"I?"
"Ah! you make me very unhappy!"
"I make you unhappy? I must confess that I did not expect such a reproach. When I try to gratify all your desires, all your tastes; when I have no other will than yours, I make you unhappy! Upon my word, women are most unjust! What would you say, pray, Eugenie, if you had a scolding, capricious, dissipated, or gambling husband?"
"Mon Dieu! I am well aware, monsieur, that a husband thinks that he has done his duty when he has given his wife the bonnet and shawl that she wants; but for my part, I should prefer that you should have all the faults that you just mentioned, if you would be faithful to me."
"And you reproach me with being unfaithful! you address such a reproach as that to me!"
"Do you dare to deny that you have been going to see your former neighbor, this Madame Ernest?"
"No, madame, I have never denied it; why should I deny anything when I have done nothing wrong?"
"Still, you have not told me of it, and but for that gentleman"s call, I should not have known it."
"I have not told you of it because your absurd suspicions obliged me to keep it secret. I felt sure that you would discover something wrong in it; so that it was useless for me to tell you a thing which can hardly be said to concern you."
"Ah! so it doesn"t concern me that you go to make love to other women!
What a horrible thing to say!"
"Eugenie, you are perfectly absurd! I feel very sorry for you!"
"When one discovers the intrigues of these gentlemen, one is absurd.
Will you say again that her lover is always there when you go there? It is a pity that he himself said that you waited for him a long time.
Idiot! not to see why you go to his house when he isn"t there!"
"Oh! how patient a man must be, to listen to such nonsense!"
"I am sure that you go every day to see your old neighbor, this Marguerite. I do not know her, but I detest her, I have a perfect horror of her. Her Monsieur Ernest had better not think of bringing her here, for I will turn her out of doors,--Mon Dieu! mon Dieu! after being married only fifteen months, to have a mistress!"
She hid her face in her hands and began to sob again. Her tears made me forgive her injustice. I was about to go to her and to try to make her listen to reason, when she suddenly sprang to her feet, saying:
"Very well, monsieur, if you have a mistress, I warn you that I will have a lover."
I confess that those words produced an exceedingly disagreeable effect on me; I was well aware that they were said in anger; but I would never have believed that Eugenie could conceive such a thought.
"Madame," I said, in a tone in which there was no trace of gentleness, "do not drive me beyond bounds, or wear out my patience. I am willing to tell you once more that I have no mistress, that Madame Ernest never was and never will be my mistress, that I very rarely go to see them, and that it is a mere chance that Ernest is not there when I go. Indeed, as he is not a government clerk, it is impossible to be sure when he will be absent. But now, madame, remember this: even if I had one or several mistresses, if I neglected or totally abandoned my family, that would give you no right at all to have a lover, A man"s position and his wife"s are entirely different. I may have love-affairs, waste my fortune, ruin my health; that will not dishonor you, madame, and will not bring strange children into the bosom of your family. It is not the same with the conduct of a wife; a single misstep ruins her in the eyes of society, and may compel her husband"s children to share their bread with her seducer"s children."
"That is all very convenient, monsieur; it proves that you can do what you please and that wives have simply to pa.s.s their lives weeping. Is that fair, monsieur?"
"If you consider that too hard, too cruel, why do you women marry? You should know what you undertake when you take that step."
"You are right, it would be much better not to marry--to do like Mademoiselle Marguerite; then one is free to follow one"s inclinations, to drop people and take them up again at pleasure."
I made no reply. I paced the floor back and forth. Meanwhile Eugenie had ceased to weep and had wiped her eyes; a moment later she came to me and laid her hand gently on my arm:
"Henri, perhaps I was a little wrong. But if this woman never has been, and is not now your mistress, if you do not love her--swear to me that you do not love her."
"Yes, I swear to you that I do not love her, and that I have never been her lover."
"Well then, my dear, to prove that, you must promise me that you will never in your life put your foot inside their door again."
"No, I am very sorry, but I will not promise that."
"Why not, if you do not love the woman?"
"It is just because I have no relations with Madame Ernest that I propose to continue to see her and her husband just when it suits me.
Besides, listen, my dear love: to-day you are jealous of her and don"t want me to go there any more; in a few days you will be jealous of someone else, and you will forbid me to go somewhere else. Things cannot go on so. I love you, I love you as dearly as on the day we married; but I don"t propose to be your slave. There is nothing more ridiculous than a man who does not dare to take a step without his wife"s permission; there is nothing more impertinent for a woman than to say to her husband: "You shall not go here or there, because I do not want you to.""
"But, Henri, I don"t forbid you to go, I simply beg you not to."
"No, my dear Eugenie; I am distressed to refuse, but I shall go where I please."
"And you dare to say that you do not love that woman?"
"If I loved her you would never have known that I went there, you would never have heard of her."
"So you prefer the friendship of those people to my repose and happiness? You sacrifice my peace of mind to them?"
"Your peace of mind should not be disturbed by my visits to Ernest. I say again, I will not give way to absurd suspicions, and I will do as I please."
"Very good, monsieur; I appreciate your love at its real value now."
And madame returned to her room; I sat down at the table and ate my dinner. Eugenie did not return; I dined alone. It was the first time since our marriage; alas, I would never have believed that it could happen.
My dinner was soon at an end; nothing takes away the appet.i.te like a dispute. And to dispute with a person whom one loves makes one angry and grieved at the same time.
I went out immediately after dinner. I walked aimlessly, but I walked on and on; nothing is so good as the fresh air to calm ill humor. But it was cold; and I finally went into the Varietes. That is a theatre where there is usually something to laugh at, and it is so pleasant to laugh!
I took a seat in the orchestra. I spied Belan there, no longer becurled and in a tight-fitting coat, as he always used to be before his marriage, but clad in a full-skirted frock coat, b.u.t.toned to the chin, and with a solemn face which in no wise resembled that of a man who was in search of conquests.
Was that the effect of marriage? Could it be that I myself had undergone the same metamorphosis?
I was glad to meet Belan; I hoped that the meeting would divert my thoughts from my own troubles. I took a seat beside him. The ex-lady-killer was so absorbed in his own reflections that he did not recognize me.
"Well, Belan, are you enjoying the play?"
"Hallo! it"s my old friend Blemont! What a lucky meeting! Since we have been married, we hardly see each other at all. Ah! we had lots of fun together in the old days, when we were bachelors! those were the good old times!"
"What! do you repent already of being married?"
"No, certainly not; I only said that in jest. Oh! I am very happy; but what I mean is that a married man owes it to himself not to run wild like a bachelor. However, I am exceedingly happy."
"I congratulate you. How does it happen that madame is not with you?"
"Oh! she is dining out with her mother, at a house where they couldn"t invite me, because I would have made thirteen at the table. I am going to call for her. But as it is a house where they dine very late, Armide told me not to hurry, not to come until between ten and eleven. That is why I came here to pa.s.s the time. But how is it with you, my dear Blemont? I thought that you never left your adored wife; everybody speaks of you as a pair of turtledoves."
"Oh! turtledoves don"t always agree. We have had a little quarrel and I came to the theatre for distraction."