An Old Maid

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"Ah!" exclaimed the viscount. "Yes, the d'Esgrignons,--I remember
them."

"Alencon is very gay," continued the old maid, now fairly launched.
"There's much amusement: the receiver-general gives balls; the prefect
is an amiable man; and Monseigneur the bishop sometimes honors us with
a visit--"

"Well, then," said the viscount, smiling, "I have done wisely to come
back, like the hare, to die in my form."

"Yes," she said. "I, too, attach myself or I die."

The viscount smiled.

"Ah!" thought the old maid, "all is well; he understands me."

The conversation continued on generalities. By one of those mysterious
unknown and undefinable faculties, Mademoiselle Cormon found in her
brain, under the pressure of her desire to be agreeable, all the
phrases and opinions of the Chevalier de Valois. It was like a duel in
which the devil himself pointed the pistol. Never was any adversary
better aimed at. The viscount was far too well-bred to speak of the
excellence of the dinner; but his silence was praise. As he drank the
delicious wines which Jacquelin served to him profusely, he seemed to
feel he was with friends, and to meet them with pleasure; for the true
connoisseur does not applaud, he enjoys. He inquired the price of
land, of houses, of estates; he made Mademoiselle Cormon describe at
length the confluence of the Sarthe and the Brillante; he expressed
surprise that the town was placed so far from the river, and seemed to
be much interested in the topography of the place.

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 receive 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.

Du Bousquier smiled, and went, as the future master of the house, to
fetch the piquet table. Whether the Chevalier de Valois lost his head,
or whether he wanted to stay and study the causes of his disaster and
remedy it, certain it is that he allowed himself to be led like a lamb
to the slaughter. He had received the most violent knock-down blow
that ever struck a man; any nobleman would have lost his senses for
less.

The Abbe de Sponde and the Vicomte de Troisville soon returned.
Mademoiselle Cormon instantly rose, hurried into the antechamber, and
took her uncle apart to tell him her resolution. Learning that the
house in the rue du Cygne exactly suited the viscount, she begged her
future husband to do her the kindness to tell him that her uncle knew
it was for sale. She dared not confide that lie to the abbe, fearing
his absent-mindedness. The lie, however, prospered better than if it
had been a virtuous action. In the course of that evening all Alencon
heard the news. For the last four days the town had had as much to
think of as during the fatal days of 1814 and 1815. Some laughed;
others admitted the marriage. These blamed it; those approved it. The
middle classes of Alencon rejoiced; they regarded it as a victory. The
next day, among friends, the Chevalier de Valois said a cruel thing:--

"The Cormons end as they began; there's only a hand's breadth between
a steward and a purveyor."



CHAPTER VII

OTHER RESULTS

The news of Mademoiselle Cormon's choice stabbed poor Athanase Granson
to the heart; but he showed no outward sign of the terrible agitation
within him. When he first heard of the marriage he was at the house of
the chief-justice, du Ronceret, where his mother was playing boston.
Madame Granson looked at her son in a mirror, and thought him pale;
but he had been so all day, for a vague rumor of the matter had
already reached him.

Mademoiselle Cormon was the card on which Athanase had staked his
life; and the cold presentiment of a catastrophe was already upon him.
When the soul and the imagination have magnified a misfortune and made
it too heavy for the shoulders and the brain to bear; when a hope long
cherished, the realization of which would pacify the vulture feeding
on the heart, is balked, and the man has faith neither in himself,
despite his powers, nor in the future, despite of the Divine power,
--then that man is lost. Athanase was a fruit of the Imperial system
of education. Fatality, the Emperor's religion, had filtered down from
the throne to the lowest ranks of the army and the benches of the
lyceums. Athanase sat still, with his eyes fixed on Madame du
Ronceret's cards, in a stupor that might so well pass for indifference
that Madame Granson herself was deceived about his feelings. This
apparent unconcern explained her son's refusal to make a sacrifice for
this marriage of his /liberal/ opinions,--the term "liberal" having
lately been created for the Emperor Alexander by, I think, Madame de
Stael, through the lips of Benjamin Constant.

After that fatal evening the young man took to rambling among the
picturesque regions of the Sarthe, the banks of which are much
frequented by sketchers who come to Alencon for points of view.
Windmills are there, and the river is gay in the meadows. The shores
of the Sarthe are bordered with beautiful trees, well grouped. Though
the landscape is flat, it is not without those modest graces which
distinguish France, where the eye is never wearied by the brilliancy
of Oriental skies, nor saddened by constant fog. The place is
solitary. In the provinces no one pays much attention to a fine view,
either because provincials are blases on the beauty around them, or
because they have no poesy in their souls. If there exists in the
provinces a mall, a promenade, a vantage-ground from which a fine view
can be obtained, that is the point to which no one goes. Athanase was
fond of this solitude, enlivened by the sparkling water, where the
fields were the first to green under the earliest smiling of the
springtide sun. Those persons who saw him sitting beneath a poplar,
and who noticed the vacant eye which he turned to them, would say to
Madame Granson:--

"Something is the matter with your son."

"I know what it is," the mother would reply; hinting that he was
meditating over some great work.

Athanase no longer took part in politics: he ceased to have opinions;
but he appeared at times quite gay,--gay with the satire of those who
think to insult a whole world with their own individual scorn. This
young man, outside of all the ideas and all the pleasures of the
provinces, interested few persons; he was not even an object of
curiosity. If persons spoke of him to his mother, it was for her sake,
not his. There was not a single soul in Alencon that sympathized with
his; not a woman, not a friend came near to dry his tears; they
dropped into the Sarthe. If the gorgeous Suzanne had happened that
way, how many young miseries might have been born of the meeting! for
the two would surely have loved each other.

She did come, however. Suzanne's ambition was early excited by the
tale of a strange adventure which had happened at the tavern of the
More,--a tale which had taken possession of her childish brain. A
Parisian woman, beautiful as the angels, was sent by Fouche to
entangle the Marquis de Montauran, otherwise called "The Gars," in a
love-affair (see "The Chouans"). She met him at the tavern of the More
on his return from an expedition to Mortagne; she cajoled him, made
him love her, and then betrayed him. That fantastic power--the power
of beauty over mankind; in fact, the whole story of Marie de Verneuil
and the Gars--dazzled Suzanne; she longed to grow up in order to play
upon men. Some months after her hasty departure she passed through her
native town with an artist on his way to Brittany. She wanted to see
Fougeres, where the adventure of the Marquis de Montauran culminated,
and to stand upon the scene of that picturesque war, the tragedies of
which, still so little known, had filled her childish mind. Besides
this, she had a fancy to pass through Alencon so elegantly equipped
that no one could recognize her; to put her mother above the reach of
necessity, and also to send to poor Athanase, in a delicate manner, a
sum of money,--which in our age is to genius what in the middle ages
was the charger and the coat of mail that Rebecca conveyed to Ivanhoe.