by Robert Merle
I put on a brave face when I heard this, but was secretly bitterly disappointed, having wagered on his generosity to provide sums that I’d extracted with great difficulty from Samson to pay for the cardboard, the paints, the wood and the sculptor. “Well, that’s great men for you!” I mused. “They think everything is owed them. Tomorrow the vicomte will have forgotten his promise and I’ll be down twenty-five écus for nothing.”
“Don’t worry, Captain,” I said. “We’ll speak no more of it. It’s nothing.”
“But wait!” said Cossolat suddenly, his eyes lighting up. “There’s one of Madame de Joyeuse’s ladies-in-waiting heading your way, looking like a trireme under full sail. Maybe this is, if I’m not mistaken, another sort of compensation.”
“Monsieur de Siorac,” said the lady as she approached, without even appearing to see Cossolat, and bowing gracefully, “Madame de Joyeuse requests the honour of your presence in her apartments.”
“Madame,” I replied, bowing in return, “I am at Madame de Joyeuse’s command.” And I followed her through a maze of splendid rooms, my eyes glued to her back, which was a pure delight, for she was a tall brunette, beautifully proportioned, with a graceful step.
But turning round after a moment or two, she said with a half-haughty, half-amused air, “I beg you, Monsieur, walk by my side. I dislike being devoured, especially from behind.”
“You forget that I might devour you from the side!”
“No, no!” she laughed. “This way I can keep my eye on you!”
“Madame,” I rejoined, “since I have the pleasure of walking by your side, might I have the honour of knowing your name, since you seem to know mine?”
“Monsieur,” she said proudly, but with her upper lip tracing a smile, “I am Aglaé de Mérol. My father is the richest man in Provence. As his daughter, my plan is not to marry a little brother from Périgord without a penny to his name, even if he is as good-looking as you.”
“Madame, I ask you then,” I laughed, “which of the two of us first spoke of marriage? You or me? For me the pleasures of looking are enough. I don’t need to go further.”
Caught off guard and unable to find a suitable reply, Aglaé chose laughter for her answer.
“Yet you dare continue!” she said, observing my eager eyes.
“Madame, it’s just that there’s more to look at when I’m beside you than behind you!”
“Well, then, walk ahead of me!” she commanded.
“What! Like a condemned man!” But finding our game so pleasant, I did as she commanded and, after a moment or two, I said without turning round, “The problem is I can still see you in my mind’s eye. So I’m captive, but only of your beauty.”
“What a catch!” replied Aglaé. “A little brother without a penny! A gentleman who intends to be a doctor! Shame on you!”
“Oh, Madame! Don’t go despising a doctor! I could work such cures on you!”
She laughed and knocked on the door that stood before us, and, as it opened, she entered, made a deep bow and said, “Madame, I bring you a monster, but at least he’ll amuse you!”
“Tell him to come in!” said Madame de Joyeuse, and when I saw her, with all her ladies sitting in a circle around her, their eyes maliciously alight and their little pointed teeth showing through their dangerous little smiles, I felt like one of the early Christians who was being thrown to the lionesses. And yet, I also enjoyed this challenge and felt not a whit inferior to the traps that they might be setting for me.
“Monsieur de Siorac,” said Madame de Joyeuse, looking at me quite severely, though I felt not the least abashed in her presence, for the scene struck me as rather comic, “can you explain why it is so important for you to enjoy the good graces of my husband?”
“But, Madame, why does one ever go anywhere except because one hopes to find pleasure?”
At this reply, which was pronounced in a certain tone and accompanied by a certain look, Madame de Joyeuse, forgetting that she was a grande dame, broke out laughing uncontrollably and shamelessly, and her ladies with her. Aglaé, joining in the merriment, cried as if she were proud of me, “Madame, didn’t I tell you what a monster he was?”
“And so you are, Monsieur!” said Madame de Joyeuse as she tried to stifle her laughing behind her fan. “A most impertinent fellow! No other gentleman here would have had the audacity to give me the look you did when you kissed my fingers. What’s more, you kissed them like a glutton, though the custom is merely to graze them.”
“Oh, Madame, if you’re not allowed to look or kiss, where’s the pleasure in greeting?” At this, all the ladies-in-waiting again burst out laughing uproariously.
“Pleasure, Monsieur? Pleasure?” cried Madame de Joyeuse. “Is that all you think about?”
“What else can I think about, Madame, when I’m at your feet?” And so saying, I threw myself on my knees in front of her.
“Monsieur!” said my hostess, attempting to recover her haughty air, though her attempt seemed altogether forced, since she had to be in her element with a man at her knees. “You must understand that I’m a lady of virtue, though I do love a good laugh, as long as it’s innocent. And though I’m courted by every handsome nobleman in Provence, I cause yearning and martyrdom, not happiness.”
“Madame,” I said, still on my knees but losing none of the effrontery of my looks, “that’s exactly how I understand things. But I have discovered in you so many diverse beauties that I cannot but aspire to such martyrdom, if you would consent to it.”
“What, Monsieur?” she said with consummate coquetry, while playing with her fan. “Am I so beautiful? I’ve been told, Monsieur, that my forehead is, perhaps, too high.”
“But, Madame, a high forehead is the sign of great wit and intelligence. Hippocrates says so in his aphorisms. And who can focus on your forehead when your eyes are there, large as lakes, deep, golden-brown and full of intriguing shadows?”
At this, the ladies-in-waiting, despite the exchange of some sly smiles, evinced a faint murmur of adulation—sort of an “Amen”, but in profane tones.
“Enough about my eyes,” said Madame de Joyeuse, “some people say my nose is too long.”
“Long, Madame? It is the nose of a noblewoman. But what look could linger on your nose when it could alight on your sweet, fulsome lips, which open to pure little oriental pearls?”
“All right,” she conceded with a flutter of her fan, “I’m not unhappy with my mouth, but the nasty people I’ve mentioned complain that my neck is too fat.”
“Fat, Madame? What idiocy! Such people should be tortured for having such lame judgement. May I speak frankly, Madame?”
“If you dare, Monsieur.”
“If nature gave you a neck so soft and smooth, it must have been so that a nest of kisses could lodge there.”
“Oh, Monsieur!” she said as if scandalized. “That’s really too much! A nest of kisses! Did you hear that, Mesdames?”
“Madame,” said Aglaé, “he may be a monster, but he’s right!”
“Well… all right, we’ll accept the nest. But what do you think of my shoulders, Monsieur?”
Dear reader, from the shoulders to the feet—everything except those parts that one neither names nor displays—all had to be reviewed, so hungry was Madame de Joyeuse for compliments. She had clearly reached that age when a woman’s beauty begins to fade by the smallest and nearly invisible—but cruel—signs. I suddenly realized that what had begun as pure play had barely hidden the real fears that lurked behind this ridiculous gallantry and that my role was not to make sport but to reassure. And so I played to perfection my role as martyr, persuaded as I was that the martyr wasn’t he who threw himself at her feet, but she who, in her fear of ageing, demanded such unbridled praises.
“Madame,” Aglaé said when finally we’d arrived at her feet (and it wasn’t possible to go any farther), “this monster would make a passably good martyr, at least if he’s a true nobleman.”
“Go
od Madame,” I replied, rising and pretending to be stung by her question, “my father earned the title of chevalier at Ceresole, and, at Calais, that of baron. I know of no better way in the world to be noble.”
“True enough for men,” said Madame de Joyeuse gravely, “but, Monsieur, meaning no offence, before I can receive you I must know who your mother is.”
“My late mother, Madame, was born Castelnau and Caumont.”
“Caumont?” said Madame de Joyeuse. “Are they the Caumonts from Castelnau and Milandes?”
“None other.”
“But they’re of old and excellent Périgordian stock! Heretics though they may be, the Caumonts are my cousins.”
“Your cousins, Madame?” I replied. “Then I have the honour of being your cousin.”
Madame de Joyeuse lowered her golden-brown eyes and seemed to be evaluating, on some delicate scales and with infinite meticulousness, the exact degree of our connection, and, having duly weighed it, announced, “Enough parentage, Monsieur, that I may call you ‘my little cousin’, but not enough that you could call me ‘my cousin’.”
“Ah, well said, Madame,” cried Aglaé. “Very witty indeed! I shall repeat it to everyone!” And all the ladies began to laugh, to applaud and to cackle like pecking hens. But I was not happy, foreseeing what use the nobility of Montpellier would make of such a quip. Marvellously, however, I never had cause for complaint, for once the laughter died down, I was everywhere treated as Madame de Joyeuse’s “little cousin”—a title, I later learnt, to which I had no right, but which the good lady granted me in order to be able to include in her company a character as unimportant as a younger brother from Périgord—who was intending to become a doctor!—without lowering herself or offending the rules of etiquette.
“But wait, my little cousin!” continued Madame de Joyeuse, examining me carefully through her lorgnette. “Look how you’re done up! Dressed in black from head to toe! Such a little ruffle! And badly worn shoes! You can’t appear here dressed like that!”
“Ah, Madame,” I moaned, shamed by her reproaches, “you’ve hit a very sensitive point!”
And so I told her the story of the blue satin doublet I’d requested from my father and how Sauveterre had, in the name of the Brethren, refused categorically to sanction such expense. At which Madame de Joyeuse laughed heartily, her parakeets even more so. Indeed, I thought they’d never stop giggling, chattering, smoothing their plumes and dancing from one foot to the other. “Ah, my little cousin,” soothed Madame de Joyeuse, who wasn’t entirely lacking in goodwill, “you mustn’t be angry, I beg you, with our silliness. But you have to admit that our Huguenots have very strange ways!”
“But, Madame,” broke in Aglaé, “didn’t your husband promise to compensate our guest for his wooden army? He could use that to buy some new clothes.”
“Aglaé,” corrected Madame de Joyeuse, “remember this: my husband has two memories. One very good one for what is owed him and another very bad one for his debts.”
As one can easily imagine, this quip was immediately applauded loudly by the circle of ladies, though it was not the first time they’d heard it, as Aglaé later explained.
“My little cousin,” continued Madame de Joyeuse, when she’d breathed in this incense, “how much money did you spend to create your little army?”
“Oh, Madame,” I replied, trying to sound negligent and above such material questions, “in truth, I kept no account of my expenses so I couldn’t really say.”
“Come now, how much?”
“Fifty écus.”
“Very good!” said Madame de Joyeuse, who lacked neither wit nor finesse in matters that did not concern her beauty. “As a gentleman you didn’t keep track, but as a good Huguenot, you know to the écu how much you spent.”
More laughter. And for my part, knowing what I knew, I adopted my sweetest air and, with the best grace, allowed them to enjoy themselves at my expense, waiting for what would come next. And what came next was overwhelming.
“Aglaé,” said Madame de Joyeuse, “when you show my little cousin out, give him 200 écus from my account.” And, so saying, she offered me her hand, which, in mute gratitude, I covered with kisses, from her fingers to her wrist and from her wrist to her palm. “My little cousin,” she said, frowning through her smile, “come back and see me on Wednesday in decent clothes and, before you devour it, please give me back my hand!”
Thereupon, accompanied by gales of laughter, greatly moved by her generosity, my feet hardly touching the ground, I took my leave of her, with Aglaé de Mérol at my side, looking a bit sad, it seemed to me.
“Monsieur,” said Aglaé as soon as we were out of earshot, “you have to admit that you’re a monster of ambition, cleverness and deceit.”
“Deceit, Madame?” said I, frowning and stopping in my tracks to look her in the eye. “How was I deceitful, Madame?”
“If ‘deceitful’ stings so much, I withdraw it,” she answered hurriedly, alarmed to see me so distressed. “But adroit you are, given all the compliments you lavished on us.”
“Was that wrong?” I asked archly. “Am I or am I not Madame de Joyeuse’s martyr? Isn’t that the role I’m supposed to play?”
“Well then,’ she said, placing her hand on my arm, “you’re right, I’m sorry. It’s just that I love my mistress despite her silly behaviour. And the whole scene, though very funny, causes me much distress. Do you know, Monsieur, there was a time when Madame had so many earnest martyrs surrounding her that we didn’t have to go looking for a young, inexperienced lad to pay court to her.”
“What, me? Young and inexperienced?” I cried. “I, who fought in the struggles at la Lendrevie and broke up the brigands’ band in the Corbières!”
“Easy!” she said. “You don’t have to go trumpeting your bravery, we know all about it. But, Monsieur, look at the unvarnished truth: you’re a younger brother without a penny and you’re a medical student.”
“What do you mean, without a penny?” I laughed. “You just gave me 200 écus!” (And, my good reader, you can’t imagine how sweet was the sound of those gold coins falling into my purse.)
“But that’s nothing!” replied Mademoiselle Mérol, with a sad expression. “My father has a revenue of 100,000 livres a year. Which means that I can’t decently marry a man who doesn’t have at least half of what my father has. And there are probably not more than four such men in Provence, and they’re so ugly and so uninviting that I’ve refused them all. And so my fortune is sealed. I’ll die an old maid.”
After that, I began to see her in a different light, astonished that such a beautiful woman should have to submit to such a terrible fate. And I suddenly realized that it was a great pity, when you thought about it, that money governed man’s destiny instead of facilitating it.
“Madame,” I said, half seriously, half in jest, “if someday I have 50,000 livres, and if I please you, I’ll ask for your hand, on condition that you cease to despise the divine art of medicine.”
“Divine, Monsieur?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“If it’s God that gave us life, isn’t it something godlike that allows us to hold on to life when it’s slipping away?”
“Hold on to it? Can you do that?”
I told her that we could and she said no. We argued about this for a few minutes longer and since every girl enjoys receiving marriage proposals even in jest, Aglaé gradually recovered her lightheartedness and said, “Begone, monster! At least you’re not a heartless monster. You will become attached to Madame de Joyeuse and will be a very creditable martyr. And even though you’re a younger brother, a doctor and penniless, I feel a great friendship for you already.”
This said, she gave me a little kiss on the cheek. And even though it was offered from atop her father’s 100,000 pounds, I found it sweet enough to give it back on the little dimple at the corner of her lips, which, by chance, I nibbled a bit. At this she blushed, eyes wide and mouth shut tight, being unaccustome
d, I’d wager, to such a caress, whose novelty surprised and, I think, pleased her. Seeing her confusion, and not wishing to wait for her astonishment to become anger, I made a deep bow and departed.
I ran to the Jewish quarter, where there was a little tailor’s shop owned by a man named Martinez, who was reputed to make the Vicomte de Joyeuse’s doublets. He had olive skin, and was bent double by his profession, but seemed quite robust, with penetrating black eyes, and always looked as though he’d just heard a secret joke.
I explained to him, not without a certain swagger (since my 200 écus gave me great confidence in myself), who I was and whose house I lived in.
My guess is that he already knew, since he was a Sephardic and had his shop near the place des Cévenols, where Maître Sanche had his pharmacy; however, he said not a word, but stood looking at me with his sharp eyes, stroking his beard. He displayed his fabrics, which were very beautiful and which, in the dim light of his shop and in his hands, seemed even more so, but he refused to quote prices for them, and simply said, “The price is not important! We’ll settle that later!” Finally, at my repeated insistence, he named a price. It was so high that I pulled away, throwing up my hands, and headed for the door. He grabbed my elbow and began wheedling me, trying to coax me into staying and pleading with me not to take my business elsewhere.
“You’ll have my business,” I said, “on condition you halve your price.”
“Halve it! Fie, Monsieur! A gentleman bargaining with a tailor!”
“My good tailor,” I replied, “unlike some gentlemen, whose names I shall not mention since they’re so well known, I’ll pay you on the nail. It’s half your price or nothing. A good healthy half, payable in round gold coins.”
“Ah, my lad! You’ve got your knife to my throat. I’m dying here!”
And his cries brought his family running; his wife, his three sons and his four daughters invaded the small shop, suffocating me with polite greetings and begging me, practically on their knees, not to reduce their father to poverty. I held out, finding as much amusement in this scene as Martinez himself, who seemed like a maestro who, through imperceptible signs and winks, was directing his troupe; and to tell the truth, I had no idea why he would be offering me this comedy; perhaps he was hoping I’d lower my demands. But I wouldn’t consider it. I insisted on half of the quoted price and Martinez ultimately accepted my offer, leaving me very satisfied with my business acumen—until the next day, that is, when I learnt from Cossolat that the half I’d held out for was his customary price and that he didn’t ask more even from Joyeuse, who, of course, never paid him.