An Old Maid

“It exhausts him,” replied the chevalier, trying to bring the old maid’s thoughts back to the ground where he hoped to inspire her with horror for her youthful lover. “The morals of those Imperial lyceums are really shocking.”

“Oh, yes!” said the ingenuous creature. “They march the pupils about with drums at their head. The masters have no more religion than pagans. And they put the poor lads in uniform, as if they were troops. What ideas!”

“And behold the product!” said the chevalier, motioning to Athanase. “In my day, young men were not so shy of looking at a pretty woman. As for him, he drops his eyes whenever he sees you. That young man frightens me because I am really interested in him. Tell him not to intrigue with the Bonapartists, as he is now doing about that theatre. When all these petty folks cease to ask for it insurrectionally, – which to my mind is the synonym of constitutionally, – the government will build it. Besides which, tell his mother to keep an eye on him.”

“Oh, I’m sure she will prevent him from seeing those half-pay, questionable people. I’ll talk to her,” said Mademoiselle Cormon, “for he might lose his place in the mayor’s office; and then what would he and his mother have to live on? It makes me shudder.”

As Monsieur de Talleyrand said of his wife, so the chevalier said to himself, looking at Mademoiselle Cormon: —

“Find me another as stupid! Good powers! isn’t virtue which drives out intellect vice? But what an adorable wife for a man of my age! What principles! what ignorance!”

Remember that this monologue, addressed to the Princess Goritza, was mentally uttered while he took a pinch of snuff.

Madame Granson had divined that the chevalier was talking about Athanase. Eager to know the result of the conversation, she followed Mademoiselle Cormon, who was now approaching the young man with much dignity. But at this moment Jacquelin appeared to announce that mademoiselle was served. The old maid gave a glance of appeal to the chevalier; but the gallant recorder of mortgages, who was beginning to see in the manners of that gentleman the barrier which the provincial nobles were setting up about this time between themselves and the bourgeoisie, made the most of his chance to cut out Monsieur de Valois. He was close to Mademoiselle Cormon, and promptly offered his arm, which she found herself compelled to accept. The chevalier then darted, out of policy, upon Madame Granson.

“Mademoiselle Cormon, my dear lady,” he said to her, walking slowly after all the other guests, “feels the liveliest interest in your dear Athanase; but I fear it will vanish through his own fault. He is irreligious and liberal; he is agitating this matter of the theatre; he frequents the Bonapartists; he takes the side of that rector. Such conduct may make him lose his place in the mayor’s office. You know with what care the government is beginning to weed out such opinions. If your dear Athanase loses his place, where can he find other employment? I advise him not to get himself in bad odor with the administration.”

“Monsieur le Chevalier,” said the poor frightened mother, “how grateful I am to you! You are right: my son is the tool of a bad set of people; I shall enlighten him.”

The chevalier had long since fathomed the nature of Athanase, and recognized in it that unyielding element of republican convictions to which in his youth a young man is willing to sacrifice everything, carried away by the word “liberty,” so ill-defined and so little understood, but which to persons disdained by fate is a banner of revolt; and to such, revolt is vengeance. Athanase would certainly persist in that faith, for his opinions were woven in with his artistic sorrows, with his bitter contemplation of the social state. He was ignorant of the fact that at thirty-six years of age, – the period of life when a man has judged men and social interests and relations, – the opinions for which he was ready to sacrifice his future would be modified in him, as they are in all men of real superiority. To remain faithful to the Left side of Alencon was to gain the aversion of Mademoiselle Cormon. There, indeed, the chevalier saw true.

Thus we see that this society, so peaceful in appearance, was internally as agitated as any diplomatic circle, where craft, ability, and passions group themselves around the grave questions of an empire. The guests were now seated at the table laden with the first course, which they ate as provincials eat, without shame at possessing a good appetite, and not as in Paris, where it seems as if jaws gnashed under sumptuary laws, which made it their business to contradict the laws of anatomy. In Paris people eat with their teeth, and trifle with their pleasure; in the provinces things are done naturally, and interest is perhaps rather too much concentrated on the grand and universal means of existence to which God has condemned his creatures.

It was at the end of the first course that Mademoiselle Cormon made the most celebrated of her “speeches”; it was talked about for fully two years, and is still told at the gatherings of the lesser bourgeoisie whenever the topic of her marriage comes up.

The conversation, becoming lively as the penultimate entree was reached, had turned naturally on the affair of the theatre and the constitutionally sworn rector. In the first fervor of royalty, during the year 1816, those who later were called Jesuits were all for the expulsion of the Abbe Francois from his parish. Du Bousquier, suspected by Monsieur de Valois of sustaining the priest and being at the bottom of the theatre intrigues, and on whose back the adroit chevalier would in any case have put those sins with his customary cleverness, was in the dock with no lawyer to defend him. Athanase, the only guest loyal enough to stand by du Bousquier, had not the nerve to emit his ideas in the presence of those potentates of Alencon, whom in his heart he thought stupid. None but provincial youths now retain a respectful demeanor before men of a certain age, and dare neither to censure nor contradict them. The talk, diminished under the effect of certain delicious ducks dressed with olives, was falling flat. Mademoiselle Cormon, feeling the necessity of maintaining it against her own ducks, attempted to defend du Bousquier, who was being represented as a pernicious fomenter of intrigues, capable of any trickery.

“As for me,” she said, “I thought that Monsieur du Bousquier cared chiefly for childish things.”

Under existing circumstances the remark had enormous success. Mademoiselle Cormon obtained a great triumph; she brought the nose of the Princess Goritza flat on the table. The chevalier, who little expected such an apt remark from his Dulcinea, was so amazed that he could at first find no words to express his admiration; he applauded noiselessly, as they do at the Opera, tapping his fingers together to imitate applause.

“She is adorably witty,” he said to Madame Granson. “I always said that some day she would unmask her batteries.”

“In private she is always charming,” replied the widow.

“In private, madame, all women have wit,” returned the chevalier.

The Homeric laugh thus raised having subsided, Mademoiselle Cormon asked the reason of her success. Then began the forte of the gossip. Du Bousquier was depicted as a species of celibate Pere Gigogne, a monster, who for the last fifteen years had kept the Foundling Hospital supplied. His immoral habits were at last revealed! these Parisian saturnalias were the result of them, etc., etc. Conducted by the Chevalier de Valois, a most able leader of an orchestra of this kind, the opening of the cancan was magnificent.

“I really don’t know,” he said, “what should hinder a du Bousquier from marrying a Mademoiselle Suzanne What’s-her-name. What is her name, do you know? Suzette! Though I have lodgings at Madame Lardot’s, I know her girls only by sight. If this Suzette is a tall, fine, saucy girl, with gray eyes, a slim waist, and a pretty foot, whom I have occasionally seen, and whose behavior always seemed to me extremely insolent, she is far superior in manners to du Bousquier. Besides, the girl has the nobility of beauty; from that point of view the marriage would be a poor one for her; she might do better. You know how the Emperor Joseph had the curiosity to see the du Barry at Luciennes. He offered her his arm to walk about, and the poor thing was so surprised at the honor that she hesitated to accept it: ‘Beauty is ever a queen,’ said the Emperor. And he, you know, was an Austrian-German,” added the chevalier. “But I can tell you that Germany, which is thought here very rustic, is a land of noble chivalry and fine manners, especially in Poland and Hungary, where – ”

Here the chevalier stopped, fearing to slip into some allusion to his personal happiness; he took out his snuff-box, and confided the rest of his remarks to the princess, who had smiled upon him for thirty-six years and more.

“That speech was rather a delicate one for Louis XV.,” said du Ronceret.

“But it was, I think, the Emperor Joseph who made it, and not Louis XV.,” remarked Mademoiselle Cormon, in a correcting tone.

“Mademoiselle,” said the chevalier, observing the malicious glance exchanged between the judge, the notary, and the recorder, “Madame du Barry was the Suzanne of Louis XV., – a circumstance well known to scamps like ourselves, but unsuitable for the knowledge of young ladies. Your ignorance proves you to be a flawless diamond; historical corruptions do not enter your mind.”

The Abbe de Sponde looked graciously at the Chevalier de Valois, and nodded his head in sign of his laudatory approbation.

“Doesn’t mademoiselle know history?” asked the recorder of mortgages.

“If you mix up Louis XV. and this girl Suzanne, how am I to know history?” replied Mademoiselle Cormon, angelically, glad to see that the dish of ducks was empty at last, and the conversation so ready to revive that all present laughed with their mouths full at her last remark.

“Poor girl!” said the Abbe de Sponde. “When a great misfortune happens, charity, which is divine love, and as blind as pagan love, ought not to look into the causes of it. Niece, you are president of the Maternity Society; you must succor that poor girl, who will now find it difficult to marry.”

“Poor child!” ejaculated Mademoiselle Cormon.

“Do you suppose du Bousquier would marry her?” asked the judge.

“If he is an honorable man he ought to do so,” said Madame Granson; “but really, to tell the truth, my dog has better morals than he – ”

“Azor is, however, a good purveyor,” said the recorder of mortgages, with the air of saying a witty thing.

At dessert du Bousquier was still the topic of conversation, having given rise to various little jokes which the wine rendered sparkling. Following the example of the recorder, each guest capped his neighbor’s joke with another: Du Bousquier was a father, but not a confessor; he was father less; he was father LY; he was not a reverend father; nor yet a conscript-father —

“Nor can he be a foster-father,” said the Abbe de Sponde, with a gravity which stopped the laughter.

“Nor a noble father,” added the chevalier.

The Church and the nobility descended thus into the arena of puns, without, however, losing their dignity.

“Hush!” exclaimed the recorder of mortgages. “I hear the creaking of du Bousquier’s boots.”

It usually happens that a man is ignorant of rumors that are afloat about him. A whole town may be talking of his affairs; may calumniate and decry him, but if he has no good friends, he will know nothing about it. Now the innocent du Bousquier was superb in his ignorance. No one had told him as yet of Suzanne’s revelations; he therefore appeared very jaunty and slightly conceited when the company, leaving the dining-room, returned to the salon for their coffee; several other guests had meantime assembled for the evening. Mademoiselle Cormon, from a sense of shamefacedness, dared not look at the terrible seducer. She seized upon Athanase, and began to lecture him with the queerest platitudes about royalist politics and religious morality. Not possessing, like the Chevalier de Valois, a snuff-box adorned with a princess, by the help of which he could stand this torrent of silliness, the poor poet listened to the words of her whom he loved with a stupid air, gazing, meanwhile, at her enormous bust, which held itself before him in that still repose which is the attribute of all great masses. His love produced in him a sort of intoxication which changed the shrill voice of the old maid into a soft murmur, and her flat remarks into witty speeches. Love is a maker of false coin, continually changing copper pennies into gold-pieces, and sometimes turning its real gold into copper.

“Well, Athanase, will you promise me?”

This final sentence struck the ear of the absorbed young man like one of those noises which wake us with a bound.

“What, mademoiselle?”

Mademoiselle Cormon rose hastily, and looked at du Bousquier, who at that moment resembled the stout god of Fable which the Republic stamped upon her coins. She walked up to Madame Granson, and said in her ear: —

“My dear friend, you son is an idiot. That lyceum has ruined him,” she added, remembering the insistence with which the chevalier had spoken of the evils of education in such schools.

What a catastrophe! Unknown to himself, the luckless Athanase had had an occasion to fling an ember of his own fire upon the pile of brush gathered in the heart of the old maid. Had he listened to her, he might have made her, then and there, perceive his passion; for, in the agitated state of Mademoiselle Cormon’s mind, a single word would have sufficed. But that stupid absorption in his own sentiments, which characterizes young and true love, had ruined him, as a child full of life sometimes kills itself out of ignorance.

“What have you been saying to Mademoiselle Cormon?” demanded his mother.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing; well, I can explain that,” she thought to herself, putting off till the next day all further reflection on the matter, and attaching but little importance to Mademoiselle Cormon’s words; for she fully believed that du Bousquier was forever lost in the old maid’s esteem after the revelation of that evening.

Soon the four tables were filled with their sixteen players. Four persons were playing piquet, – an expensive game, at which the most money was lost. Monsieur Choisnel, the procureur-du-roi, and two ladies went into the boudoir for a game at backgammon. The glass lustres were lighted; and then the flower of Mademoiselle Cormon’s company gathered before the fireplace, on sofas, and around the tables, and each couple said to her as they arrived, —

“So you are going to-morrow to Prebaudet?”

“Yes, I really must,” she replied.

On this occasion the mistress of the house appeared preoccupied. Madame Granson was the first to perceive the quite unnatural state of the old maid’s mind, – Mademoiselle Cormon was thinking!

“What are you thinking of, cousin?” she said at last, finding her seated in the boudoir.

“I am thinking,” she replied, “of that poor girl. As the president of the Maternity Society, I will give you fifty francs for her.”

“Fifty francs!” cried Madame Granson. “But you have never given as much as that.”

“But, my dear cousin, it is so natural to have children.”

That immoral speech coming from the heart of the old maid staggered the treasurer of the Maternity Society. Du Bousquier had evidently advanced in the estimation of Mademoiselle Cormon.

“Upon my word,” said Madame Granson, “du Bousquier is not only a monster, he is a villain. When a man has done a wrong like that, he ought to pay the indemnity. Isn’t it his place rather than ours to look after the girl? – who, to tell you the truth, seems to me rather questionable; there are plenty of better men in Alencon than that cynic du Bousquier. A girl must be depraved, indeed, to go after him.”

“Cynic! Your son teaches you to talk Latin, my dear, which is wholly incomprehensible. Certainly I don’t wish to excuse Monsieur du Bousquier; but pray explain to me why a woman is depraved because she prefers one man to another.”

“My dear cousin, suppose you married my son Athanase; nothing could be more natural. He is young and handsome, full of promise, and he will be the glory of Alencon; and yet everybody will exclaim against you: evil tongues will say all sorts of things; jealous women will accuse you of depravity, – but what will that matter? you will be loved, and loved truly. If Athanase seemed to you an idiot, my dear, it is that he has too many ideas; extremes meet. He lives the life of a girl of fifteen; he has never wallowed in the impurities of Paris, not he! Well, change the terms, as my poor husband used to say; it is the same thing with du Bousquier in connection with Suzanne. You would be calumniated; but in the case of du Bousquier, the charge would be true. Don’t you understand me?”

“No more than if you were talking Greek,” replied Mademoiselle Cormon, who opened her eyes wide, and strained all the forces of her intellect.

“Well, cousin, if I must dot all the i’s, it is impossible for Suzanne to love du Bousquier. And if the heart counts for nothing in this affair – ”

“But, cousin, what do people love with if not their hearts?”

Here Madame Granson said to herself, as the chevalier had previously thought: “My poor cousin is altogether too innocent; such stupidity passes all bounds! – Dear child,” she continued aloud, “it seems to me that children are not conceived by the spirit only.”

“Why, yes, my dear; the Holy Virgin herself – ”

“But, my love, du Bousquier isn’t the Holy Ghost!”

“True,” said the old maid; “he is a man! – a man whose personal appearance makes him dangerous enough for his friends to advise him to marry.”

“You could yourself bring about that result, cousin.”

“How so?” said the old maid, with the meekness of Christian charity.

“By not receiving him in your house until he marries. You owe it to good morals and to religion to manifest under such circumstances an exemplary displeasure.”

“On my return from Prebaudet we will talk further of this, my dear Madame Granson. I will consult my uncle and the Abbe Couturier,” said Mademoiselle Cormon, returning to the salon, where the animation was now at its height.

The lights, the group of women in their best clothes, the solemn tone, the dignified air of the assembly, made Mademoiselle Cormon not a little proud of her company. To many persons nothing better could be seen in Paris in the highest society.

At this moment du Bousquier, who was playing whist with the chevalier and two old ladies, – Madame du Coudrai and Madame du Ronceret, – was the object of deep but silent curiosity. A few young women arrived, who, under pretext of watching the game, gazed fixedly at him in so singular a manner, though slyly, that the old bachelor began to think that there must be some deficiency in his toilet.

“Can my false front be crooked?” he asked himself, seized by one of those anxieties which beset old bachelors.

He took advantage of a lost trick, which ended a seventh rubber, to rise and leave the table.

“I can’t touch a card without losing,” he said. “I am decidedly too unlucky.”

“But you are lucky in other ways,” said the chevalier, giving him a sly look.

That speech naturally made the rounds of the salon, where every one exclaimed on the exquisite taste of the chevalier, the Prince de Talleyrand of the province.

“There’s no one like Monsieur de Valois for such wit.”

Du Bousquier went to look at himself in a little oblong mirror, placed above the “Deserter,” but he saw nothing strange in his appearance.

After innumerable repetitions of the same text, varied in all keys, the departure of the company took place about ten o’clock, through the long antechamber, Mademoiselle Cormon conducting certain of her favorite guests to the portico. There the groups parted; some followed the Bretagne road towards the chateau; the others went in the direction of the river Sarthe. Then began the usual conversation, which for twenty years had echoed at that hour through this particular street of Alencon. It was invariably: —

“Mademoiselle Cormon looked very well to-night.”

“Mademoiselle Cormon? why, I thought her rather strange.”

“How that poor abbe fails! Did you notice that he slept? He does not know what cards he holds; he is getting very absent-minded.”

“We shall soon have the grief of losing him.”

“What a fine night! It will be a fine day to-morrow.”

“Good weather for the apple-blossoms.”

“You beat us; but when you play with Monsieur de Valois you never do otherwise.”

“How much did he win?”

“Well, to-night, three or four francs; he never loses.”

“True; and don’t you know there are three hundred and sixty-five days a year? At that price his gains are the value of a farm.”

“Ah! what hands we had to-night!”

“Here you are at home, monsieur and madame, how lucky you are, while we have half the town to cross!”

“I don’t pity you; you could afford a carriage, and dispense with the fatigue of going on foot.”

“Ah, monsieur! we have a daughter to marry, which takes off one wheel, and the support of our son in Paris carries off another.”

“You persist in making a magistrate of him?”

“What else can be done with a young man? Besides, there’s no shame in serving the king.”

Sometimes a discussion on ciders and flax, always couched in the same terms, and returning at the same time of year, was continued on the homeward way. If any observer of human customs had lived in this street, he would have known the months and seasons by simply overhearing the conversations.

On this occasion it was exclusively jocose; for du Bousquier, who chanced to march alone in front of the groups, was humming the well-known air, – little thinking of its appropriateness, – “Tender woman! hear the warble of the birds,” etc. To some, du Bousquier was a strong man and a misjudged man. Ever since he had been confirmed in his present office by a royal decree, Monsieur du Ronceret had been in favor of du Bousquier. To others the purveyor seemed dangerous, – a man of bad habits, capable of anything. In the provinces, as in Paris, men before the public eye are like that statue in the fine allegorical tale of Addison, for which two knights on arriving near it fought; for one saw it white, the other saw it black. Then, when they were both off their horses, they saw it was white one side and black the other. A third knight coming along declared it red.

When the chevalier went home that night, he made many reflections, as follows: —

“It is high time now to spread a rumor of my marriage with Mademoiselle Cormon. It will leak out from the d’Esgrignon salon, and go straight to the bishop at Seez, and so get round through the grand vicars to the curate of Saint-Leonard’s, who will be certain to tell it to the Abbe Couturier; and Mademoiselle Cormon will get the shot in her upper works. The old Marquis d’Esgrignon shall invite the Abbe de Sponde to dinner, so as to stop all gossip about Mademoiselle Cormon if I decide against her, or about me if she refuses me. The abbe shall be well cajoled; and Mademoiselle Cormon will certainly not hold out against a visit from Mademoiselle Armande, who will show her the grandeur and future chances of such an alliance. The abbe’s property is undoubtedly as much as three hundred thousand; her own savings must amount to more than two hundred thousand; she has her house and Prebaudet and fifteen thousand francs a year. A word to my friend the Comte de Fontaine, and I should be mayor of Alencon to-morrow, and deputy. Then, once seated on the Right benches, we shall reach the peerage, shouting, ‘Cloture!’ ‘Ordre!’”

As soon as she reached home Madame Granson had a lively argument with her son, who could not be made to see the connection which existed between his love and his political opinions. It was the first quarrel that had ever troubled that poor household.

CHAPTER VI. FINAL DISAPPOINTMENT AND ITS FIRST RESULT

The next day, Mademoiselle Cormon, packed into the old carriole with Josette, and looking like a pyramid on a vast sea of parcels, drove up the rue Saint-Blaise on her way to Prebaudet, where she was overtaken by an event which hurried on her marriage, – an event entirely unlooked for by either Madame Granson, du Bousquier, Monsieur de Valois, or Mademoiselle Cormon himself. Chance is the greatest of all artificers.