And in order to convince me, he opened a medical dictionary, where no less singular cases of mutism and the cure of mutism were cited, on the authority of Stoll, Scheid, Haller, Gaubius and Schencklus.17
“Read those authors,” he added, seriously.
“Really! You’re advising me, dear friend, to…you’re very kind, but I’d rather believe you twenty times over than read even one of them.”
MRS. LITTLE
Prologue
There are people (I am a sorry example) who generally obtain more ennui than pleasure from social relationships. There are some whose idleness is disturbed thereby, because one has to get dressed at fixed hours; there are others whose vanity is compromised, because one cannot always flatter oneself with presenting the image for which one is ambitious; some suffer from their frankness, because one is exposed to saying, or at least hearing said, many white lies; others, finally, without being retained at home by idleness, vanity, or even a grim integrity, renounce society after a few attempts, for want of ever finding their intellectual and moral milieu there.
When I say “their milieu,” I do not suppose in the slightest that no sort of divergence of opinion is produced between the habitués of the same society, which would be monotonous and, moreover, impossible, but I am supposing that there is no magnetic antipathy between them.
And that is quite rare.
For myself, I only know of one salon where I have found my milieu, and which I continue to frequent, and that is Madame ***’s. A little more and I would have named that sovereignly amiable woman, whom one of the most fortunate hazards of my life enabled me to encounter in Rome, in May 18**, and who was kind enough, on my return to Paris, to admit me into the restricted number of her familiars.
We meet in her drawing room every Wednesday, ten persons at the most, among whom are four wives with their husbands, women who are neither prudes nor coquettes, but simple and good, like the mistress of the house.
People chat there at their ease, and if there are sometimes differences of opinion, there is always the same humor. Everyone enjoys themselves there effortlessly, because honesty, benevolence and a certain jovial philosophy are equally shared by everyone.
I doubt that another salon like it exists in Paris. One of us, with good reason, has called it “the worldly paradise.” And it is a paradise that we shall not lose, for if we form multiples of Adam and Eve there, at least no one can say that there is a serpent among us, nor any apples, except for the golden serpent with emerald eyes worn on the finger of the mistress of the house, and the pommel of the cane on which the metaphysician Morini has the custom of supporting his chin while he divides the spidery thread of our transcendent conceptions.
One evening we had a full complement. The conversation revolved around the force of habit in amour. The beautiful and virtuous Mina—I believe that I can give the true forename of our hostess—talked to us in an emotional voice about the husband she had lost many years before, and the portrait of the latter, so lifelike was it, seemed to detach itself from the wall and discuss fidelity with us.
In thinking about the great misfortune that had overtaken their friend and which might overtake them in their turn from one day to the next, the women were almost weeping, and not one of the men, I am convinced—even the bachelors—felt born within him the foul and vile desire, so frequent in banal natures, to soil with their caprice or passion a sentiment as sacred as that of a widow’s mourning.
Suddenly, the door of the drawing room opened and Mina’s chambermaid, the worthy old Gervaise, whom we called between ourselves “the chamberlain,” announced Monsieur Le Bref.
The name was unknown to all of us, except Mina. So, in the moment when she got up to go and greet Monsieur Le Bref, with her familiar grace, we looked at one another, and it was easy for me to see, painted on all the faces, the same apprehension regarding the newcomer.
Was he not destined to trouble in some manner the precious harmony that reigned among us? Such is the question that we were asking one another with our eyes.
In order to resolve the prevision as much as it was possible for me, I examined Monsieur Le Bref very attentively
He was a tall and handsome fellow, about thirty-five years old, elegantly dressed, with a simple and grave deportment, of a rare distinction, extremely sympathetic from the outset. The first words he pronounced revealed to me, in addition, the timbre of a charming voice and a good deal of intelligence.
There is a locution that is generally applied to people much less well endowed than Monsieur Le Bref appeared to be: it is said that they have “everything going for them.”
He gave the impression of being such an accomplished fellow that I thought, privately: There’s a man who has everything going for him, and quite a lot more!
A perfection so overwhelming could not help but make me anxious, because of the women. And I feared immediately that it might be an element of dissolution for the circle, if only by giving umbrage to the men, were Monsieur Le Bref to become one of us.
“My dear friends,” exclaimed Mina, “I introduce to you Monsieur Le Bref, a nomad who is incorrigible to the point that, in coming to see me this evening in Paris, where he only arrived yesterday from Rome, he tells me that he is departing tomorrow for England. I regret his precipitate departure all the more because, belonging to our school, he would become one of the pillars of the Academy of Joyful Melancholics.”
“If you would care to admit me as a corresponding member,” said Monsieur Le Bref, I will formulate the wish that everyone resume the conversation that was in progress before my arrival.”
“The question that is the order of the day, or rather, of the evening,” replied Mina, “cannot interest you.”
“Am I not a joyful melancholic?”
“Yes, but…”
“But what, Madame?”
“Would you like to know?”
“Certainly.”
“Well, we were talking about the force of habit in amour…now, you travel far too much to have ideas on that subject.”
“I have them, however, and the best.”
“Oh!! The best?”
“And the freshest,” he said.
She started to laugh and said: “I’m sure that you’re of the opinion that habit is the greatest scourge of amour.”
“Entirely the contrary, Madame, I am of the opinion that the only true amour is born of habitude.”
“For a nomad, you astonish me.”
“Alas, you know full well,” replied Monsieur Le Bref, “that the ideas that are dearest to us are precisely those that we have not been able to attempt in practice—but I have encountered in my travels an English eccentric who has taken the practice of the idea of force of habit in amour as far as, and even further than, it can reasonably be taken.”
“Come on, tell us about that,” cried Mina. “It will be your speech, or rather your narration, of reception into the Academy of Joyful Melancholics.”
“I must warn you, though, that the story is a trifle long,” Monsieur Le Bref replied.
“So much the better for us,” replied another lady.
Monsieur Le Bref yielded to that graciousness, and, as we all demanded the story of the Englishman, he began to tell it.
PART ONE: IN SPAIN
I
In August 18**, following a cruel family misfortune that had caused me sufficient chagrin to affect my health profoundly, my physician, thinking that I had need of both a tonic and distraction, prescribed the sea-baths at Biarritz for me.
In truth, the listlessness in which I found myself then was so great, and I was so isolated by my sadness from the ordinary course of human things, that I was reluctant to displace myself. My physician insisted. I tried at least to obtain from him that I might simply go to Luc, in Normandy, where I had my habits so to speak, for I had spent several summer seasons there, but he closed my mouth, saying to me that I would derive all the more benefit from my voyage if my destination was more distant and
quite new to me.
I therefore decided in favor of Biarritz.
As I had a friend to see in Bordeaux I stopped there for a full day, which also permitted me to rest, for the journey from Paris to Bordeaux cannot help but be somewhat fatiguing.
When I arrived, two days later, on the platform of the Gare Saint-Jean, the train for Bayonne was already full. After having searched from carriage to carriage for an empty seat, I spotted a compartment in which, apart from two good English figures—a man and a women—who were blocking the door, there seemed to be places free.
I approached in order to climb in, but the man exclaimed: “No, you can’t!”
I attempted to infringe that order, whose legitimacy seemed all the less explicable to me because there were, in fact, six vacant seats in the compartment.
Immediately in the same way that a guard dog launches itself out of its niche to bark loudly at any individual bold enough to approach, the lady irrupted out of carriage window and an ill-defined screech emerged from between her elongated teeth. I heard something like: “Loa! Loa!”
In my stupefaction, I stood there at first with my hand on the door handle.
What the devil did that Englishwoman mean with her Loa, loa?
I thought of Alfred de Vigny’s Éloa,18 but without settling on the idea that the Englishwoman might want to compare to that celestial creature a monsieur who persisted in trying to climb into railway carriage.
Then I reflected that she might be insulting me and shouting: “L’oie, l’oie!”—which is to say; “You’re a goose!” although I found such an insult excessive.
Finally, I was extracted from my perplexity by the conductor of the train, who, having heard the Englishwoman’s peacock screech, approached me and said, politely raising his cap in one hand while he used the other to show me an indicative placard: “You see, Monsieur, this compartment is reserved until Bayonne.
“Loué!” I exclaimed. “Ah—I understand.”
So, the Englishman, in saying to me “No, you can’t” and his worthy companion, in crying “Loa! Loa!” or “L’oie, l’oie!” had simply wanted to signify to me that they had an exclusive right to the compartment.
In fact, did they really? I don’t know. Perhaps they had simply brought, in return for a good tip, the complicity of the train conductor—which can be done, so it’s said.
At any rate, I did not persist, and I allowed myself to be led meekly by the conductor, guilty or not of private enterprise, to another compartment, where, by some miracle, one seat remained unoccupied, and for his trouble I even slipped a fifty-centime piece into his hand.
In those days the railway did not go as far as Biarritz, but there was a very rapid diligence service from Bayonne station to Biarritz. When, having arrived at Bayonne station, I had reclaimed my baggage, I raced to the diligence and installed myself in a corner of the coupé.
I thought that the coupé was for first comers, but to tell the truth, I was not certain of that, only knowing one thing, which was that I had bought a first class ticket in Bordeaux, diligence included, to Biarritz.
I was therefore, stuck in my corner of the coupé, at hazard, watching the passengers arrive, and sometimes shuddering when the factors threw their heavy luggage up on to the impartial.
Suddenly, here come my English couple again, heading straight for the coupé, and the husband says: “You can’t stay,” and the wife adds “Loa, loa,” or, again, “L’oie, l’oie.”
“Good, good,” I said, laughing, I should have expected that.”
And I got down through the other door and climbed philosophically into the interior.
The Hôtel des Ambassadeurs had been recommended to me as one of the best in Biarritz.
On arriving in Biarritz at the diligence office, I spotted a commissionaire attached to that hotel, the name of which he wore inscribed on his cap.
“Under the tarpaulin of the diligence,” I said to him, “there’s a trunk and a hat-box with the name of Monsieur Le Bref, will you take them?”
Before he had time to reply, the Englishman, having approached us, asked him: “Boy, you were the boy of the Hôtel des Ambassadeurs?”
“Yes, Monsieur,” said the commissionaire, without paying the slightest attention to me.
“Oh, I thought so. Since you were the boy of the Hôtel des Ambassadeurs, come a little, take the trunks of me. to carry them to the Hôtel des Ambassadeurs.”
“Yes, Monsieur…I have others to take as well”
“You take those of me first.”
On hearing that injunction, I felt a surge of impatience that I could not master. In sum, it was becoming a challenge. That beastly islander, then, had sworn to cut the grass from my feet in every circumstance. Not content with nearly making me miss the train in Bordeaux by forbidding me to climb into his compartment, under the pretext that he had reserved it, and having thrown me out of the coupé in Bayonne under the same pretext, now he was demanding that the commissionaire of the Hôtel des Ambassadeurs serve him before me, although I had commandeered him first.
“In truth Monsieur, in truth,” I said to the Englishman, in a very acerbic tone, “you don’t inconvenience yourself as much as politeness requires in our land of France. I commandeered this man before you and he has no reason to serve you before me.”
“It was you who lack politeness and me I won’t suffer it,” replied the Englishman. “I had a sufficient motive for demanding the work of this porter. Me I have retained the place of me and my wife for more than a fortnight at the Hôtel des Ambassadeurs.”
“L’oie,” I said, ironically.
“Oh yes, said the Englishwoman. “This porter is loa.”
I had a desire to reply: “L’oie is your husband! L’oie is you!” But I contented myself with saying, with an ironic smile, of which they certainly did not comprehend the full range: “May the god Lord bless both of you!”
And after having given my instructions to the commissionaire I went to the Hôtel des Ambassadeurs in order to book a room, in the event that—which I did not know—the English couple had left any available.
I asked when I arrived whether it was possible to give me a room with a view over the sea, to which the reply was negative, because there was only one vacant with that situation, which had been promised to an English couple who were expected at any moment.
I ought to have expected that. It was added that there was another next door to that one, which did not have a sea view but which was no less comfortable.
“Next door to the English couple!” I exclaimed. “Oh, no, not next door to them, I beg you, I implore you.”
It was to the landlady of the hotel that I replied in those terms. She could not help laughing.
“Monsieur doesn’t much like the English, I see.”
“On their island, yes indeed, on their island. Oh, my God, you’re not of my opinion, Madame and you prefer them in your hotel—that’s understandable.”
“The ones who are going to occupy that room,” she said, gaily, pointing at the door, “a lady and gentleman, reserved it a fortnight ago.”
“Yes, yes, I know.”
“Monsieur knows them?”
“Far too well. And I announce to you that they’ll be here momentarily. Try, then, to find me a room a hundred leagues from theirs...a hundred leagues is very little...a thousand leagues.”
She evidently found the animadversion that I professed for the subjects of Queen Victoria very amusing.
“In that case,” she said, “it would be better to give Monsieur a room in the other wing of the house.”
“Yes, Madame,” I cried, “that’s right… the other wing, if you please.”
II
The room that I had been given simply had a view over a small courtyard where there was a small basin in which a few ducks were paddling. It was not the sea, but nor was it the English couple, and yet the ducks reminded me of the Anglo-French exclamation that had aggravated my nerves so much: “L’oie, l’oie!�
�
After having taken a few turns around the beach, I came back for dinner. I arrived slightly late; everyone was at table.
There were only two places free, and by virtue of a slightly grotesque fatality, one of those places was next to the English couple and the other facing them.
Between two evils, it is said, it is necessary to choose the lesser. But there was still the question of knowing which was the lesser. That was what I asked myself as I hung my hat on one of the pegs in the dining room.
If I sat facing them the viewpoint would not only be not amusing for me, but exasperating. If, on the contrary, I sat alongside, might I not pick a quarrel?
I made a reflection that cut short my uncertainty.
They’re capable, I thought, of having reserved the place next to them, and if I go sit down there, the Englishwoman will doubtless screech once again: “L’oie! L’oie!”
That idea amused me so much that my rancor against the English couple was disarmed and, having arrived at the place that was opposite them, I began contemplating them one after another with a very equable and even cheerful, humor.
The Englishman might have been thirty-five or forty years old, and the Englishwoman not much younger. For faces, they possessed two marvelously matched ruddy balls, which did not lack analogy with a Dutch cheese in their integrity. There existed between them a family resemblance such that one would more readily have taken them for brother and sister than husband and wife. And yet, they were definitely spouses, for the Englishman, in speaking of the Englishwoman during our little altercation in front of the diligence, had said: “my wife.”
It is necessary to admit that nothing about them suggested that they were nasty people. On the contrary, their placid gaze was imprinted with bonhomie.
As true English people, of course, they did not have any expansion, although they seemed happy to be beside one another.
At intervals, the husband said a few words to his wife, to which she replied with a single word: “Yes,” or “No,” depending upon the circumstance—nothing more.
Singular Amours Page 17