Who would have guessed that the fine mouth, straitened by silence into
the purest shape of an antique face, would suddenly open to let flow
torrents of vulgar abuse? Without respect for herself or for him, out
loud, in the street, at the theatre, she would pick a quarrel with him,
and indulge in scenes of fearful jealousy. To crown all, devoid of
any artistic feeling, she was completely ignorant of her husband's
profession and language, of manners, in fact of everything. The little
French she could be taught, only made her forget Italian, and the result
was that she composed a kind of half and half jargon which had the most
comical effect. In short this love story, begun like one of Lamartine's
poems, was ending like a novel of Champfleury's. After having for a long
time struggled to civilise this wild woman, the poet saw he must abandon
the task. Too honourable to leave her, probably still too much in love,
he made up his mind to shut himself up, see no one, and work hard. The
few intimate friends he admitted to his house, saw that they embarrassed
him and ceased to come.
[Illustration: p064-075]
Hence it was that for the last fifteen years he had been living boxed up
in his household like in a leper's cell.
As I pondered over this wretched existence, I watched the strange couple
walking before me. He, slender, tall and round-shouldered.
[Illustration: p065-076]
She, squarely built, heavy, shaking her shawl by an impatient shrug
of her shoulders, with a free gait like a man's. She was tolerably
cheerful, her speech was loud, and from time to time she turned round to
see if we followed, familiarly shouting and calling by name those of us
she happened to know, accentuating her words by much gesticulation as
she would have hailed a fishing boat on the Tiber. When we reached their
house, the _concierge_, furious at seeing so noisy a crew at such an
unearthly hour, tried to prevent our entry. The Italian and he had a
fearful row on the staircase. We were all dotted about on the winding
stairs dimly lighted by the dying gas, ill at ease, uncomfortable,
hardly knowing if we ought not to come down again.
"Come, quick, let us go up," said the poet in a low tone, and we
followed him silently, while, leaning over the banisters that shook
under her weight and anger, the Italian let fly a volley of abuse in
which Roman imprecations alternated with the vocabulary of the
back slums. What a return home for the poet who had just roused the
admiration of artistic Paris, and still retained in his fevered eyes
the dazzling intoxication of his first performance! What a humiliating
recall to every-day life!
It was only by the fireside in his little sitting room that the icy
chill caused by this silly adventure was dispelled, and we should soon
have completely forgotten it, had it not been for the piercing voice and
bursts of laughter of the signora whom we heard in the kitchen telling
her maid how soundly she had rated that _choulato!_ When the table was
laid and supper ready, she came and seated herself amongst us, having
taken off her shawl, bonnet and veil, and I was able to examine her at
my leisure. She was no longer handsome. The square face, the broad heavy
jaw, the coarse hair turning grey, and above all the vulgar expression
of the mouth, contrasted singularly with the eternal and meaningless
reverie of the dreamy gaze. Resting her elbows on the table, familiar
and shapeless, she joined in the conversation without for an instant
losing sight of her plate. Just over her head, proud amid all the
melancholy rubbish of the drawing-room, a large portrait signed by an
illustrious name, stood out of the surrounding shade,--it was Maria
Assunta at twenty. The purple costume, the milky white of the pleated
wimple, the bright gold of the over-abundant imitation jewelry, set off
magnificently the brilliancy of a sunny complexion, the velvety shades
of the thick hair growing low on the forehead, which seemed to be united
by an almost imperceptible down to the superb and straight line of
the eyebrows. How could such an exuberance of life and beauty have
deteriorated and become such a mass of vulgarity? And curiously while
the Transteverina talked, I interrogated her lovely eyes, so deep and
soft on the canvas.
[Illustration: p068-079]
The excitement of the meal had put her in a good humour. To cheer up
the poet, to whom his mingled failure and glory were doubly painful,
she thumped him on the back, laughed with her mouth full, saying in her
hideous jargon, that it was not worth while for such a trifle to fling
oneself head downwards from the _campanile del Duomo_.
[Illustration: p069-080]
"Isn't it true, _il cato?_" she added turning to the old tom-cat
crippled by rheumatism, snoring in front of the fire. Then suddenly, in
the middle of an interesting discussion, she screamed out to her husband
in a voice senseless and brutal as the crack of a rifle:
"Hey! artist! _la lampo qui filo!_"
The poor fellow immediately interrupted his conversation to wind up the
lamp, humble, submissive, anxious to avoid the scene he dreaded, and
which in spite of all, he did not escape.
On returning from the theatre we had stopped at the _Maison d'Or_ to get
a bottle of choice wine to wash down the _estoufato_. All along the road
Maria Assunta had piously carried it under her shawl, and on her arrival
she had placed it on the table where she could cast tender looks upon
it, for Roman women are fond of good wine. Already twice or three times
mistrustful of her husband's absence of mind, and the length of his
arms, she had said:
"Mind the _boteglia_--you're going to break it."
At last, as she went off to the kitchen to take up with her own hands
the famous _estoufato_, she again called out to him:
"Whatever you do, don't break the _boteglia_."
Unluckily, the moment his wife had disappeared, the poet seized the
opportunity to talk about art, theatres, success, so freely and with so
much gusto and vivacity, that--crash! By a gesture more eloquent than
the others, the wonderful bottle was thrown down and fell to the ground
in a thousand pieces. Never have I beheld such terror. He stopped short,
and became deadly pale. At the same moment, Assunta's contralto was
heard in the next room, and the Italian appeared on the threshold with
flashing eyes, lips swollen with rage, red with the heat of the kitchen
range.
"The _boteglia!_" she roared in a terrible voice.
Then timidly bending down to me, he whispered:
"Say it's you."
And the poor devil was so frightened, that I felt his long legs tremble
under the table.
[Illustration: p075-086]
A COUPLE OF SINGERS.
How could they help falling in love? Handsome and famous as they both
were, singing in the same operas, living each night during five whole
acts the same artificial and passionate existence. You cannot play with
fire without being burnt. You cannot say twenty times a month: "I love
you!" to the sighing of a flute or the tremolos of a violin, without at
last being caught by the emotion of your own voice. In course of time,
passion awoke in the surrounding harmonies, the rhythmical surprises,
the gorgeousness of costume and scenery. It was wafted to them through
the window that Elsa and Lohengrin threw wide open on a night vibrating
with sound and luminousness:
"Come let us breathe the intoxicating perfumes."
It slipped in between the white columns of the Capulets' balcony, where
Romeo and Juliet linger in the dawning light of day:
"It was the nightingale, and not the lark."
And softly it caught Faust and Marguerite in a ray of moonlight, that
rose from the rustic bench to the shutters of their little chamber, amid
the entangled ivy and blossoming roses:
"Let me once more gaze upon thy face."
Soon all Paris knew their love and became interested in it. It was the
wonder of the season. The world came to admire the two splendid stars
gently gravitating towards each other in the musical firmament of the
Opera House. At last one evening, after an enthusiastic recall, as the
curtain fell, separating the house full of noisy applause and the
stage littered with bouquets, where the white gown of Juliet swept
over scattered camellia blossoms, the two singers were seized with an
irresistible impulse, as though their love, a shade artificial, had but
awaited the emotion of a splendid success to reveal itself.
[Illustration: p077-088]
Hands were clasped, vows exchanged, vows consecrated by the distant
and persistent plaudits of the house. The two stars had made their
conjunction.
After the wedding, some time passed before they were again seen on the
stage. Then, when their holiday was ended, they reappeared in the
same piece. This reappearance was a revelation. Until then, of the two
singers, the man had been the most prized. Older and more accustomed to
the public, whose foibles and preferences he had studied, he held the
pit and boxes under the spell of his voice. Beside him, the other one
seemed but an admirably gifted pupil, the promise of a future genius;
but her voice was young and had angles in it, just as her shoulders were
too slight and thin. And when on her return she appeared in one of her
former parts, and the full rich, powerful sound poured out in the very
first notes, abundant and pure, like the water of some sparkling spring,
there ran through the house such a thrill of delight and surprise, that
all the interest of the evening was concentrated on her. For the young
woman, it was one of those happy days, in which the ambient atmosphere
becomes limpid, light and vibrating, wafting towards one all the
radiance and adulations of success. As for the husband, they almost
forgot to applaud him, and as a dazzling light ever seems to make the
shade around it darker, so he, found himself relegated, as it were, to
the most insignificant part of the stage, as if he were neither more nor
less than a mere walking gentleman.
After all, the passion that was revealed in the songstress's acting, in
her voice full of charm and tenderness, was inspired by him. He alone
lent fire to the glances of those deep eyes, and that idea ought to have
made him proud, but the comedian's vanity proved stronger. At the end
of the performance he sent for the leader of the _claque_ and rated him
soundly. They had missed his entry and his exit, forgotten the recall at
the third act; he would complain to the manager, &c.
Alas! In vain he struggled, in vain did the paid applause greet him,
the good graces of the public, henceforth bestowed on his wife, remained
definitively acquired to her. She was fortunate too in a choice of parts
appropriate to her talent and her beauty, in which she appeared with all
the assurance of a woman of the world entering a ball-room, dressed in
the colours best suited to her, and certain of an ovation. At each fresh
success the husband was depressed, nervous, and irritable. This vogue
which left him and so absolutely became hers only, seemed to him a kind
of robbery. For a long while he strove to hide from every one, more
especially from his wife, this unavowable anguish; but one evening, as
she was going up the stairs leading to her dressing-room, holding up
with both hands her skirt-laden with bouquets, carried away by her
triumphal success, she said to him with a voice still overcome by the
excitement of applause: "We have had a magnificent house to-night." He
replied: "You think so!" in such an ironical and bitter tone, that the
young wife suddenly understood all.
Her husband was jealous! Not with the jealousy of a lover, who will
only allow his wife to be beautiful for him, but with the jealousy of an
artist, cold, furious, implacable. At times, when she stopped at the end
of an air and multitudes of bravos were thrown to her from outstretched
hands, he affected an indifferent and absent manner, and his listless
gaze seemed to say to the spectators: "When you have finished
applauding, I'll sing."
Ah! the applause, that sound like hail reechoing so delightfully through
the lobbies, the house, and the side scenes, once the sweets of it are
tasted, it is impossible to live without it. Great actors do not die of
illness or old age, they cease to exist when applause no longer greets
them. At the indifference of the public, this one was really seized with
a feeling of despair. He grew thin, became peevish and bad-tempered. In
vain did he reason with himself, look his incurable folly well in the
face, repeat to himself before he came on the stage:
"And yet she is my wife, and I love her!"
In the artificial atmosphere of the stage the true sentiment of life
vanished at once. He still loved the wife, but detested the singer. She
realized it, and as one nurses an invalid, watched the sad mania. At
first she thought of lessening her success, of making a sparing use and
not giving the full power of her voice and talent; but her resolutions
like those of her husband could not withstand the glare of the
footlights. Her talent, almost unconsciously, overstepped her will. Then
she humbled herself before him, belittled herself. She asked his advice,
inquired if he thought her interpretation correct, if he understood the
part in that way.
Of course he was never satisfied. With assumed goodnature, in the tone
of false friendship that comedians use so much amongst each other, he
would say, on the evenings of her greatest successes:
"You must watch yourself, dear, you are not doing very well just now,
not improving."
At other times he tried to prevent her singing:
"Take care, you are lavishing yourself. You are doing too much. Don't
wear out your luck. Believe me, you ought to take a holiday."
He even condescended to the most paltry pretexts. Said she had a cold,
was not in good voice. Or else he would try to pick some mean stage
quarrel:
"You took up the end of the duet too quickly; you spoilt my effect. You
did it on purpose."
He never saw, poor wretch, that it was he who hindered her bye play,
hurrying on with his cue in order to prevent any applause, and in his
anxiety to regain the public ear, monopolizing the front of the stage,
leaving his wife in the background. She never complained, for she loved
him too well; moreover success makes us indulgent and every evening
she was compelled to quit the shade in which she strove to conceal and
efface herself, to obey the summons enthusiastically calling her to the
footlights. This singular jealousy was soon noticed at the theatre, and
their fellow actors made fun of it. They overwhelmed the singer with
compliments about his wife's singing. They thrust under his eyes the
newspaper article in which after four long columns devoted to the star,
the critic bestowed a few lines to the fast fading vogue of the husband.
One day, having just read one of these articles, he rushed into his
wife's dressing-room, holding the open paper in his hand and said to
her, pale with rage:
"The fellow must have been your lover." He had indeed reached this
degree of injustice. In fact the unhappy woman, praised and envied,
whose name figured in large type on the play bills and might be read on
all the walls of Paris, who was seized upon as a successful advertising
medium and placed on the tiny gilt labels of the confectioner or
perfumer, led the saddest and most humiliating of lives. She dared not
open a paper for fear of reading her own praises, wept over the flowers
that were thrown to her and which she left to die in a corner of her
dressing-room, that she might avoid perpetuating at home the cruel
memories of her triumphant evenings. She even wanted to quit the stage,
but her husband objected.
[Illustration: p084-095]
"It will be said that I make you leave it." And the horrible torture
continued for both.
One night of a first representation, the songstress was going to the
front, when somebody said to her: "Mind what you are about. There is
a cabal in the house against you." She laughed at the idea. A cabal
against her? And for what reason, Good Heavens! She who only met with
sympathy, who did not belong to any coterie! It was true however. In
the middle of the opera, in a grand duet with her husband, at the moment
when her magnificent voice had reached the highest pitch of its compass,
finishing the sound in a succession of notes, even and pure like the
rounded pearls of a necklace, a volley of hisses cut her short. The
audience was as much moved and surprised as herself. All remained
breathless, as though each one felt prisoner within them the passage
she had not been able to finish. Suddenly a horrible, mad idea flashed
across her mind. He was alone on the stage, in front of her. She gazed
at him steadily and saw in his eyes the passing gleam of a cruel smile.
The poor woman understood all. Sobs suffocated her.
She could only burst into tears and blindly disappear through the
crowded side scenes.
It was her own husband who had had her hissed!
[Illustration: p086-097]
[Illustration: p088-099]
A MISUNDERSTANDING -- THE WIFE'S VERSION.
What can be the matter with him? What can he complain of? I cannot
understand it. And yet I have done all I could to make him happy. To be
sure, I don't say that instead of a poet I would not rather have married
a notary or a lawyer, something rather more serious, rather less vague
as a profession; nevertheless, such as he was he took my fancy.
I thought him a trifle visionary, but charming all the same, and
well-mannered; besides he had some fortune, and I thought that once
married poetizing would not prevent him from seeking out some good
appointment which would set us quite at ease.
[Illustration: p089-100]
[Illustration: p090-101]
He, too at that time seemed to find me to his taste. When he came to see
me at my aunt's in the country, he could not find words enough to admire
the order and arrangement of our little house, kept like a convent, "It
is so quaint!" he used to say. He would laugh and call me all sorts of
names taken from the poems and romances he had read. That shocked me a
little I confess; I should have liked him to be more serious. But it
was not until we were married and settled in Paris, that I felt all the
difference of our two natures.
I had dreamed of a little home kept scrupulously bright and clean;
instead of which, he began at once to encumber our apartment with
useless old-fashioned furniture, covered with dust, and with faded
tapestries, old as the hills. In everything it was the same. Would you
believe that he obliged me to put away in the attic a sweetly
pretty Empire clock, which had come to me from my aunt, and some
splendidly-framed pictures given me by my school friends. He thought
them hideous. I am still wondering why? For after all, his study was one
mass of lumber, of old smoky pictures; statuettes I blushed to look at,
chipped antiquities of all kinds, good for nothing; vases that would not
hold water, odd cups, chandeliers covered with verdigris.
[Illustration: p094-105]
By the side of my beautiful rosewood piano, he had put another, a little
shabby thing with all the polish off, half-the notes wanting, and so
old and worn that one could hardly hear it. I began to think: "Good
gracious! is an artist then, really a little mad? Does he only care for
useless things, and despise all that is useful?"
When I saw his friends', the society he received, it was still worse.
Men with long hair, great beards, scarcely combed, badly dressed, who
did not hesitate to smoke in my presence, while to listen to them made
me quite uncomfortable, so widely opposed were their ideas to mine. They
used long words, fine phrases, nothing natural, nothing simple. Then
with all this, not a notion of ordinary civilities: you might ask them
to dinner twenty times running, and there would be never a call, never
a return of any kind. Not even a card or a bonbon on New Year's day.
Nothing. Some of these gentry were married and brought their wives to
see us. You should have seen the style of these persons! For every day
wear, superb toilettes such as thank heaven, I would wear at no time!
And so ill-arranged, without order or method. Hair loose, skirts
trailing, and such a bold display of their talents! There were some who
sang like actresses, played the piano like professors, all talked on
every subject just like men. I ask you, is this reasonable?
Ought serious women once married to think of anything but the care of
their household? This is what I tried to make my husband understand,
when he was vexed at seeing me give up my music. Music is all very well
when one is a little girl and has nothing better to do. But candidly,
I should consider myself very ridiculous if I sat down every day to the
piano.
[Illustration: p098-109]
Oh! I am quite aware that his great complaint against me is that I
wished to draw him from the strange society I considered so dangerous
for him. "You have driven away all my friends?" he often used to say
reproachfully. Yes, I did do so, and I don't regret it. Those creatures
would have ended by driving him crazy. After leaving them, he would
often spend the night in making rhymes and in marching up and down and
talking aloud. As if he were not already sufficiently eccentric and
original in himself without being excited by others! What caprices, what
whims have I not put up with! Suddenly one morning, he would appear in
my room: "Quick, get your hat--we are off to the country." Then one
must leave everything, sewing, household affairs, take a carriage, go
by rail, spend a mint of money! And I, who only thought of economy! For
after all, it is not with fifteen thousand francs (six hundred pounds)
a year that one can be counted rich in Paris or make any provision for
one's children. At first he used to laugh at my observations, and try
to make me laugh; then when he saw how firmly I was resolved to remain
serious, he found fault with my simplicity and my taste for home. Am
I to blame because I detest theatres and concerts, and those artistic
soirees to which he wished to drag me, and where he met his old
acquaintances, a lot of scatterbrains, dissipated and Bohemian?
At one time, I thought he was becoming more reasonable. I had managed to
with-draw him from his good-for-nothing circle of friends, and to gather
round us a society of sensible people, well-settled in life, who might
be of use to us. But no! Monsieur was bored. He was always bored,
from morning till night. At our little soirees, where I was careful to
arrange a whist table and a tea table, all as it should be, he would
appear with such a face! in such a temper! When we were alone, it was
just the same. Nevertheless, I was full of little attentions. I used to
say to him: "Read me something of what you are doing." He recited to me
verses, tirades, of which I understood nothing, but I put on an air of
interest, and here and there made some little remark, which by the way,
inevitably had the knack of annoying him. In a year, working night and
day, he could only make of all his rhymes, one single volume which never
sold, I said to him: "Ah! you see," just in a reasoning spirit, to bring
him to something more comprehensible, more remunerative, He got into a
frightful rage, and afterwards sank into a state of gloomy depression
which made me very unhappy. My friends advised me as well as they could:
"You see, my dear, it is the ennui and bad temper of an unoccupied man.
If he worked a little more, he would not be so gloomy."
Then I set to work, and all my belongings too, to seek him an
appointment, I moved heaven and earth, I made I don't know how many
visits to the wives of government officials, heads of departments; I
even penetrated into a minister's office. It was a surprise I reserved
for him, I said to my-self: "We shall see whether he will be pleased
this time," At length, the day when I received his nomination in a
lovely envelope with five big seals, I carried it myself to his table,
half wild with joy. It was provision for the future, comfort, self
content, the tranquillity of regular work. Do you know what he did? He
said: "He would never forgive me." After which he tore the minister's
letter into a thousand pieces, and rushed out, banging the doors. Oh!
these artists, poor unsettled brains taking life all the wrong way! What
could be done with such a man? I should have liked to talk to him, to
reason with him. In vain. Those were indeed right, who had said to me:
"He is a madman." Of what use moreover to talk to him? We do not
speak the same language. He would not understand me, any more than I
understand him. And now, here we must sit and look at each other. I see
hatred in his glance, and yet I have true affection for him. It is very
painful.
* * * * *
A MISUNDERSTANDING -- THE HUSBAND'S VERSION.
I had thought of everything, taken all my precautions. I would not have
a Parisian, because Parisian women alarm me. I would not have a rich
wife because she might be too exacting and extravagant. I also
dreaded family ties, that terrible network of homely affections, which
monopolizes, imprisons, dwarfs and stifles. My wife was the realization
of my fondest dreams. I said to myself: "She will owe me everything."
[Illustration: p091-102]
What pleasure to educate this simple mind to the contemplation of
beauty, to initiate this pure soul to my enthusiasms and hopes, to give
life, in short, to this statue! The fact is she had the air of a
statue, with her great serious calm eyes, her regular Greek profile, her
features, which although rather too marked and severe, were softened by
the rose-tinted bloom of youth and the shadow of the waving hair. Added
to all this was a faint provincial accent that was my especial joy, an
accent to which with closed eyes, I listened as a recollection of happy
childhood, the echo of a tranquil life in some far away, utterly unknown
nook. And to think that now, this accent has become unbearable to me!
But in those days, I had faith. I loved, I was happy, and disposed to
be still more so. Full of ardour for my work, I had as soon as I was
married begun a new poem, and in the evening I read to her the verses
of the day. I wished to make her enter completely into my existence. The
first time or two, she said to me: "Very pretty," and I was grateful
to her for this childish approbation, hoping that in time she would
comprehend better what was the very breath of my life.
Poor creature! How I must have bored her! After having read her my
verses, I explained them to her, seeking in her beautiful astonished
eyes the hoped-for gleam of light, ever fancying I should surprise it.
[Illustration: p095-106]
I obliged her to give me her opinion and I passed over all that was
foolish to retain only what a chance inspiration might contain of good.
I so longed to make of her my true help mate, the real artist's wife!
But no! She could not understand. In vain did I read to her the great
poets, choosing the strongest, the tenderest,--the golden rhymes of the
love poems fell upon her ear as coldly and tediously as a hailstorm.
Once I remember, we were reading _la Nuit d'Octobre_; she interrupted
me, to ask for something more serious! I tried then to explain to her
that there is nothing in the world more serious than poetry, which is
the very essence of life, floating above it like a glory of light,
in the % vibrations of which words and thoughts are elevated and
transfigured. Oh! what a disdainful smile passed over her pretty mouth
and what condescension in her glance! As though a child or a madman had
spoken to her.
What have I not thus wasted of strength and useless eloquence! Nothing
was of any use. I stumbled perpetually against what she called good
sense, reason, that eternal excuse of dried up hearts and narrow minds.
And it was not only poetry that bored her. Before our marriage, I had
believed her to be a musician. She seemed to understand the pieces
she played, aided by the underlinings of her teacher. Scarcely was she
married when she closed her piano, and gave up her music.
[Illustration: p099-110]
Can there be anything more melancholy than this abandonment by the young
wife of all that had pleased in the young girl? The reply given, the
part ended, the actress quits her costume. It was all done with a view
to marriage; a surface of petty accomplishments, of pretty smiles, and
fleeting elegance. With her the change was instantaneous. At first I
hoped that the taste I could not give her, an artistic intelligence and
love of the beautiful, would come to her in spite of herself, through
the medium of this wonderful Paris, with its unconscious refining
influence on eyes and mind. But what can be done with a woman who does
not know how to open a book, to look at a picture, who is always bored
and refuses to see anything? I soon understood that I must resign myself
to have by my side nothing but a housewife, active and economical,
indeed very economical. According to Proudhon, a woman, nothing more. I
could have shaped my course accordingly; so many artists are in the same
plight! But this modest role was not enough for her.
Little by little, slyly, silently, she managed to get rid of all my
friends. We had not made any difference in our talk because of * her
presence. We talked as we always had done in the past, but she never
understood the irony or the fantasy of our artistic exaggerations, of
our wild axioms, or paradoxes, in which-an idea is travestied only to
figure more brilliantly. It only irritated and puzzled her. Seated in
a quiet corner of the drawing-room, she listened and said nothing,
planning all the while how she should eliminate one by one those who
so much shocked her. Notwithstanding the seeming friendliness of the
welcome, there could already be felt in my rooms that thin current
of cold air, which warns that the door is open and that it is time to
leave.
My friends once gone, she replaced them by her own. I found myself
surrounded by an absurd set of worthies, strangers to art, who hated
poetry and scorned it because "it made no money." On purpose the names
of fashionable writers who manufacture plays and novels by the dozen
were cited before me, with the remark: "So and so makes a great deal of
money!"
Make money! this is the all-important point for these creatures, and
I had the pain of seeing my wife think with them. In this fatal
atmosphere, her provincial habits, her mean and narrow views were made
still more odious by an incredible stinginess.
Fifteen thousand francs (six hundred pounds) a year! It seemed to me
that with this income we could live without fear of the morrow. Not
at all! She was always grumbling, talking of economy, reform, good
investments. As she overpowered me with these dull details, I felt all
desire and taste for work ebb away from me. Sometimes she came to
my table and scornfully turned over the scattered half-written
pages:--"Only that!" she would say, counting the hours lost upon the
insignificant little lines. Ah I if I had listened to her, my glorious
title of poet, which it has taken me so many years to win, would be now
dragged through the black mire of sensational literature. And when
I think that to this selfsame woman I had at first opened my heart,
confided all my dreams; and when I think that the contempt she now
shows me because I do not make money dates from the first days of our
marriage; I am indeed ashamed, both of myself and of her.
I make no money! That explains everything, the reproach of her glance,
her admiration for fruitful commonplaces, culminating in the steps she
took but lately to obtain for me I don't know what post in a government
office.
At this, however, I resisted. No defence remains to me but this, a force
of inertia, which yields to no assault, to no persuasion. She may speak
for hours, freeze me with her chilliest smile, my thought ever escapes
her, will always escape her. And we have come to this! Married and
condemned to live together, leagues of distance separate us; and we are
both too weary, too utterly discouraged, to care to make one step that
might draw us together. It is horrible!
[Illustration: p108-119]
[Illustration: p111-122]
ASSAULT WITH VIOLENCE.
MR. PETITBRY, Chamber Counsel.
_To Madame Nina de B., at her Aunt's house, in Moulins_.
Madame, conformably to the wishes of Madame your aunt, I have looked
into the matter in question. I have noted down one by one all the
different points and submitted your grievances to the most scrupulous
investigation. Well, on my soul and conscience, I do not find the
fruit ripe enough, or to speak plainly, I do not consider that you have
sufficient grounds to justify your petition for a judicial separation.
Let us not forget that the French law is a very downright kind of thing,
totally devoid of delicate feeling for nice distinctions. It recognizes
only acts, serious, brutal acts, and unfortunately it is these acts
we lack. Most assuredly I have been deeply touched while reading the
account of the first year of your married life, so very painful to you.
You have paid dearly for the glory of marrying a famous artist, one of
those men in whom fame and adulation develop monstrous egotism, and who
under penalty of shattering the frail and timid life that would attach
itself to theirs, must live alone. Ah! madame, since the commencement of
my career, how many wretched wives have I not beheld in the same cruel
position as yourself! Artists who live only by and for the public, carry
nothing home to their hearth but fatigue from glory, or the melancholy
of their disappointments. An ill-regulated existence, without compass
or rudder, subversive ideas contrary to all social conventionality,
contempt of family life and its happiness, cerebral excitement sought
for in the abuse of tobacco and strong drink, without mentioning
anything else, this constitutes the terrible artistic element from which
your dear Aunt is desirous of withdrawing you; but I must repeat, that
while I fully comprehend her anxiety, nay her remorse even at having
consented to such a marriage, I cannot see that matters have reached a
point calculated to warrant your petition.
I have, however, set down the outlines of a judicial memorandum, in
which your principal grievances are grouped and skilfully brought into
prominence. Here are the principal divisions of the work:
1°. _Insulting conduct of Monsieur towards Madame's family_.--Refusal
to receive our Aunt from Moulins, who brought us up, and is tenderly
attached to us.--Nicknames such as _Tata Bobosse_, Fairy Carabossa,
and others, bestowed on that venerable old maid, whose back is slightly
bent.--Jests and quips, drawings in pen and pencil of the aforesaid and
her infirmity.
2°. _Unsociableness_.--Refusal to see Ma-dame's friends, to make wedding
calls, to send cards, to answer invitations, etc.
3°. _Wanton extravagance_.--Money lent without acknowledgment to all
kinds of Bohemians.--Open house and free quarters, turning the house
into an inn.--Constant subscriptions for statues, tombs, and productions
of unfortunate fellow artists.--Starting an artistic and literary
magazine!!!
4°. _Insulting conduct to Madame_.--Having said out loud when alluding
to us: "What a fool!"
5°. _Cruelty and violence_.--Excessive brutality on the part of
Monsieur.--Rage on the slightest pretext.--Breakage of china and
furniture.--Scandalous rows, offensive expressions.
All this, as you see, dear Madame, constitutes a somewhat respectable
amount of evidence, but is not however sufficient. We lack assault with
violence. Ah! if we had only an assault with violence, a tiny little
assault before witnesses, our case would be grand! But now that you have
put a hundred and fifty miles between your husband and yourself we can
scarcely hope for an incident of this kind. I say "hope" because in the
present state of affairs, a brutal act on the part of this man would be
the most fortunate thing that could befall you.
I remain, Madame, awaiting your commands, your devoted and obedient
servant,
Petitbry.
PS.--Violence before witnesses, of course!
[Illustration: p115-126]
_To Monsieur Petitbry, in Paris_.
What, Sir! have we come to such a pass as this! Is this what your laws
have made of antique French chivalry! So then, when a misunderstanding
is often sufficient to separate two hearts for ever, your law courts
require acts of violence to justify such a separation. Is it not
scandalous, unjust, barbarous, outrageous? To think that in order to
regain her freedom, my poor darling will be obliged to run her neck
into the halter, to abandon herself to all the fury of that monster,
to excite it even. But no matter, our mind is made up. An assault with
personal violence is necessary. Well! we will have it. No later than
to-morrow, Nina will return to Paris, How will she be received? What
will take place there? I cannot think of it without a shudder. At this
idea my hand trembles, my eyes become dimmed. Ah! Monsieur. Ah! Monsieur
Petitbry. Ah!
Nina's unhappy Aunt.
MR. MARESTANG, ATTORNEY At the Law Court of the Seine.
_To Monsieur Henri de B., Literary man in Paris_.
Be calm, be calm, be calm! I forbid your going to Moulins or rushing off
in pursuit of the fugitive. It is more judicious and safer to await her
return in your own house, by your fireside. In point of fact, what has
taken place? You refused to receive that ridiculous and ill-natured old
maid; your wife has gone to join her. You should have expected as much.
Family ties are very strong in the heart of such an extremely youthful
bride. You were in too great a hurry. Remember that this Aunt brought
her up, that she has no other relations in the world. She has her
husband, you will say. Ah! my dear fellow, between ourselves we may
admit that husbands are not always amiable. I know one more especially
who in spite of his good heart is so nervous, so violent! I am well
aware that hard work and artistic preoccupations have a good deal to do
with it. Be that as it may, the bird has been scared, and has flown back
to its former cage. Don't be alarmed, it won't stay there long. Either
I am very much mistaken or the Parisian of yesterday will soon weary of
the antiquated surroundings, and ere long regret the vivacities of her
poet. Above all don't stir.
Your old friend,
Marestang.
_To Monsieur Marestang, attorney in Paris_.
At the same moment with your rational and friendly letter, I received a
telegram from Moulins, announcing Nina's return. Ah! what a true prophet
you were! She is coming back this evening, all alone, just as she left
me, without the slightest advance on my part. The thing now will be to
arrange so easy and agreeable a life for her, that she shall never
again be tempted to leave me. I have laid in a stock of tenderness and
patience during her week's absence. There is only one point on which
I remain inflexible: I will not again receive that horrible _Tata
Bobosse_, that blue stocking of 1820, who gave me her niece only in the
hopes that my modest fame would serve to heighten hers. Remember, my
dear Marestang, that ever since my marriage this wicked little old woman
has always come between my wife and me, pushing her hump into all our
amusements at the theatres, the exhibitions, in society, in the country,
everywhere in fact. And you wonder after that, at my having displayed
a certain haste in getting rid of her, and packing her off to her good
town of Moulins. Indeed, my dear fellow, you have no idea of all the
harm those old maids, suspicious and ignorant of life, are capable of
doing in a young household. This one had stuffed my wife's pretty
little head full of false, old fashioned, preposterous ideas, trumpery
sentimentality of the time of Ipsiboe or young Florange: "Ah! if my
lady love saw me!" For her, I was a poate, the poate one sees on the
frontispieces of Renduel or Ladvocat, crowned with laurels, a lyre
on his hips, and his short velvet-collared cloak blown aside by a
Parnassian gust of wind. That was the husband she had promised her
niece, and you may fancy how terribly my poor Nina must have been
disappointed. Nevertheless I admit that I was very bungling with the
dear child. As you say, I wanted to go ahead too rapidly, I frightened
her. It was my part gently to modify all that the rather narrowing and
false education of the convent and the sentimental dreams of the Aunt
had effected, leaving the provincial perfume time to evaporate. However
all this can be repaired since she is returning. She is returning, my
dear friend! This evening, I shall go and meet her at the station and we
shall walk home arm in arm, reconciled and happy.
Henri de B.
_Nina de B. to her Aunt in Moulins_.
He was waiting for me at the station and greeted me with a smile and
open arms, as though I were returning from some ordinary journey. You
can imagine that I put on my iciest appearance. Directly I reached home,
I shut myself up in my room, where I dined alone, pleading fatigue.
After which, I locked myself in. He came to bid me good-night through
the key-hole, and to my great surprise, went away on tiptoe without
anger or importunity. This morning, I called on Monsieur Petitbry, who
gave me detailed instructions as to the way I was to act, the hour,
place, witnesses. Ah! my dear Aunt, if you knew how frightened I am as
the hour draws near.
[Illustration: p121-132]
His violence is so dreadful. Even when he is gentle like yesterday, his
eyes have flashes of lightning. However, I will try and be courageous in
thinking of you, my darling Aunt. Besides, as Monsieur Petitbry said to
me, it is only a short painful moment to get over, and then we will both
resume our former quiet life, so calm and happy.
Nina de B.
[Illustration: p122-134]
[Illustration: p123-134]
_From the same to the same_.
Dear Aunt, I am writing to you from my bed, torn by the emotions of
that terrible scene. Who could have supposed that things would take this
turn? Nevertheless I had taken every precaution. I had warned Marthe and
her sister, who were to come at one o'clock, and I had chosen for the
great scene the moment when on leaving the table, the servants are
clearing away in the dining-room next to the study. From early morn
my plans were laid; an hour of scales and exercises on the piano, the
_Cloches du Monastere_, the _Reveries de Rosellen_, all the pieces
he hates. This did not prevent his working away without betraying the
slightest irritability. At breakfast, the same patience. A detestable
breakfast, scraps, and the sweet dishes he loathes. And if you had seen
my costume! A dress with a cape some five years out of date, a little
black silk apron, and uncurled hair! In vain I sought for some signs
of irritation, that well-known straight line that Monsieur hollows out
between his eyebrows at the least annoyance. Well no! nothing! Really I
might have thought they had changed my husband. He said to me in a calm
and rather sad tone: |
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