[Footnote 4: t.i.tle given to advocates in France.--TRANSLATOR.]
He had just opened his correspondence, and his long hands, on which he bestowed the greatest attention, buried themselves in a heap of female letters, and one might have thought oneself in the confessional of a fashionable preacher, so impregnated was the atmosphere with delicate perfumes.
Immediately, even before she had said a word, with the sharp glance of a practiced man of the world, that look which made beautiful Madame de Serpenoise say: "He strips your heart bare!" The lawyer had cla.s.sed her in the third category. Those who suffer came into his first category, those who love, into the second, and those who are bored, into the third, and she belonged to the latter.
She was a pretty windmill, whose sails turned and flew round, and fretted the blue sky with a delicious shiver of joy, as it were. The brain of a bird, in which four correct and healthy ideas could not exist side by side, and in which all dreams and every kind of folly are engulfed, like a great crevice.
Incapable of hurting a fly, emotional, charitable, with a feeling of tenderness for the street girl who sold bunches of violets for a penny, for a cab horse, which a driver was ill using, for a melancholy pauper"s funeral, when the body, without friends or relations to follow it, was being conveyed to the common grave, doing anything that might afford five minutes" amus.e.m.e.nt, not caring if she made men miserable for the rest of their days, and taking pleasure in kindling pa.s.sions which consumed men"s whole being, looking upon life as too short to be anything else than one uninterrupted round of gaiety and enjoyment, she thought that people might find plenty of time for being serious and reasonable in the evening of life, when they are at the bottom of the hill, and their looking gla.s.s showed them a wrinkled face, surrounded with white hair.
A thoroughbred Parisian, whom one would follow to the end of the world like a poodle; a woman whom one adores with the head, the heart and the senses until one is nearly driven mad, as soon as one has inhaled the delicate perfume that emanates from her dress and hair, or touched her skin, and heard her laugh; a woman for whom one would fight a duel and risk one"s life without a thought; for whom a man would remove mountains, and sell his soul to the devil several times over, if the devil were still in the habit of frequenting the places of bad repute on this earth.
She had perhaps come to see this Garrulier, whom she had so often heard mentioned at five o"clock tea, near, so as to be able to describe him to her female friends subsequently in droll phrases, to imitate his gestures and the unctuous inflections of his voice, perhaps, in order to experience some new sensation, or, perhaps, for the sake of dressing like a woman who was going to try for a divorce; and, certainly, the whole effect was perfect. She wore a splendid cloak embroidered with jet, which gave an almost serious effect to her golden hair, to her small slightly turned up nose, with its quivering nostrils, and to her long eyes, full of enigmas and fun; and a dark stuff dress, which was fastened at the neck by a sapphire and a diamond pin.
The barrister did not interrupt her, but allowed her to get excited and to chatter, to enumerate her causes for complaint against poor Count de Baudemont, who certainly had no suspicion of his wife"s escapade, who would have been very much surprised if any one had told him of it at that moment, when he was taking his fencing lesson at the club.
When she had quite finished, he said coolly, as if he were throwing a pail of water on some burning straw.
"But, Madame, there is not the slightest pretext for a divorce in anything that you have told me, here...the judges would ask me whether I took the Law Courts for a theater, and intended to make fun of them."
And seeing how disheartened she was, and that she looked like a child whose favorite toy had been broken, and, also, because she was so pretty, that he would have liked to kiss her hands in his devotion, and as she seemed to be witty, and very amusing, and as, moreover, he had no objection to such visits being prolonged, when papers had to be looked over, while sitting close together, Maitre Garrulier appeared to be considering, and, taking his chin in his hand, he said:
"However, I will think it over...there is sure to be some dark spot that can be made out worse.... Write to me, and come and see me again..."
In the course of her visits, that black spot had increased so much, and Madame de Baudemont had followed her lawyer"s advice so punctually, and had played on the various cords so skillfully, a few months later, that after a lawsuit, which is still spoken of in the Courts of Justice, and during the course of which, the President had to take off his spectacles, and to use his pocket-handkerchief noisily, the divorce was p.r.o.nounced in favor of the Countess Marie Anne Nicole Bournet de Baudemont, _nee_ de Tanchart de Peothus.
The Count, who was nonplussed at such an adventure, which was turning out so seriously, first of all, flew into a terrible rage, and nearly rushed off to the lawyer"s office, and threatened to cut off his knavish ears for him, but when his access of fury was over, and thinking better of it, he shrugged his shoulders and said:
"All the better for her, if it amuses her!"
Then he bought Baron Silberstein"s yacht, and with some friends, got up a cruise, to Ceylon and India.
Marie-Anne began by triumphing, and felt as happy as a schoolgirl going home for the holidays, who feels the bridle on her neck, committed every possible folly, and soon, tired, satiated, and disgusted, she began to yawn, cried and found out that she had sacrificed her happiness, like a millionaire who had gone mad, and who threw his banknotes and shares into the river, and that she was nothing more than a disabled waif and stray. Consequently, she now married again, as the solitude of her home made her morose from morning till night; and then, besides, a woman requires a mansion when she goes into society, to race meetings, or to the theater.
And so, while she became a marchioness, and p.r.o.nounced her second "Yes,"
before a very few friends, at the office of the mayor of the English urban district, and malicious ones in the Faurbourg were making fun of the whole affair, and affirming this and that, whether rightly or wrongly, and compromising the present husband to the former one, even declaring that he had partially been the cause of the former divorce, Monsieur de Baudemont was wandering over the four quarters of the globe trying to overcome his homesickness, and to deaden his longing for love, which had taken possession of his heart and of his body, like a slow poison.
He traveled through the most out of the way places, and the most lovely countries, and spent months and months at sea, and plunged into every kind of dissipation and debauchery. But neither the supple backs nor the luxurious gestures of the _bayaderes_, nor the large, pa.s.sive eyes of the Creoles, nor flirtations with English _missives_ with hair the color of new cider, nor nights of waking dreams, when he saw new constellations in the sky, nor dangers during which a man thinks it is all over with him, and mutters a few words of prayer in spite of himself, when the waves are so high, and the sky so black, nothing was able to make him forget that little Parisian woman who smelled so delicious that she might have been taken for a bouquet of rare flowers; who was so coaxing, so curious, so funny; who never had the same caprice, the same smile, or the same look twice, and who, at bottom, was worth more than many others, than the saints and the sinless.
He thought of her constantly, during long hours of sleeplessness. He carried her portrait about with him in the pocket of his pea-jacket; a charming portrait in which she was smiling, and showing her white teeth between her half-open lips, and while her gentle eyes, with their magnetic look, had a happy, frank expression, and in which, from the mere reflection of her hair, one could see that she was fair among the fair.
And he used to kiss that portrait of the woman who had been his wife as if he wished to efface it, and would look at it for hours, and then throw himself down on the netting, and sob like a child as he looked at the infinite expanse before him, and seemed to see in their lost happiness the joys of their perished affections, and the divine remembrance of their love in the monotonous waste of green waters. And he tried to accuse himself for all that had occurred, and not to be angry with her, to think that his grievances were imaginary, and to adore her in spite of everything and always.
And that he roamed about the world, tossed to and fro, suffering, and hoping, he knew not what. He ventured into the greatest dangers, and sought for death just as a man seeks for his mistress, and death pa.s.sed close to him without touching him, and was perhaps amused at his grief and misery.
For he was as wretched as a stone-breaker, as one of those poor devils who work and nearly break their backs over the hard flints the whole day long, under the scorching sun or the cold rain, and Marie-Anne herself was not happy, for she was pining for the past, and remembered their former love.
At last, however, he returned to France, changed, tamed by exposure, sun, and rain, and transformed as if by some witch"s filter.
n.o.body would have recognized the elegant and effeminate clubman in this species of corsair, with broad shoulders, a skin the color of blister, with very red lips, and who rolled a little in his walk; who seemed to be stifled in his black dress-coat, but who still retained his distinguished manners, the bearing of a n.o.bleman of the last century, who, when he was ruined, fitted out a privateer, and fell upon the English wherever he met them, from St. Malo to Calcutta. And wherever he showed himself his friends exclaimed:
"Why! Is that you? I should never have known you again!"
He was very nearly starting off again immediately. He even telegraphed orders to Havre to get the steam-yacht ready for sea again directly, when he heard that Marie-Anne had married again.
He saw her in the distance, at the _Theatre Francais_ one Tuesday, and when he noticed how pretty, how fair, how desirable she was, and looking so melancholy, with all the appearance of an unhappy soul that regrets something, his determination grew weaker, and he delayed his departure from week to week, and waited, without knowing why, until, at last, worn out with the struggle, watching her wherever she went, more in love with her than he had ever been before, he wrote her long, mad, ardent letters in which his pa.s.sion overflowed like a stream of lava.
He altered his handwriting, as he remembered her restless brain and her many whims. He sent her the flowers which he knew she liked best, and told her that she was his life, that he was dying of waiting for her, of longing for her, for her, his idol.
At last, very much puzzled and surprised, guessing--who knows?--from the instinctive beating of her heart, and her general emotion, that it must be he this time, he whose soul she had tortured with such cold cruelty, and knowing that she could make amends for the past and bring back their former love, she replied to him, and granted him the meeting that he asked for. She fell into his arms, and they both sobbed with joy and ecstasy. Their kisses were those which lips only give when they have lost each other and found each other again at last, when they meet and exhaust themselves in each other"s looks, thirsting for tenderness, love and enjoyment.
Last week Count de Baudemont carried off Marie-Anne quietly and coolly, just like one resumes possession of one"s house on returning from a journey, and drives out the intruders. And when _Maitre_ Garrulier was told of this unheard-of scandal, he rubbed his hands--his long, delicate hands of a sensual prelate--and exclaimed:
"That is absolutely logical, and I should like to be in their place."
THE MAN WITH THE DOGS
His wife, even when talking to him, always called him Monsieur Bistaud, but in all the country round, within a radius of ten leagues in France and Belgium, he was known as _cet homme aux chiens_[5]. It was not a very valuable reputation, however, and "That man with the dogs" became a sort of pariah.
[Footnote 5: That man with the dogs.]
In Thierache they are not very fond of the custom-house officers, for everybody, high or low, profits by smuggling; thanks to which many articles, and especially coffee, gunpowder and tobacco are to be had cheap. It may here be stated that on that wooded, broken country, where the meadows are surrounded by brushwood, and the lanes are dark and narrow, smuggling is chiefly carried on by means of sporting dogs, who are broken in to become smuggling dogs. Scarcely an evening pa.s.ses without some of them being seen, loaded with contraband, trotting silently along, pushing their noses through a hole in a hedge, with furtive and uneasy looks, and sniffing the air to scent the custom-house officers and their dogs. These dogs also are specially trained, and are very ferocious, and easily rip up their unfortunate congeners, who become the game instead of hunting for it.
Now, n.o.body was capable of imparting this unnatural education to them so well as "the man with his dogs," whose business consisted in breaking in dogs for the custom-house authorities, and everybody looked upon it as a dirty business, a business which could only be performed by a man without any proper feeling.
"He is a men"s robber," the women said, "to take honest dogs into nurse, and to make a lot of Judas"s out of them."
While the boys shouted insulting verses behind his back, the men and the women abused him, but no one ventured to do it to his face, for he was not very patient, and was always accompanied by one of his huge dogs, and that served to make him respected.
Certainly, without that bodyguard, he would have had a bad time of it, especially at the hands of the smugglers, who had a deadly hatred for him. By himself, and in spite of his quarrelsome looks, he did not appear very formidable, for he was short and thin, his back was round, his legs were bandy, and his arms were as long and as thin as spiders"
legs, and he could easily have been knocked down by a back-handed blow or a kick. But then, he had those confounded dogs which interfered with the bravest smugglers. How could they risk even a thrust when he had those huge brutes, with their fierce and bloodshot eyes, and their square heads, whose jaws were like a vise, with enormous white teeth, that were as sharp as daggers, and whose huge molars crunched up beef-bones to a pulp with them? They were wonderfully broken in, were always by him, obeyed him by signs, and were taught, not only to worry the smugglers" dogs, but also to fly at the throats of the smugglers themselves.
The consequence was that both he and his dogs were left alone, and people were satisfied in calling them names and sending them all to Coventry. No peasant ever set foot in his cottage, although Bistaud"s wife kept a small shop and was a handsome woman, and the only persons who went there were the custom-house officers. The others took their revenge on them all by saying that the man with the dogs sold his wife to the custom-house officers, like he did his dogs.
"He keeps her for them, as well as his dogs," they said jeeringly. "You can see that he is a born cuckold with his yellow beard and eyebrows, which stick up like a pair of horns."
His hair was certainly red, or rather yellow, his thick eyebrows were turned up in two points on his temples, and he used to twirl them mechanically as if they had been a pair of moustaches. And certainly, with his hair like that, and with his long beard and s.h.a.ggy eyebrows, with his sallow face, blinking eyes, and dull looks, with his dogged mouth, thin lips, and his miserable, deformed body, he was not a pleasing object.
But he a.s.suredly was not a complaisant cuckold, and those who have said that of him had never seen him at home. On the contrary, he was always jealous, and kept as sharp a lookout on his wife as he did on his dogs, and if he had broken her in at all, it was to be as faithful to him as they were.
She was a handsome, and what they call in the country, a fine body of a woman; tall, well-built, with a full bust and broad breech, and she certainly made more than one excise man squint at her, but it was no use for them to come and sniff round her too closely, or else there would have been blows. At least, that is what the custom-house officers said when anybody joked with them and said to them: "That does not matter, no doubt, you and she have hunted for your fleas together."
It was no use for them to defend Madame Bistaud"s fierce virtue; n.o.body believed them, and the only answer they got was: "You are hiding your game, and are ashamed of going to seduce a woman who belongs to such a wretched creature."