Chapter 2

"Ah! but you did not say that phrase only--you said all the others. But that is nothing as yet, Aunt Louise. Do you know what was his principal objection to a marriage with me? Do you know what he told Robert? That he had seen me in evening-dress the night before for the first time, and that I was too thin! Too thin! Ah! that was a cruel blow to me! For it was true. I was thin. The evening after Gabrielle had told me that awful fact, that evening in undressing I looked at my poor little shoulders, with their poor little salt-cellars, and I had a terrible spasm of sorrow--a flood of tears that wouldn't stop--a torrent, a real torrent; and then mamma appeared. I was alone, disrobed, hair flying, studying my shoulders, deploring their meagreness--a true picture of despair! Mamma took me in her arms. 'My angel, my poor dear, what is the matter?' I answered only by sobbing. 'My child, tell me all.' Mamma was very anxious, but I could not speak; tears choked my voice. 'My dearest, do you wish to kill me?' So to reassure mamma I managed to say between my sobs: 'I am too thin, mamma; last night Gontran thought me too thin!' At that mamma began to laugh heartily; but as she was good-humored that evening, after laughing she explained to me that she, at seventeen, had been much thinner than I, and she promised me in the most solemn manner that I should grow stouter. Mamma spoke true; I have fattened up. Will you have the goodness, sir, to declare to our aunt that the salt-cellars have entirely disappeared, and that you cannot have against me, in that respect, any legitimate cause of complaint?"

"I will declare so very willingly; but you will permit me to add--"

"I will permit you no such thing. I have the floor, let me speak; but you will soon have a chance to justify yourself. I intend to put you through a little cross-questioning."

"I'll wait, then--"

"Yes, do. So last spring I began my first campaign. I do not know, Aunt Louise, what the customs were in your time, but I know that to-day, at the present time, the condition of young girls is one of extreme severity. We are kept confined, closely confined, till eighteen, for mamma was very indulgent in bringing me out when I was only seventeen; but mamma is goodness itself, and then she isn't coquettish for a sou--she didn't mind admitting that she had a marriageable daughter. All mothers are not like that, and I know some who are glad to put off the public and official exhibition of their poor children so as to gain a year. At the same time that they race at Longchamps and Chantilly the great fillies of the year, they take from their boxes the great heiresses of the year who are ripe for matrimony, and in a series of white balls given for that purpose, between Easter Sunday and the Grand Prix, they are made to take little trial gallops before connoisseurs. They have to work rapidly and find a buyer before the Grand Prix; for after that all is up, the young girls are packed back to their governesses, dancing-masters, and literary professors. The campaign is over. That is all for the year. They are not seen again, the poor things, till after Lent. So mamma took me last year to a dozen large balls, which were sad and sorrowful for me. He was not there! He didn't wish to marry! He told it to every one insolently, satirically. He would never, never, never marry! He told it to me."

"At your mother's request."

"Yes, that is true. I know since that it was at mamma's petition that he talked that way; she hoped it would prevent my being stubborn in my craze for him."

"Craze!" exclaimed Aunt Louise.

"Excuse me, Aunt Louise, it is a word of to-day."

"And means--"

"It means a sort of unexplainable, absurd, and extravagant love that comes without its being possible to know why--in short, Aunt Louise, exactly the love I have for him."

"Much obliged! But you do not tell everything. You do not say that your mother desired your marriage with Courtalin--"

"Yes, of course; mamma was quite right. M. de Courtalin has a thousand sterling merits that you have not--that you will never have; and then M. de Courtalin had a particularly good point in mamma's eyes: he did not find me too thin, and he asked for my hand in marriage. One day about four o'clock (that was the 2d of June last year) mamma came into my room with an expression on her face I had never seen before. 'My child,' she said--'my dear child!' She had no need to finish; I had understood. M. de Courtalin all the evening before, at the Princess de Viran's, had hovered about me, and the next day his mother had come to declare to mamma that her son knew of nothing more delightful than my face. I answered that I knew of nothing less delightful than M. de Courtalin's face. I added that, besides, I was in no hurry to marry. Mamma tried to make me hear reason. I was going to let slip an admirable chance. The Duke of Courtalin was the target of all the ambitious mothers--a great name, a great position, a great fortune! I should deeply regret some day to have shown such disdain for advantages like these, etc. And to all these things, which were so true and sensible, I could find only one word to say: his name, Gontran, Gontran, Gontran! Gontran or the convent, and the most rigorous one of all, the Carmel, in sackcloth and ashes! Oh, Aunt Louise, do look at him! He listens to all this with an unbearable little air of fatuity."

"You have forbidden me to speak."

"True. Don't speak; but you have deserved a little lesson in modesty and humility. Good gracious! you think perhaps it was for your merits that I chose you, insisted on you. You would be far from the mark, my poor dear. It is, on the contrary, because of your want of merit. Now, as to M. de Courtalin. Why, there is a man of merit! I had, from morning to night, M. de Courtalin's merit dinned into my ears, and that was why I had taken a dislike to him. What I dreaded more than anything for a husband was what is called a superior man; and mamma went the wrong way to work to win me over to her candidate when she said to me: 'He is a very intelligent, very serious, very deep-thinking, and very distinguished man; he has spent his youth honorably; he has been a model son, and would make a model husband.' It made me shiver to hear mamma talk so. I know nothing more awful than people who are always, always right; who, under all circumstances, give evidence of unfailing good sense; who crush us with their superiority. With Gontran I am easy, quite easy. It isn't he who would crush me with his superiority. I do not know much, Aunt Louise, but my ignorance beside his is learning. He had great trouble in getting his baccalaureate. He flunked three times."

"Flunked!" exclaimed Aunt Louise.

"It means failed. He taught me the word. All the queer words I use, Aunt Louise, were taught me by him."

"Come, now--"

"Yes, all. I can see him now, coming to the house one day, and I can hear him say, 'Flunked again!' That was the third time. Then he went and took his examination in the country at a little college at Douai; it was easier, and he passed at last. M. de Courtalin has never been flunked; he is everything that one can be at his age: bachelor, advocate, lawyer, and grave, exact, and severe in his language, and dressed--always in a black frock-coat, with two rows of buttons, always all buttoned--in short, a man of the past. And what a future before him! Already a member of the General Council, and very eloquent, very influential, he will be deputy in three years, and then, when we have a government that people of our class can recognize, minister, ambassador, and I know not what! The highest offices wait for him, and all his ambitions will be legitimate when he has a chance to put his superior talents at the service of the monarchy. That's one of mamma's phrases. Whereas you, my poor Gontran--you will never be anything other than a very funny and very nice old dear, whom I shall lead as I like with my little finger."

"Oh! oh!"

"You will see. Besides, you have seen for eight days."

"The first eight days don't count."

"I will continue, rest assured. I love you, besides. I love you, and do you know why? It is because you are not a man of the past; you are distinctly modern, very modern. Look at him, Aunt Louise. Isn't he very nice, very well turned out, very modern, in fact--I repeat it--in his little pearl-gray suit. He is devoted to his clothes. He consults for hours and hours with his tailor, which delights me, for I intend to consult for hours and hours with my dress-maker. And he will pay the bills without a tremor, for he will be charmed to see me very stylish and very much admired. Ah, we shall make the most brilliant and most giddy little couple! He is modern, I shall be modern, we shall be modern! After three, four, or five weeks (we do not know exactly) dedicated to pure love, we shall take flight towards the country, where one has a good time; and then we shall be talked about, Aunt Louise, we shall be talked about. And now, where was I in my story? I am sure I do not know at all."

"Nor I."

"Nor I."

"Ah, I know. Mme. de Courtalin had come to ask my hand for her honorable son, and when mamma had spoken to me of that I had exclaimed, 'Sooner the convent!' I do not know exactly what mamma said to Mme. de Courtalin--at any rate, I was left alone for the time being. There was a rush to the Grand Prix, and then a general breaking-up. We went to spend a month at Aix-les-Bains for papa's complaint, and then a fortnight here, Aunt Louise; and then, do you remember, you received the confessions of my poor torn heart. Ah! I must say you are the only young member of the family--you were the only one who did not make a long face when I spoke of my love for that rogue. Mamma, however, had preached to you, and you vaunted the advantages of an alliance with Courtalin, but without conviction. I felt that you were at bottom on my side against mamma, and it was so easily explained--mamma could not understand me, whereas you! They think we little girls know nothing, and we know everything. I knew that mamma had made a worldly marriage, which had, however, turned out very well; and you, Aunt Louise, had married for love. You must have battled to get the husband you wished, and you had him, and you resolutely conquered your happiness. Yes, I knew all that; I dared even to allude to those things of the past, and those memories brought a smile to your lips and tears to your eyes. And to-day again, Aunt Louise, there it is, the smile, and there are the tears."

Marceline interrupted her talk, affectionately threw herself on her Aunt Louise's neck, and kissed her with all her heart. She wiped away the tears with kisses, and only the smile remained. Yes, Aunt Louise remembered that she had had hard work to get as husband a certain handsome officer of the Royal Guard, who was there present at the scene, in an old decorated frame, standing up with his helmet on his head in a martial attitude, leaning on the hilt of his cavalry sabre.

He, too, had been modern, that conqueror of the Trocadero, when he entered Madrid in 1822 on the staff of the Duke of Angoulême. And she, too, old Aunt Louise, had been modern, very modern, the day when, from a window of the Palace of the Tuileries, during a military parade, she had murmured this phrase in her mother's ear: "Mamma, there is the one I love."

"Ah, how cowardly we are!" exclaimed Marceline, abruptly, changing her tone. "Yes, how cowardly we are to love them--those, those dreadful men, who know so little how to care for us. I say that for Gontran. What was he doing while I was telling you my sorrows, Aunt Louise? Quite calmly taking a trip around the world. But let him speak now, let him speak, especially as I cannot any more. In all my life I have never made so long a speech. Speak, sir; why were you going round the world?"

"Because your mother, on the morning of the day before you departed for Aix-les-Bains, had had a very long conversation with me."

"And she had said to you?"

"She had said to me, 'Put a stop to this; marry her or go away, and let her not hear of you again till her marriage.' And as I had for some time been debating whether to take a little trip to Japan, I started for Japan."

"He started for Japan! That goes without saying. You hear him, Aunt Louise; he admits that this time last year he preferred to expatriate himself rather than marry me. So there he was in America, in China, and in Japan. This lasted ten months; from time to time, humbly and timidly, I asked for news of him. He was very well; his last letter was from Shanghai, or Sidney, or Java. For me, not a word, not a remembrance--nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing!"

"I had promised your mother. One day at Yokohama I had bought you a lot of fascinating little things. The box was done up and addressed to you when I remembered my promise. I sent all those Japaneseries to your mother, thinking that you would have your share of the spoil."

"I had nothing at all. The arrival of the box was kept a secret. It would have been necessary to have pronounced your name before me, and mamma didn't wish that. On the other hand, there was always one name on her lips--Courtalin. Still Courtalin, and always Courtalin. He had all qualities, all virtues. Then he had just lost his aunt in Brittany, and he had inherited something. It was thought that he would only have a quarter of the property, and he had had three-quarters. Besides, it was a country-seat, and all around this seat, an admirable domain, sixteen or seventeen hundred hectares. I say it to my shame, Aunt Louise, to my great shame, the thought of giving in came to me; and then, to be absolutely frank, it rather pleased me to become a duchess; so mamma made me out a list of all possible husbands for me, and there was no other duke in the list but M. de Courtalin. There was, of course, the little Count of Limiers, who would be duke some day. But when? His father is forty-five and an athlete, and has an iron constitution. So I was obliged to admit it when I talked it over with mamma in the evening. To be duchess it was necessary to agree on M. de Courtalin. Mamma, however, was perfect, and delightfully gentle. She did not press me, nor treat me harshly, nor torment me; she waited. Only I knew she had said to Mme. de Nelly: 'It will be accomplished, my dear, before the 20th of June. It must be.' Papa was obliged to return to Aix for his complaint. The 20th of June was the date for his departure. I no longer said, 'No, no, no!' with that savage energy of the year before. You see, Gontran, I open my whole heart to you; you will have, I hope, soon the same courage and sincerity."

"You may be sure of it."

"I was waiting, however--I was waiting for his return. I wished to have with him a very serious conversation. It is quite true that I felt like fainting with fear at the mere thought of that explanation; but I was none the less resolved to speak, and I would speak. It seemed to me impossible that he had not thought of me sometimes out there in China and Cochin China. We had always loved each other (till the unhappy day on which I had become marriageable) with a tender and faithful affection! I knew that he would arrive in Paris during the night of the 2d or 3d of April. Very certainly the day after he would come and see us. And so, in fact, towards two o'clock he came. Mamma hadn't finished dressing; I was alone. I ran to him. 'Ah, how glad I am to see you!' and I kissed him with effusion. Then he, very much moved, yes, very much moved, kissed me, and began to say to me such nice and pretty things that I felt my heart melting. Ah, if mamma hadn't come for five minutes--I would only have asked for five minutes!--and how quickly it would have turned into love-making our little explanation!"

"Yes, that is true. The impulse that threw you into my arms was so sincere. Ah, very certainly it was that day, at that moment, that I began to love you. And then I looked at you. You were no longer the same. There was such great and happy change."

"He does not dare say it, Aunt Louise, but I will say it: I had become fatter. Ah, when I think that I might be Duchess of Courtalin if I had remained thin. Those men! Those men! What wretches! But mamma came in, then papa, and then my brother George. No explanation possible! There they all were engaged in an odious conversation on the comparative merits of the English and French boats--the English ones are faster, the food on the French ones is better, etc. It was charming! At the end of an hour Gontran went away, but not without giving me a very tender and eloquent hand-shake. I could wish nothing more speaking than that hand-shake. But mamma, who was observing us attentively, had clearly seen our two hands, after having found a way to say very pleasant things, had had a great deal of trouble in separating. I expected, of course, to see him the next day. Did you come?"

"No."

"And the day after that?"

"No, nor then."

"At last, after three days, mamma took me to the races at the Bois de Boulogne. We arrived, and there at once, two steps from me, I saw him. But no, it was no longer he; frigid greeting, frigid good-day, frigid hand-shake, frigid words, and very few of them--scarcely a few sentences, awkward and embarrassed. Then he was lost in the crowd, and that was all. He did not appear again. I was dumfounded, overcome, crushed."

"But it was your mother who--"

"Yes, I know now; but I did not know that day. Yes, it was mamma. Oh, must I not love mamma to have forgiven her that?"

"She had come to me very early in the morning the day after the very eloquent hand-shake and there, in tears--yes, literally in tears (she was sobbing)--she had appealed to my sense of honor, of delicacy, of integrity. 'You both had,' she said to me, 'yesterday, on seeing each other again after a long absence, a little spasm of emotion. That is all right; but you must stop there, and not prolong this foolishness,' And, just as I was going to protest: 'Oh yes; foolishness!' 'Remember, Marceline's happiness is at stake. You have no right to compromise her. You come back from China all at once, and your abrupt return will break off more sensible, more studied arrangements. M. de Courtalin is thirty-four; he is a man of great knowledge and wisdom. However, I know that that is only a secondary consideration; but love passes away, and money remains, and M. de Courtalin is richer, very much richer, than you. With him Marceline will have quite a grand position. Whereas you, you know how I love you, and I know how worthy you are of being loved. You are charming, charming, charming.' It was your mother who spoke thus."

"I know; I know."

"'Yes, charming; but when I have said that, I have said all. So I will ask you this question, and I expect from you a faithful answer: Have you those solid qualities which alone can make a husband, a true husband? Marceline is a little light-headed, a little frivolous, a little coquettish.' It is always your mother who is speaking."

"I know; I know."

"I was embarrassed, Aunt Louise; it seemed to me that that speech was not without reason. I hadn't a very high idea of myself as a husband, and even now I ask myself--"

"Don't ask yourself anything. Be an affectionate husband, and you will have all the virtues. Nothing simpler, as you see. You can go on."

"Well, your mother was so skilfully persuasive that the day after, at the races, I gave that cold greeting."

"And so I, that same day, on entering the house, threw myself into mamma's arms, exclaiming, 'Yes, I am willing to marry M. de Courtalin!' Ah, how many times between that day and the 16th of May I threw myself into mamma's arms! I did nothing else. Mamma got used to it, and never saw me appear without mechanically opening her arms. 'Yes, I am willing,' and sometimes, 'No, I am not.' But the 'No, I am nots' became fewer and fewer. M. de Courtalin, besides, was perfect; a model of tact, of gentleness, and of resignation. He waited, always in his black frock-coat, always buttoned, with an inexhaustible patience. Mamma was, in short, pledged to Mme. de Courtalin, and I felt the circle tighten round me. The papers announced, in a covert but transparent way, that there was question of an alliance between two families of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, and they made it pretty clear that it concerned two important families. I already received vague congratulations, and I dared respond only by vague denials. The morning of the famous 17th of May mamma had said to me, 'Come, my child, don't make a martyr of that poor boy. Since it is to be "yes," for it will be "yes," you know yourself, say "yes" at once.' I had obtained only a miserable respite of twenty-four hours; and things were thus when, still on the 17th of May, mamma and I arrived, a little late (after eleven), at Mme. de Vernieux's, who was giving a ball, a very large ball. I went in, and I had at once the feeling that I must be looking extremely well that evening. They formed into a little hedge along my way, and I heard a little 'oh!' of surprise, and a big 'ah!' of admiration which went straight to my heart. I had had already in society certain successes, but never any as marked as that one. M. de Courtalin came towards me. He wished to engage me for all the waltzes, for all the quadrilles, for the entire evening, for the night, for life. I answered him: 'Later, presently, we will see. I feel a little tired.' The fact was I hadn't the heart to dance. Mamma and I took our seats. A waltz began. Mamma scolded softly: 'Dance with him, my child, I beg.' I didn't listen to her. I was abstractedly looking around the room when suddenly I saw in a corner two eyes fixed, fastened, pinioned on me--two eyes that I well knew, but that I had some difficulty in recognizing, for they were tremendously enlarged by a sort of stupor."

"Say by overwhelming admiration."

"As you please But it is here, Aunt Louise, that my interrogation will begin. Why and how were you there? Where had you dined, Gontran?"

"At the club."

"And what did you intend to do after dinner? Come to Mme. de Vernieux's?"

"No; Robert d'Aigremont and I had meant to go to the Bouffes-Parisiens."

"You did not go? Why?"

"We had telephoned from the club to have a box; all were sold--"

"So you said to Robert--"

"I said to Robert, 'Let's play bezique;' and I was beaten by one of those streaks of bad luck--34,000 points in a dozen games--so thoroughly that towards half-past ten I thought that bezique had lasted long enough--"

"And so--"

"And so--"

"So Robert wished to bring you to Mme. de Vernieux's. And you didn't want to go! If you hadn't come, however, and if there had been a box at the Bouffes-Parisiens, or if you had won at bezique, my marriage with M. de Courtalin would have been publicly announced the next day."

"Yes, but I came; and there I was in the corner looking at you, looking at you, looking at you. It was you, and yet not you--"

"I, immediately on seeing the way you were looking at me, understood that something extraordinary was going to happen. Your eyes shone, burned, blazed!"

"Because I had discovered that you were simply the prettiest woman of the ball, where all the prettiest women of Paris were. Yes, the prettiest, and such shoulders, such shoulders!"

"Ripe! in fact, I was ripe!"

"My head was turned at once. I saw Courtalin manoeuvring and trying to get near you. I understood that there was not a moment to be lost. To reach there ahead of Courtalin I threw myself intrepidly into the midst of the room, among the waltzers, pushing and being pushed. I forged a passage and tore into rags one of the lace flounces of Mme. de Lornans--she hasn't yet forgiven me. But I got there--I got there before Courtalin, and threw myself on you, and took you round your waist (I can still hear your little cry), and I dragged you off."