""Do you want to return home again?"
""Yes."
""And you did not dare to tell me?"
""I did not venture to."
""Go, if you wish to; I give you leave."
"She seized my hands and kissed them, as she did in all her outbursts of grat.i.tude, and the same morning she disappeared.
"She came back, as she had done the first time, at the end of about three weeks, in rags, covered with dust, and satiated with her Nomad life of sand and liberty. In two years she returned to her own people four times in this fashion.
"I took her back, gladly, without any feelings of jealousy, for with me jealousy can only spring from love as we Europeans understand it. I might very likely have killed her if I had surprised her in the act of deceiving me, but I should have done it, just as one half kills a disobedient dog, from sheer violence. I should not have felt those torments, that consuming fire--Northern jealousy. I have just said that I should have killed her like a disobedient dog, and, as a matter of fact, I loved her somewhat in the same manner as one loves some very highly bred horse or dog, which it is impossible to replace. She was a splendid animal, a sensual animal, an animal made for pleasure, and which possessed the body of a woman.
"I cannot tell you what an immeasurable distance separated our two souls, although our hearts perhaps occasionally warmed towards each other. She was something belonging to my house, she was part of my life, she had become a very agreeable, daily, regular requirement with me, to which I clung, and which the sensual man in me loved, that in me which was only eyes and sensuality.
"Well, one morning, Mohammed came into my room with a strange look on his face, that uneasy look of the Arabs, which resembles the furtive look of a cat, face to face with a dog, and when I noticed his expression, I said:
""What is the matter, now?"
""Allouma has gone away."
"I began to laugh, and said:--"Where has she gone to?"
""Gone away altogether, _mo"ssieuia_!"
""What do you mean by _gone away altogether_; you are mad, my man."
""No, _mo"ssieuia_."
""Why has she gone away? Just explain yourself; come!"
"He remained motionless, and evidently did not wish to speak, and then he had one of those explosions of Arab rage, which make us stop in streets in front of two demoniacs, whose oriental silence and gravity suddenly give place to the most violent gesticulations, and the most ferocious vociferations, and I gathered, amidst his shouts, that Allouma had run away with my shepherd, and when I had partially succeeded in calming him, I managed to extract the facts from him one by one.
"It was a long story, but at last I gathered that he had been watching my mistress, who used to meet a sort of vagabond whom my steward had hired the month before, behind the neighboring cactus woods, or in the ravine where the oleanders flourished. The night before, Mohammed had seen her go out without seeing her return, and he repeated, in an exasperated manner:--"Gone, _mo"ssieuia_; she has gone away!"
"I do not know why, but his conviction, the conviction that she had run away with this vagabond, laid hold of me irresistibly in a moment. It was absurd, unlikely, and yet certain in virtue of that very unreasonableness, which const.i.tutes female logic.
"Boiling over with indignation, I tried to recall the man"s features, and I suddenly remembered having seen him the previous week, standing on a mound amidst his flock, and watching me. He was a tall Bedouin, the color of whose bare limbs was blended with that of his rags; he was a type of a barbarous brute, with high cheek bones, and a hooked nose, a retreating chin, thin legs, and a tall carca.s.s in rags, with the shifty eyes of a jackal.
"I did not doubt for a moment that she had run away with that beggar.
Why? Because she was Allouma, a daughter of the desert. A girl from the pavement in Paris would have run away with my coachman, or some thief in the suburbs.
""Very well," I said to Mohammed. Then I got up, opened my window, and began to draw in the stifling South wind, for the sirocco was blowing, and I thought to myself:--
"Good heavens! she is ... a woman, like so many others. Does anybody know what makes them act, what makes them love, what makes them follow, or throw over a man? One certainly does know, occasionally; but often one does not, and sometimes one is in doubt. Why did she run away with that repulsive brute? Why? Perhaps, because the wind had been blowing regularly from the South, for a month; that was enough; a breath of wind!
Does she know, do they know, even the cleverest of them, why they act?
No more than a weather-c.o.c.k that turns with the wind. An imperceptible breeze, makes the iron, bra.s.s, zinc, or wooden arrow revolve, just in the same manner as some imperceptible influence, some undiscernible impression moves the female heart, and urges it on to resolutions, and it does not matter whether they belong to town or country, the suburbs or the desert.
"They can then feel, provided that they reason and understand, why they have done one thing rather than another, but, for the moment, they do not know, for they are the playthings of their own sensibility, the thoughtless, giddy-headed slaves of events, of their surroundings, of chance meetings, and of all the sensations with which their soul and their body trembles!"
Monsieur Auballe had risen, and, after walking up and down the room once or twice, he looked at me, and said, with a smile:--
"That is love in the desert!"
"Suppose she were to come back?" I asked him.
"Horrid girl!" he replied.
"But I should be very glad if she did return to me."
"And you would pardon the shepherd?"
"Good heavens, yes! With women, one must always pardon ... or else pretend not to see things."
A FAMILY AFFAIR
The Neuilly steam-tram had just pa.s.sed the _Porte Maillot_, and was going along the broad avenue that terminates at the Seine. The small engine that was attached to the car whistled to warn any obstacle to get out of its way, sent out its steam, and panted like a person out of breath from running does, and its pistons made a rapid noise, like iron legs that were running. The oppressive heat of the end of a July day lay over the whole city, and from the road, although there was not a breath of wind stirring, there arose a white, chalky, opaque, suffocating, and warm dust, which stuck to the moist skin, filled the eyes, and got into the lungs, and people were standing in the doors of their houses in search of a little air.
The windows of the steam-tram were down, and the curtains fluttered in the wind, and there were very few pa.s.sengers inside, because on such warm days people preferred the top or the platforms. Those few consisted of stout women in strange toilets, of those shopkeepers" wives from the suburbs, who made up for the distinguished looks which they did not possess, by ill-timed dignity; of gentlemen who were tired of the office, with yellow-faces, who stooped rather, and with one shoulder higher than the other, in consequence of their long hours of work bending over the desk. Their uneasy and melancholy faces also spoke of domestic troubles, of constant want of money, of former hopes, that had been finally disappointed; for they all belonged to that army of poor, threadbare devils who vegetate economically in mean, plastered houses, with a tiny piece of neglected garden in the midst of those fields where night soil is deposited, which are on the outskirts of Paris.
A short, fat man, with a puffy face and a big stomach, dressed all in black, and wearing a decoration in his b.u.t.ton-hole, was talking to a tall, thin man, dressed in a dirty, white linen suit, that was all unb.u.t.toned, with a white Panama hat on. The former spoke so slowly and hesitatingly, that it occasionally almost seemed as if he stammered; he was Monsieur Caravan, chief clerk in the Admiralty. The other, who had formerly been surgeon on board a merchant ship, had set up in practice in Courbevoie, where he applied the vague remnants of medical knowledge which he had retained after an adventurous life, to the wretched population of that district. His name was Chenet, and strange rumors were current as to his morality.
Monsieur Caravan had always led the normal life of a man in a Government office. For the last thirty years he had invariably gone the same way to his office every morning, and had met the same men going to business at the same time and nearly on the same spot, and he returned home every evening the same way, and again met the same faces which he had seen growing old. Every morning, after buying his halfpenny paper at the corner of the _Faubourg Saint Honore_, he bought his two rolls, and then he went into his office, like a culprit who is giving himself up to justice, and he got to his desk as quickly as possible, always feeling uneasy, as he was expecting a rebuke for some neglect of duty of which he might have been guilty.
Nothing had ever occurred to change the monotonous order of his existence, for no event affected him except the work of his office, perquisites, gratuities, and promotion. He never spoke of anything but of his duties, either at the Admiralty or at home, for he had married the portionless daughter of one of his colleagues. His mind, which was in a state of atrophy from his depressing daily work, had no other thoughts, hopes or dreams than such as related to the office, and there was a constant source of bitterness that spoilt every pleasure that he might have had, and that was the employment of so many commissioners of the navy, _tinmen_, as they were called, because of their silver-lace, as first-cla.s.s clerks; and every evening at dinner he discussed the matter hotly with his wife, who shared his angry feelings, and proved to their own satisfaction that it was in every way unjust to give places in Paris, to men who ought to be employed in the navy.
He was old now, and had scarcely noticed how his life was pa.s.sing, for school had merely been exchanged, without any transition, for the office, and the ushers, at whom he had formerly trembled, were replaced by his chiefs, whom he was terribly afraid of. When he had to go into the rooms of these official despots, it made him tremble from head to foot, and that constant fear had given him a very awkward manner in their presence, a humble demeanor, and a kind of nervous stammering.
He knew nothing more about Paris than a blind man could know, who was led to the same spot by his dog every day, and if he read the account of any uncommon events, or of scandals, in his halfpenny paper, they appeared to him like fantastic tales, which some pressman had made up out of his own head, in order to amuse the inferior _employes_. He did not read the political news, which his paper frequently altered, as the cause which subsidized them might require, for he was not fond of innovations, and when he went through the Avenue of the _Champs-Elysees_ every evening, he looked at the surging crowd of pedestrians, and at the stream of carriages, like a traveler who has lost his way in a strange country.
As he had completed his thirty years of obligatory service that year, on the first of January, he had had the cross of the _Legion of Honor_ bestowed upon him, which, in the semi-military public offices, is a recompense for the miserable slavery--the official phrase is, _loyal services_ of unfortunate convicts who are riveted to their desk. That unexpected dignity gave him a high and new idea of his own capacities, and altogether altered him. He immediately left off wearing light trousers and fancy waistcoats, and wore black trousers and long coats, on which his _ribbon_, which was very broad, showed off better. He got shaved every morning, trimmed his nails more carefully, changed his linen every two days, from a legitimate sense of what was proper, and of respect for the national _Order_, of which he formed a part, and from that day he was another Caravan, scrupulously clean, majestic and condescending.
At home, he said, "my cross," at every moment, and he had become so proud of it, that he could not bear to see other men wearing any other ribbon in their b.u.t.ton-holes. He got especially angry on seeing strange orders:--"Which n.o.body ought to be allowed to wear in France," and he bore Chenet a particular grudge, as he met him on a tramcar every evening, wearing a decoration of some sort or another, white, blue, orange, or green.
The conversation of the two men, from the _Arc de Triomphe_ to Neuilly, was always the same, and on that day they discussed, first of all, various local abuses which disgusted them both, and the Mayor of Neuilly received his full share of their blame. Then, as invariably happens in the company of a medical man, Caravan began to enlarge on the chapter of illness, as, in that manner, he hoped to obtain a little gratuitous advice, if he was careful not to show his book. His mother had been causing him no little anxiety for some time; she had frequent and prolonged fainting fits, and, although she was ninety, she would not take care of herself.
Caravan grew quite tender-hearted when he mentioned her great age, and more than once asked Doctor Chenet, emphasizing the word _doctor_--although he had no right to the t.i.tle, being only an _Officier de Sante_, and, as such, not fully qualified--whether he had often met anyone as old as that. And he rubbed his hands with pleasure; not, perhaps, that he cared very much about seeing the good woman last for ever here on earth, but because the long duration of his mother"s life was, as it were, an earnest of old age for himself, and he continued:
"Oh! In my family, we last long, and I am sure that, unless I meet with an accident, I shall not die until I am very old."
The _medico_ looked at him with pity, and glanced for a moment at his neighbor"s red face, his short, thick neck, his "corporation," as Chenet called it to himself, that hung down between two flaccid, fat legs, and his apoplectic rotundity of the old, flabby official, and, lifting the white Panama hat which he wore, from his head, he said, with a sn.i.g.g.e.r:--
"I am not so sure of that, old fellow; your mother is as tough as nails, and I should say that your life is not a very good one."