The silent abbe left his niece to throw the dice of conversation; and she truly felt that she pleased Monsieur de Troisville, who smiled at her gracefully, and committed himself during this dinner far more than her most eager suitors had ever done in ten days. Imagine, therefore, the little attentions with which he was petted; you might have thought him a cherished lover, whose return brought joy to the household. Mademoiselle foresaw the moment when the viscount wanted bread; she watched his every look; when he turned his head she adroitly put upon his plate a portion of some dish he seemed to like; had he been a gourmand, she would almost have killed him; but what a delightful specimen of the attentions she would show to a husband! She did not commit the folly of depreciating herself; on the contrary, she set every sail bravely, ran up all her flags, assumed the bearing of the queen of Alencon, and boasted of her excellent preserves. In fact, she fished for compliments in speaking of herself, for she saw that she pleased the viscount; the truth being that her eager desire had so transformed her that she became almost a woman.
At dessert she heard, not without emotions of delight, certain sounds in the antechamber and salon which denoted the arrival of her usual guests. She called the attention of her uncle and Monsieur de Troisville to this prompt attendance as a proof of the affection that was felt for her; whereas it was really the result of the poignant curiosity which had seized upon the town. Impatient to show herself in all her glory, Mademoiselle Cormon told Jacquelin to serve coffee and liqueurs in the salon, where he presently set out, in view of the whole company, a magnificent liqueur-stand of Dresden china which saw the light only twice a year. This circumstance was taken note of by the company, standing ready to gossip over the merest trifle: —
“The deuce!” muttered du Bousquier. “Actually Madame Amphoux’s liqueurs, which they only serve at the four church festivals!”
“Undoubtedly the marriage was arranged a year ago by letter,” said the chief-justice du Ronceret. “The postmaster tells me his office has received letters postmarked Odessa for more than a year.”
Madame Granson trembled. The Chevalier de Valois, though he had dined with the appetite of four men, turned pale even to the left section of his face. Feeling that he was about to betray himself, he said hastily, —
“Don’t you think it is very cold to-day? I am almost frozen.”
“The neighborhood of Russia, perhaps,” said du Bousquier.
The chevalier looked at him as if to say, “Well played!”
Mademoiselle Cormon appeared so radiant, so triumphant, that the company thought her handsome. This extraordinary brilliancy was not the effect of sentiment only. Since early morning her blood had been whirling tempestuously within her, and her nerves were agitated by the presentiment of some great crisis. It required all these circumstances combined to make her so unlike herself. With what joy did she now make her solemn presentation of the viscount to the chevalier, the chevalier to the viscount, and all Alencon to Monsieur de Troisville, and Monsieur de Troisville to all Alencon!
By an accident wholly explainable, the viscount and chevalier, aristocrats by nature, came instantly into unison; they recognized each other at once as men belonging to the same sphere. Accordingly, they began to converse together, standing before the fireplace. A circle formed around them; and their conversation, though uttered in a low voice, was listened to in religious silence. To give the effect of this scene it is necessary to dramatize it, and to picture Mademoiselle Cormon occupied in pouring out the coffee of her imaginary suitor, with her back to the fireplace.
Monsieur de Valois. “Monsieur le vicomte has come, I am told, to settle in Alencon?”
Monsieur de Troisville. “Yes, monsieur, I am looking for a house.” [Mademoiselle Cormon, cup in hand, turns round.] “It must be a large house” [Mademoiselle Cormon offers him the cup] “to lodge my whole family.” [The eyes of the old maid are troubled.]
Monsieur de Valois. “Are you married?”
Monsieur de Troisville. “Yes, for the last sixteen years, to a daughter of the Princess Scherbellof.”
Mademoiselle Cormon fainted; du Bousquier, who saw her stagger, sprang forward and received her in his arms; some one opened the door and allowed him to pass out with his enormous burden. The fiery republican, instructed by Josette, found strength to carry the old maid to her bedroom, where he laid her out on the bed. Josette, armed with scissors, cut the corset, which was terribly tight. Du Bousquier flung water on Mademoiselle Cormon’s face and bosom, which, released from the corset, overflowed like the Loire in flood. The poor woman opened her eyes, saw du Bousquier, and gave a cry of modesty at the sight of him. Du Bousquier retired at once, leaving six women, at the head of whom was Madame Granson, radiant with joy, to take care of the invalid.
What had the Chevalier de Valois been about all this time? Faithful to his system, he had covered the retreat.
“That poor Mademoiselle Cormon,” he said to Monsieur de Troisville, gazing at the assembly, whose laughter was repressed by his cool aristocratic glances, “her blood is horribly out of order; she wouldn’t be bled before going to Prebaudet (her estate), — and see the result!”
“She came back this morning in the rain,” said the Abbe de Sponde, “and she may have taken cold. It won’t be anything; it is only a little upset she is subject to.”
“She told me yesterday she had not had one for three months, adding that she was afraid it would play her a trick at last,” said the chevalier.
“Ha! so you are married?” said Jacquelin to himself as he looked at Monsieur de Troisville, who was quietly sipping his coffee.
The faithful servant espoused his mistress’s disappointment; he divined it, and he promptly carried away the liqueurs of Madame Amphoux, which were offered to a bachelor, and not to the husband of a Russian woman.
All these details were noticed and laughed at. The Abbe de Sponde knew the object of Monsieur de Troisville’s journey; but, absent-minded as usual, he forgot it, not supposing that his niece could have the slightest interest in Monsieur de Troisville’s marriage. As for the viscount, preoccupied with the object of his journey, and, like many husbands, not eager to talk about his wife, he had had no occasion to say he was married; besides, he would naturally suppose that Mademoiselle Cormon knew it.
Du Bousquier reappeared, and was questioned furiously. One of the six women came down soon after, and announced that Mademoiselle Cormon was much better, and that the doctor had come. She intended to stay in bed, as it was necessary to bleed her. The salon was now full. Mademoiselle Cormon’s absence allowed the ladies present to discuss the tragi-comic scene — embellished, extended, historified, embroidered, wreathed, colored, and adorned — which had just taken place, and which, on the morrow, was destined to occupy all Alencon.
“That good Monsieur du Bousquier! how well he carried you!” said Josette to her mistress. “He was really pale at the sight of you; he loves you still.”
That speech served as closure to this solemn and terrible evening.
Throughout the morning of the next day every circumstance of the late comedy was known in the household of Alencon, and — let us say it to the shame of that town, — they caused inextinguishable laughter. But on that day Mademoiselle Cormon (much benefited by the bleeding) would have seemed sublime even to the boldest scoffers, had they witnessed the noble dignity, the splendid Christian resignation which influenced her as she gave her arm to her involuntary deceiver to go into breakfast. Cruel jesters! why could you not have seen her as she said to the viscount, —
“Madame de Troisville will have difficulty in finding a suitable house; do me the favor, monsieur, of accepting the use of mine during the time you are in search of yours.”
“But, mademoiselle, I have two sons and two daughters; we should greatly inconvenience you.”
“Pray do not refuse me,” she said earnestly.
“I made you the same offer in the answer I wrote to your letter,” said the abbe; “but you did not recei
ve it.”
“What, uncle! then you knew — ”
The poor woman stopped. Josette sighed. Neither the viscount nor the abbe observed anything amiss. After breakfast the Abbe de Sponde carried off his guest, as agreed upon the previous evening, to show him the various houses in Alencon which could be bought, and the lots of lands on which he might build.
Left alone in the salon, Mademoiselle Cormon said to Josette, with a deeply distressed air, “My child, I am now the talk of the whole town.”
“Well, then, mademoiselle, you should marry.”
“But I am not prepared to make a choice.”
“Bah! if I were in your place, I should take Monsieur du Bousquier.”
“Josette, Monsieur de Valois says he is so republican.”
“They don’t know what they say, your gentlemen: sometimes they declare that he robbed the republic; he couldn’t love it if he did that,” said Josette, departing.
“That girl has an amazing amount of sense,” thought Mademoiselle Cormon, who remained alone, a prey to her perplexities.
She saw plainly that a prompt marriage was the only way to silence the town. This last checkmate, so evidently mortifying, was of a nature to drive her into some extreme action; for persons deficient in mind find difficulty in getting out of any path, either good or evil, into which they have entered.
Each of the two old bachelors had fully understood the situation in which Mademoiselle Cormon was about to find herself; consequently, each resolved to call in the course of that morning to ask after her health, and take occasion, in bachelor language, to “press his point.” Monsieur de Valois considered that such an occasion demanded a painstaking toilet; he therefore took a bath and groomed himself with extraordinary care. For the first and last time Cesarine observed him putting on with incredible art a suspicion of rouge. Du Bousquier, on the other hand, that coarse republican, spurred by a brisk will, paid no attention to his dress, and arrived the first.
Such little things decide the fortunes of men, as they do of empires. Kellerman’s charge at Marengo, Blucher’s arrival at Waterloo, Louis XIV.’s disdain for Prince Eugene, the rector of Denain, — all these great causes of fortune or catastrophe history has recorded; but no one ever profits by them to avoid the small neglects of their own life. Consequently, observe what happens: the Duchesse de Langeais (see “History of the Thirteen”) makes herself a nun for the lack of ten minutes’ patience; Judge Popinot (see “Commission in Lunacy”) puts off till the morrow the duty of examining the Marquis d’Espard; Charles Grandet (see “Eugenie Grandet”) goes to Paris from Bordeaux instead of returning by Nantes; and such events are called chance or fatality! A touch of rouge carefully applied destroyed the hopes of the Chevalier de Valois; could that nobleman perish in any other way? He had lived by the Graces, and he was doomed to die by their hand. While the chevalier was giving this last touch to his toilet the rough du Bousquier was entering the salon of the desolate old maid. This entrance produced a thought in Mademoiselle Cormon’s mind which was favorable to the republican, although in all other respects the Chevalier de Valois held the advantages.
“God wills it!” she said piously, on seeing du Bousquier.
“Mademoiselle, you will not, I trust, think my eagerness importunate. I could not trust to my stupid Rene to bring news of your condition, and therefore I have come myself.”
“I am perfectly recovered,” she replied, in a tone of emotion. “I thank you, Monsieur du Bousquier,” she added, after a slight pause, and in a significant tone of voice, “for the trouble you have taken, and for that which I gave you yesterday — ”
She remembered having been in his arms, and that again seemed to her an order from heaven. She had been seen for the first time by a man with her laces cut, her treasures violently bursting from their casket.
“I carried you with such joy that you seemed to me light.”
Here Mademoiselle Cormon looked at du Bousquier as she had never yet looked at any man in the world. Thus encouraged, the purveyor cast upon the old maid a glance which reached her heart.
“I would,” he said, “that that moment had given me the right to keep you as mine forever” [she listened with a delighted air]; “as you lay fainting upon that bed, you were enchanting. I have never in my life seen a more beautiful person, — and I have seen many handsome women. Plump ladies have this advantage: they are superb to look upon; they have only to show themselves and they triumph.”
“I fear you are making fun of me,” said the old maid, “and that is not kind when all the town will probably misinterpret what happened to me yesterday.”
“As true as my name is du Bousquier, mademoiselle, I have never changed in my feelings toward you; and your first refusal has not discouraged me.”
The old maid’s eyes were lowered. There was a moment of cruel silence for du Bousquier, and then Mademoiselle Cormon decided on her course. She raised her eyelids; tears flowed from her eyes, and she gave du Bousquier a tender glance.
“If that is so, monsieur,” she said, in a trembling voice, “promise me to live in a Christian manner, and not oppose my religious customs, but to leave me the right to select my confessors, and I will grant you my hand”; as she said the words, she held it out to him.
Du Bousquier seized the good fat hand so full of money, and kissed it solemnly.
“But,” she said, allowing him to kiss it, “one thing more I must require of you.”
“If it is a possible thing, it is granted,” replied the purveyor.
“Alas!” returned the old maid. “For my sake, I must ask you to take upon yourself a sin which I feel to be enormous, — for to lie is one of the capital sins. But you will confess it, will you not? We will do penance for it together” [they looked at each other tenderly]. “Besides, it may be one of those lies which the Church permits as necessary — ”
“Can she be as Suzanne says she is?” thought du Bousquier. “What luck! Well, mademoiselle, what is it?” he said aloud.
“That you will take upon yourself to — ”
“What?”
“To say that this marriage has been agreed upon between us for the last six months.”
“Charming woman,” said the purveyor, in the tone of a man willing to devote himself, “such sacrifices can be made only for a creature adored these ten years.”
“In spite of my harshness?” she said.
“Yes, in spite of your harshness.”
“Monsieur du Bousquier, I have misjudged you.”
Again she held out the fat red hand, which du Bousquier kissed again.
At this moment the door opened; the betrothed pair, looking round to see who entered, beheld the delightful, but tardy Chevalier de Valois.
“Ah!” he said, on entering, “I see you are about to be up, fair queen.”
She smiled at the chevalier, feeling a weight upon her heart. Monsieur de Valois, remarkably young and seductive, had the air of a Lauzun re-entering the apartments of the Grande Mademoiselle in the Palais-Royal.
“Hey! dear du Bousquier,” said he, in a jaunty tone, so sure was he of success, “Monsieur de Troisville and the Abbe de Sponde are examining your house like appraisers.”
“Faith!” said du Bousquier, “if the Vicomte de Troisville wants it, it it is his for forty thousand francs. It is useless to me now. If mademoiselle will permit — it must soon be known — Mademoiselle, may I tell it? — Yes! Well, then, be the first, my dear Chevalier, to hear” [Mademoiselle Cormon dropped her eyes] “of the honor that mademoiselle has done me, the secret of which I have kept for some months. We shall be married in a few days; the contract is already drawn, and we shall sign it to-morrow. You see, therefore, that my house in the rue du Cygne is useless to me. I have been privately looking for a purchaser for some time; and the Abbe de Sponde, who knew that fact, has naturally taken Monsieur de Troisville to see the house.”
This falsehood bore such an appearance of truth that the chevalier was taken in by it. That �
��my dear chevalier” was like the revenge taken by Peter the Great on Charles XII. at Pultawa for all his past defeats. Du Bousquier revenged himself deliciously for the thousand little shafts he had long borne in silence; but in his triumph he made a lively youthful gesture by running his hands through his hair, and in so doing he — knocked aside his false front.
“I congratulate you both,” said the chevalier, with an agreeable air; “and I wish that the marriage may end like a fairy tale: They were happy ever after, and had — many — children!” So saying, he took a pinch of snuff. “But, monsieur,” he added satirically, “you forget — that you are wearing a false front.”
Du Bousquier blushed. The false front was hanging half a dozen inches from his skull. Mademoiselle Cormon raised her eyes, saw that skull in all its nudity, and lowered them, abashed. Du Bousquier cast upon the chevalier the most venomous look that toad ever darted on its prey.
“Dogs of aristocrats who despise me,” thought he, “I’ll crush you some day.”
The chevalier thought he had recovered his advantage. But Mademoiselle Cormon was not a woman to understand the connection which the chevalier intimated between his congratulatory wish and the false front. Besides, even if she had comprehended it, her word was passed, her hand given. Monsieur de Valois saw at once that all was lost. The innocent woman, with the two now silent men before her, wished, true to her sense of duty, to amuse them.
“Why not play a game of piquet together?” she said artlessly, without the slightest malice.
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