Part 12

"You, of course. And who, then, do you expect to come to the little café? You are a good woman; you are orderly; you are not one of those affected creatures who do not know even how to take a joke; and you are patriotic! And then you are pretty, very nice to look at; you have eyes to drive the whole Cherbourg garrison crazy. Just the cheese! Now that I know you well, now that I know all that you can do, this idea keeps continually running through my head."

"Well? And you?"

"I, too, of course! We would marry, like good friends."

"Then," cried I, with sudden indignation, "you want me to prostitute myself to make money for you?"

Joseph shrugged his shoulders, and said tranquilly:

"All depends on the intention, Célestine. That is understood, is it not?"

Then he came to me, took my hands, pressed them so tightly that I screamed with pain, and stammered:

"I dream of you, Célestine; I dream of you in the little café. I am crazy over you."

And, as I stood in amazement, a little frightened by this confession, and without a gesture or a word, he continued:

"And then, perhaps there are more than fifteen thousand francs. Perhaps more than eighteen thousand francs. One never knows how many little ones this money makes. And then, things ... things ... jewels ... you would be tremendously happy in the little café."

He held my waist clasped in the powerful vise of his arms. And I felt his whole body against me, trembling with desire. If he had wished, he could have taken me and stifled me without the slightest resistance on my part. And he continued to unfold his dream:

"A little café, very pretty, very clean, very shining. And then, at the bar, before a large mirror, a beautiful woman, dressed in the costume of Alsace-Lorraine, with a beautiful silk waist and broad velvet ribbons. Hey, Célestine? Think of that! I will talk with you about it again one of these days; I will talk with you about it again."

I found nothing to say,--nothing, nothing, nothing. I was stupefied by this thing, of which I had never dreamed; but I was also without hatred, without horror, of this man's cynicism. Clasping me with the same hands that had clasped, stifled, strangled, murdered the little Claire in the woods, Joseph repeated:

"I will talk with you about it again. I am old; I am ugly. Possibly. But to fix a woman, Célestine,--mark this well,--there is nobody like me. I will talk with you about it again."

To fix a woman! How he fills one with forebodings! Is it a threat? Is it a promise?

To-day Joseph has resumed his customary silence. One would think nothing had happened last night between us. He goes, he comes, he works, he eats, he reads his paper, just as usual. I look at him, and I should like to detest him. I wish that his ugliness would fill me with such immense disgust as to separate me from him forever. Well, no. Ah! how queer it is! This man sends shivers through me, and I feel no disgust. And it is a frightful thing that I feel no disgust, since it was he who killed and outraged the little Claire in the woods.

X

_November 3._

Nothing gives me so much pleasure as to find in the newspapers the name of a person in whose house I have served. This pleasure I felt this morning more keenly than ever before, in learning from the "Petit Journal" that Victor Charrigaud has just published a new book, which has met with much approval and of which everybody speaks in admiration. This book is entitled, "From Five to Seven," and is a howling success. It is, says the article, a series of brilliant and cutting society studies, which, beneath their light exterior, hide a profound philosophy. Yes, rely upon it! At the same time that they praise Victor Charrigaud for his talent, they also compliment him highly on his elegance, on his distinguished social position, on his _salon_. Ah! let us say a word of his _salon_. For eight months I was the Charrigauds' chambermaid, and I really believe that I have never met such boors. God knows, however!

Everybody is familiar with the name Victor Charrigaud. He has already published a series of books that have made a sensation. "Their Little Garters," "How They Sleep," "The Sentimental Bigoudis," "Humming-Birds and Parrots," are among the most celebrated. He is a man of infinite wit, a writer of infinite talent; unhappily, success and wealth have come to him too quickly. His beginnings aroused the greatest hopes. Everybody was struck with his great faculty of observation, with his powerful gift of satire, with his implacable and just irony that penetrated so deeply humanity's ridiculous side. A well-informed and free mind, to which social conventions were nothing but falsehood and servility, a generous and clear-sighted soul, which, instead of bending under the humiliating level of prejudice, bravely directed its impulses toward a pure and elevated social ideal. At least so Victor Charrigaud was described to me by one of his friends, a painter, who was stuck on me, and whom I used sometimes to go to see, and from whom I got the opinions just expressed and the details that are to follow regarding the literature and the life of this illustrious man.

Among the ridiculous things that Charrigaud had lashed so severely, there was none that he had treated so harshly as snobbishness. In his lively conversation, well supported by facts, even more than in his books, he branded its moral cowardice and its intellectual barrenness with a bitter precision in the picturesque, a comprehensive and merciless philosophy, and sharp, profound, terrible words, which, taken up by some and passed on by others, were repeated at the four corners of Paris, and at once became classics, in a way. A complete and astonishing psychology of snobbishness is contained in the impressions, the traits, the concise profiles, the strangely-outlined and life-like silhouettes, of which this prodigal and never-wearying originality was an ever-flowing source. It seems, then, that, if any one should have escaped that sort of moral influenza which rages so violently in the _salons_, it was Victor Charrigaud, better protected than anybody else against contagion by that admirable antiseptic--irony. But man is nothing but surprise, contradiction, incoherence, and folly.

Scarcely had he felt the first caresses of success, when the snob that was in him--and that was the reason why he was able to paint the snob with such force of expression--revealed itself, exploded, one might say, like an engine that has just received an electric shock. He began by dropping those friends that had become embarrassing or compromising, keeping only those who, some by their recognized talent, others by their position in the press, could be useful to him, and bolster his young fame by their persistent puffery. At the same time he made dress and fashion a subject of most careful consideration. He was seen in frock coats of an audacious Philippism, wearing collars and cravats of the style of 1830 much exaggerated, velvet waistcoats of irresistible cut, and showy jewels; and he took from metal cases, inlaid with too precious stones, cigarettes sumptuously rolled in gilt paper. But, heavy of limb and awkward of movement, he retained, in spite of everything, the unwieldy gait of the Auvergne peasants, his compatriots. Too new in a too sudden elegance in which he did not feel at home, in vain did he study himself and the most perfect models of Parisian style; he could not acquire that ease, that supple, delicate, and upright line which he saw in the young swells at the clubs, at the race-courses, at the theatres, and at the restaurants, and which he envied them with a most violent hatred. It astonished him, for, after all, he patronized only the most select furnishing houses, the most famous tailors, memorable shirt-makers, and what shoemakers! what shoemakers! Examining himself in the glass, he threw insults at himself, in his despair.

"In vain do I cover myself with velvets, silks, and satin; I always look like a boor. There is always something that is not natural."

As for Madame Charrigaud, who previously had dressed very simply and with discreet taste, she, too, sported showy and stunning costumes, with hair too red, jewels too big, silks too rich, giving her the air of a laundry queen, the majesty of a Mardi-Gras empress. They made a great deal of sport of her, sometimes cruelly. Old comrades, at once humiliated and delighted by so much luxury and so much bad taste, avenged themselves by saying jestingly of this poor Victor Charrigaud:

"Really, for an ironist, he has no luck."

Thanks to fortunate manoeuvres, incessant diplomacy, and more incessant platitudes, they were received into what they called--they too--real society, in the houses of Jewish bankers, Venezuelan dukes, and vagrant arch-dukes, and in the houses of very old ladies, crazed over literature, panderism, and the Academy. They thought of nothing but cultivating and developing these new relations, and of acquiring others more desirable and more difficult of attainment,--others, others, and always others.

One day, to free himself from an obligation which he had stupidly assumed by accepting an invitation to the house of a friend who was not a conspicuous personage, but whom he was not yet ready to drop, Charrigaud wrote him the following letter:

_My Dear Old Friend:_

We are disconsolate. Excuse us for not keeping our promise for Monday. But we have just received, for that very day, an invitation to dine at the Rothschilds. It is the first. You understand that we cannot refuse. It would be disastrous. Fortunately, I know your heart. Far from being angry with us, I am sure that you will share our joy and our pride.

Another day he was telling of the purchase that he had just made of a villa at Deauville:

"I really don't know for whom these people took us. They undoubtedly took us for journalists, for Bohemians. But I quickly let them see that I had a notary."

Gradually he eliminated all that remained of the friends of his youth,--those friends whose simple presence in his house was a constant and disagreeable reminder of the past, and a confession of that stain, of that social inferiority,--literature and labor. And he contrived also to extinguish the flames that sometimes kindled in his brain, and to finally stifle that cursed wit whose sudden revival on certain occasions it frightened him to feel, supposing it to be dead forever. Then, it was no longer enough for him to be received in the houses of others; he desired, in turn, to receive others in his own house. His occupancy of a residence of some pretension, which he had just bought in Auteuil, was made the pretext for a dinner.

I entered their service at the time when the Charrigauds had at last resolved to give this dinner. Not one of those private dinners, gay and without pose, such as they had been in the habit of giving, and which for some years had made their house so charming, but a really elegant, really solemn dinner, a stiff and chilly dinner, a select dinner, to which should be ceremoniously invited, together with some correct celebrities of literature and art, some society personalities, not too difficult to reach, not too regularly established, but sufficiently decorative to shed a little of their brilliancy upon their hosts.

"For the difficult thing," said Victor Charrigaud, "is not to dine in the city, but to give a dinner at home."

After thinking over the plan for a long time, Victor Charrigaud made this proposition:

"Well, I have it. I think that at first we can have only divorced women--with their lovers. We must begin somewhere. There are some who are very suitable, and whom the most Catholic newspapers speak of with admiration. Later, when our connections shall have become more extensive, and at the same time more select,--why, we can let the divorced people slide."

"You are right," approved Mme. Charrigaud. "For the moment, the important thing is to get the best people among those who are divorced. Say what you will, the time has come when a divorce gives a person a certain position."

"It has at least the merit of abolishing adultery," chuckled Charrigaud. "Adultery is now very old-fashioned. Nobody but friend Bourget now believes in adultery,--Christian adultery,--and in English furniture."

To which Mme. Charrigaud replied, in a tone of nervous vexation:

"How you tire me, with your maliciously wicked remarks! You will see, you will see that, because of them, we shall never be able to establish a desirable _salon_."

And she added:

"If you really wish to become a man of society, you must learn first either to be an imbecile or to hold your tongue."

They made, unmade, and remade a list of guests, which, after laborious combinations, was finally settled upon as follows:

The Countess Fergus, divorced, and her friend, the economist and deputy, Joseph Brigard.

The Baroness Henri Gogsthein, divorced, and her friend, the poet, Théo Crampp.

The Baroness Otto Butzinghen, and her friend, the Viscount Lahyrais, clubman, sportsman, gambler, and trickster.

Mme. de Rambure, divorced, and her friend, Mme. Tiercelet, suing for divorce.

Sir Harry Kimberly, symbolist musician, and his young friend, Lucien Sartorys, as beautiful as a woman, as supple as a _peau de Suède_ glove, as slender and blonde as a cigar.

The two academicians, Joseph Dupont de la Brie, collector of obscene coins, and Isidore Durand de la Marne, author of gallant memoirs in private and severe student of Chinese at the Institute.

The portrait-painter, Jacques Rigaud.

The psychological novelist, Maurice Fernancourt.

The society reporter, Poult d'Essoy.

The invitations were sent out, and, thanks to the mediation of influential persons, all were accepted.

The Countess Fergus alone hesitated:

"The Charrigauds?" said she. "Is theirs really a proper house? Has he not been engaged in all sorts of pursuits on Montmartre, in the past? Do they not say that he sold obscene photographs, for which he had posed, with an artificial bust? And are there not some disagreeable stories afloat regarding her? Did she not have some rather vulgar experiences before her marriage? Is it not said that she has been a model,--that she has posed for the altogether? What a horror! A woman who stripped before men who are not even her lovers?"

Finally she accepted the invitation, on being assured that Mme. Charrigaud had posed only for the head, that Charrigaud, who was very vindictive, would be quite capable of disgracing her in one of his books, and that Kimberly would come to this dinner. Oh! if Kimberly had promised to come! Kimberly, such a perfect gentleman, and so delicate and so charming, really charming!

The Charrigauds were informed of these negotiations and these scruples. Far from taking offence, they congratulated themselves that they had successfully conducted the former and overcome the latter. It was now a matter only of watching themselves, and, as Mme. Charrigaud said, of behaving themselves like real society people. This dinner, so marvelously prepared and planned, so skilfully negotiated, was really their first manifestation in the new avatar of their elegant destiny, of their social ambitions. It must, then, be an astonishing affair.

For a week beforehand everything was topsy-turvy in the house. It was necessary that the apartments should be made to look like new, and that there should be no hitch. They tried various lighting arrangements and table decorations, that they might not be embarrassed at the last moment. Over these matters M. and Mme. Charrigaud quarreled like porters, for they had not the same ideas, and their æsthetic views differed on all points, she inclining to sentimental arrangements, he preferring the severe and "artistic."

"It is idiotic," cried Charrigaud. "They will think that they are in a grisette's apartments. Ah! what a laughing-stock we shall be!"

"You had better not talk," replied Mme. Charrigaud, her nervousness reaching the point of paroxysm. "You are still what you used to be, a dirty tavern bum. And besides, I have enough of it; my back is broken with it."

"Well, that's it; let us have a divorce, my little wolf, let us have a divorce. By that means we at least shall complete the series, and cast no reflection on our guests."

They perceived also that there would not be enough silverware, glassware, and plates. They must rent some, and also rent some chairs, for they had only fifteen, and even these were not perfect. Finally, the menu was ordered of one of the grand caterers of the Boulevard.

"Let everything be ultra-stylish," ordered Mme. Charrigaud, "and let no one be able to recognize the dishes that are served. Shrimp hash, goose-liver cutlets, game that looks like ham, ham that looks like cake, truffles in whipped cream, and mashed potatoes in branches,--cherries in squares and peaches twisted into spirals. In short, have everything as stylish as possible."

"Rest easy," declared the caterer. "I know so well how to disguise things that I defy anybody to know what he is eating. It is a specialty of the house."

At last the great day arrived.

Monsieur rose early,--anxious, nervous, agitated. Madame, who had been unable to sleep all night, and weary from the errands of the day before and the preparations of all sorts, could not keep still. Five or six times, with wrinkled brow, out of breath, trembling and so weary that, as she said, she felt her belly in her heels, she made a final examination of the house, upset and rearranged bric-à-brac and furniture without reason, and went from one room to another without knowing why and as if she were mad. She trembled lest the cooks might not come, lest the florist might fail them, and lest the guests might not be placed at table in accordance with strict etiquette. Monsieur followed her everywhere, clad only in pink silk drawers, approving here, criticising there.

"Now that I think about it again," said he, "what a queer idea that was of yours to order centauries for the table decoration! I assure you that blue becomes black in the light. And then, after all, centauries are nothing but simple corn-flowers. It will look as if we had been to the fields to gather corn-flowers."

"Oh! corn-flowers! how provoking you are!"

"Yes, indeed, corn-flowers. And the corn-flower, as Kimberly said very truly the other evening at the Rothschilds, is not a society flower. Why not also corn poppies?"

"Let me alone," answered Madame. "You drive me crazy with all your stupid observations. A nice time to offer them, indeed!"

But Monsieur was obstinate:

"All right, all right; you will see, you will see. Provided, my God, that everything goes off tolerably well, without too many accidents, without too many delays. I did not know that to be society people was so difficult, so fatiguing, and so complicated a matter. Perhaps we ought to have remained simple boors."

And Madame growled:

"Oh! for that matter, I see clearly that nothing will change you. You scarcely do honor to a woman."

As they thought me pretty, and very elegant to look at, my masters had allotted to me also an important _role_ in this comedy. First I was to preside over the cloak-room, and then to aid, or rather superintend, the four butlers, four tall lascars, with immense side-whiskers, selected from several employment-bureaus to serve this extraordinary dinner.

At first all went well. Nevertheless, there was a moment of alarm. At quarter before nine the Countess Fergus had not yet arrived. Suppose she had changed her mind, and resolved at the last moment not to come? What a humiliation! What a disaster! The Charrigauds were in a state of consternation. Joseph Brigard reassured them. It was the day when the countess had to preside over her admirable "Society for the Collection of Cigar-Stumps for the Army and Navy." The sessions sometimes did not end till very late.

"What a charming woman!" said Mme. Charrigaud, ecstatically, as if this eulogy had the magic power to hasten the coming of "this dirty countess," whom, at the bottom of her soul, she cursed.

"And what a brain!" said Charrigaud, going her one better, though really entertaining the same feeling. "The other day at the Rothschilds I felt that it would be necessary to go back to the last century to find such perfect grace and such superiority."

"And even then!" said Joseph Brigard, capping the climax. "You see, my dear Monsieur Charrigaud, in democratic societies based upon equality...."

He was about to deliver one of those semi-gallant, semi-sociological discourses which he was fond of retailing in the _salons_, when the Countess Fergus entered, imposing and majestic, in a black gown embroidered with jet and steel that showed off the fat whiteness and soft beauty of her shoulders. And it was amid murmurs and whispers of admiration that they made their way ceremoniously to the dining-room.

The beginning of the dinner was rather cold. In spite of her success, perhaps even because of her success, the Countess Fergus was a little haughty, or, at least, too reserved. She seemed to wear an air of condescension at having honored with her presence the humble house of "these little people." Charrigaud thought he noticed that she examined with a discreetly but visibly contemptuous pout the rented silverware, the table decoration, Mme. Charrigaud's green costume, and the four butlers whose too long side-whiskers dipped into the dishes. He was filled with vague terrors and agonizing doubts as to the proper appearance of his table and his wife. It was a horrible minute!

After some commonplace and laborious replies, exchanged apropos of trivial topics then current, the conversation gradually became general, and finally settled down upon the subject of correctness in society life.

All these poor devils, all these poor wretches, male and female, forgetting their own social irregularities, showed a strangely implacable severity toward persons whom it was allowable to suspect, not even of stains or blemishes, but simply of some formal lack of respect for society laws,--the only ones that ought to be obeyed. Living, in a certain sense, outside of their social ideal, thrown back, so to speak, to the margin of that existence whose disgraced correctness and regularity they honored as a religion, they undoubtedly hoped to get into it again by driving out others. The comicality of this was really intense and savory. They divided the universe into two great parts: on the one side, that which is regular; on the other, that which is not; here the people that one may receive; there the people that one may not receive. And these two great parts soon became pieces, and the pieces became thin slices, the subdivision going on _ad infinitum_. There were those in whose houses one may dine, and also those to whose houses one may go only for the evening. Those in whose houses one may not dine, but to which one may go for the evening. Those whom one may receive at his table, and those to whom one may accord only admission to his _salon_,--and even then only under certain circumstances, clearly defined. There were also those in whose houses one may not dine and whom one should not receive at one's house, and those whom one may receive at one's house and in whose houses one may not dine; those whom one may receive at breakfast, and never at dinner; and those in whose country houses one may dine, but never in their Paris residences, etc. The whole being supported with demonstrative and peremptory examples, well-known names being cited by way of illustration.

"Shades," said the Viscount Lahyrais, sportsman, clubman, gambler, and trickster. "The whole thing lies there. It is by the strict observance of shades that a man is really in society, or is not."

I believe that I never heard such dreary things. As I listened to them, I really felt a pity for these unfortunates.