frequent respectable society in Paris, and who had a wife who was young and pretty, and not a fool,--I flattered myself, perhaps!--and that that man was at that moment in one of those sink-holes of vice which are tolerated in great cities because fugitives from justice can be found there; that he was in the company of public prost.i.tutes of the lowest type, and that he would probably pa.s.s the night there.
"I trembled convulsively from head to foot, I had paroxysms of pa.s.sion, and cried in a sort of frenzy: "And I am tied to such a creature!"
"To calm myself I thought of that hypocrite Faisande; he too had a wife; I had happened to meet her twice, and I knew that she was young and pretty and had all the qualities of a good wife and mother; she was virtuous, orderly, economical, not coquettish, and she adored her husband! It seems that there is a fatality about it: the worst scoundrels always obtain such phoenixes. Moreover, Monsieur Faisande had a daughter; but even that did not deter the wretch! He abandoned himself to his abominable tastes, wholly oblivious of the fact that he was a father.
"I, at all events, had no child; and I thanked G.o.d for it at that moment. Recovering my strength of will and my courage, I said to myself that in all probability many wives had pa.s.sed through such ordeals as mine. Ah! if we knew all the family secrets of our friends! This is not romancing, my friend; I invent nothing; it is history.
"I was conscious of a thrill of joy at the thought that I was free; that Monsieur Dauberny had released me from all the oaths that bound me to him. For I did not feel disposed, for my part, to imitate Madame Faisande, who, although she was aware of her husband"s conduct, hardly dared to say a word of reproach, and remained faithful to her vows. That is very fine, but I am not so self-sacrificing! and, frankly, I have never understood that precept of the Gospel about returning good for evil. No, no! let us not forgive an insult, let us not kiss the hand that strikes us; for then the insult and the blow will be repeated. The _lex talionis_! that is the natural law, and it is my idea of justice!
"Three days pa.s.sed before I saw my husband; he probably pa.s.sed them in that den where his friend Faisande sometimes pa.s.sed a week. At last, Monsieur Dauberny came to my room one morning and approached me as if to kiss me. I felt as if I were about to come in contact with a toad. I rose hastily, and I doubt not that my face expressed what was pa.s.sing through my mind, for Monsieur Dauberny stopped in utter amazement.
""Monsieur," I said to him, pointing to the door, "you will never cross that threshold again! More than that, you will never seek to see me or to speak to me. Henceforth we are utter strangers to each other. I will never go out with you; when I dine at home, it will not be at your table; we will have our meals separately. Absolute liberty, monsieur! I shall do whatever I please--absolutely! do you understand, monsieur? And you will not venture to find fault with any act of mine."
"Monsieur Dauberny, bewildered at first by what I said, tried to demand an explanation. I closed his mouth with these words:
""I know all about La Courtille, Mariotte, the vile hole on Rue Saint-eloy, and the four _siroteuses_!"
"He turned deathly pale and trembled like a leaf; he stammered some words which I could not understand, then bowed, and rushed from the room. Since that day--and that was years ago!--I have not exchanged a word with my husband. We live as I had resolved. Sometimes I don"t see him for three weeks; and if we chance to meet, we bow, and that is all.
The world has become accustomed to seeing me go about without my husband. What the world thinks about it matters little to me! It is so often mistaken in its judgments that we are fools to worry about it. I have always thought that our own esteem was worth more than the consideration which is often most freely bestowed on people who hardly deserve it."